Mathematics in India Past, Present and Future What is mathematics? “mathematics is a science of space, numbers and quantity” Past: Indian mathematics emerged in the Indian subcontinent from 1200 BC until the end of the 18th century. In the classical period of Indian mathematics (400 AD to 1200 AD), important contributions were made by scholars like Aryabhata, Brahmagupta, and Bhaskara II. The decimal number system in use today was first recorded in Indian mathematics.
Indian mathematicians made early contributions to the study of the concept of zero as a number, negative numbers, arithmaticm and algebra. In addition, trigonometry was further advanced in India, and, in particular, the modern definitions of sine and cosine were developed there. These mathematical concepts were transmitted to the Middle East, China, and Europe and led to further developments that now form the foundations of many areas of mathematics. Present: 20th century The 20th century saw mathematics become a mojor profession.
Every year, thousands of new Ph. D. s in mathematics are awarded, and jobs are availablein teaching, research and industry. Mathematical collaborations of unprecedented size and scope took place in India. One of the more colorful figures in 20th – century mathematics was Srinivasa Aiyangar Ramanujan (1887-1920), an Indian autodidact who conjectured or proved over 3000 theorems, including properties of highly composite nimbers, the partition function and its asymptotic, and mock theta functions.
He also made major investigations in the areas of gamma functions, modular forms, divergent series, hyper geometric series and prime number theory. 21st century In 1980, Shakuntala Devi gave the product of two, thirteen digit nimbers within 28 seconds; many countries have invited her to demonstrate her extraordinary talent. In Dallas she competed with a computer with a computer to see who give the cube root of 188138517 faster, she won. At university of USA she was asked to give the 23rd root, she answered in 50 seconds. The answer is 546372891.
It took a UNIVAC 1108 computer, full one minute (10 seconds more) to confirm that she was right after it was fed with 13000 instructions. Now she is known to be Human computer. FUTURE: There are many observable trends in mathematics, the most notable being that the subject is growing ever larger, computers are ever more important and powerful, the application of mathematics to bioinformatics is rapidly expanding, the volume of data to be analyzed being produced by science and industry, facilitated by computers, is explosively expanding.
The field of mathematics has become so large that it has become impossible to have an overview of all relevant mathematics. A formalized library should enable the search for relevant results. When designing new high-tech systems, like software for an automatic pilot super computer etc. , one uses complicated mathematical models. Indian mathematician, engineers and scientist ar eone of the top leading in this trend. CONCLUSION: Mathematics is a science of all sciences and art of all arts. Without the proper foundation of mathematics, any science or subject will be a failure, Mathematics is a creation of human mind, concerned cheifly with the ideas, processes and reasoning the modern world of technology, tools such as computer requires the basic mathematics and calculations. Matehmatics is the instrument of education found to be in conformity with the human mind. If we sincerely give our time in the subject of mathematics, we can also come up with innovative ideas and thoughts that can shape the entire universe as our ancestors do in past. We look forward to what the future will bring.
