Posted on 01/21/2008 11:06:27 AM PST by SunkenCiv
Two British researchers challenged the conventional history of mathematics in June when they reported having evidence that the infinite series, one of the core concepts of calculus, was first developed by Indian mathematicians in the 14th century. They also believe they can show how the advancement may have been passed along to Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, who are credited with independently developing the concept some 250 years later... historian of mathematics George Gheverghese Joseph of the University of Manchester, who conducted the research with Dennis Almeida of the University of Exeter... says that no one has yet firmly established how the work of Indian scholars concerning the infinite series might have directly influenced mathematicians like Newton and Leibniz. Joseph and Almeida, who spent three years digging through ancient Indian texts and Vatican archives, believe Jesuit priests brought scientific knowledge from southern India to Western Europe. The priests were missionaries in India in the mid-16th century. They learned local languages and scientific practices and sent meticulous reports back to Europe.
(Excerpt) Read more at discovermagazine.com ...
don’t tell me; half-cocked jack brought it back from hindoostan.
Signed:
Albert Gore
The infinite series goes way way back to Achilles and his turtle.
Newton invented calculus during a two year trip home from the university (during an outbreak of plague) and he never trumpeted his discovery or made much of it at all, except as a tool that he used to develop his physics.
If he really did get a big boost from ideas from India that would explain both the incredible speed with which he accomplished his feat and his great humility on this subject.
As he said himself, “If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.”
Maybe, in keeping with the particular Political Correctness of his age, he didn’t feel up to the task of giving credit to brown-skinned, non-Christian giants.
Heel never get credit for it.
and this trivia will help me pick up chicks?
If you search for them in the Math Department, yes. Might even work in the music department ... if my aging memory serves.
As long as they’re not dental hygienists.
The problem with this, is that infinite series were in rudiment already known by Archimedes (his method of exhaustion), and that neither Newton nor Leibniz relied on limiting arguments in the development of calculus. Calculus was developed on the basis of infinitesimals or fluxions, which (with all the properties needed) are incompatible with classical logic (cf. a tract by Bp. Berekely (C of E) attacking Edmund Halley).
Limiting arguments, which tie the infinitesimal calculus to infinite series were developed about 150 years later by Cauchy.
Find any use of inifinitesimals before Newton and Leibniz and you have a case.
The nearest thing one has (but only seen through the lens of Descarte’s coordinate geometry) is the assertion of the sophist Heraclites, in contradiction of one of Euclid’s postulates, that the intersection between a circle and a tangent line is larger than a point. (From the point of view of infinitesimal calculus, while it contains only one point, it also contains all (first order) infinitesimal deformations of the point in the tangent direction.)
(My doctoral dissertation had to do with models in the context of intuitionistic logic of the sort of infinitesimals Newton and Leibniz actually used. When I teach calculus, I tell the students they have a choice; they can learn limits or substitute a graduate course in mathematical logic, thereby putting the original way of doing calculus on a sound footing.)
ping
The origin of ‘math’ is arithmetic, which was developed along with trade.
Also great,
Everyone knows Calculus was invented in Zimbabwe.
Sure, but only series chicks.
In a more series vein, show us the original works. Otherwise, it can be little more than hearsay.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
