आर्यभट
Aryabhatta (476-550 CE), is a famous Indian mathematician and astronomer, born in a place called Kusumpura later called as Pataliputra which is now Patna, the capital of the Gupta Empire. It is a small place situated nearly 30 km from Patna. This is the very empire that has been referred as the “Golden period in Indian history”. Aryabhatta is the master who, after reaching the furthest shores and plumbing the inmost depths of the sea of ultimate knowledge of mathematics, kinematics and spherics, handed over the three sciences to the learned world.
Influence of Aryabhatta on science and mathematics
- Aryabhatta calculated the volume of a sphere.
- Aryabhatta worked out the approximation of Pi.
- Aryabhatta described the solar and lunar eclipses were scientifically.
- Aryabhatta described that the moon and planets shine by light reflected from the sun.
- He worked on the summation of series of squares and cubes (square-root and cube-root).
- He calculated the length of the sidereal year as 365 days, 6 hours, 12 minutes and 30 seconds.
- He talked about the “rule of three” which is to find the value of x when three numbers a, b and c is given.
- His calendared calculation has been in continuous use in India, on which the present day Panchangam is based.
- He worked out the area of a triangle. His exact words were, “ribhujasya phalashariram samadalakoti bhujardhasamvargah” which translates “For a triangle, the result of a perpendicular with the half side is the area”.
- Aryabhatta calculated the sidereal rotation which is the rotation of the earth with respect to the stars as 23 hours, 56 minutes and 4.1 seconds.
- Aryabhatta described the model of the solar system, also talks about the number of rotations of the earth, describes that the earth rotating on its axis, the order of the planets in terms of distance from earth.
- Aryabhatta was the first mathematician to detail both sine and versine (1-cos x) tables, in 3.75° intervals from 0° to 90°, to 4 decimal places.