From: Yash (yashk2000@yahoo.com)
Date: Wed Jan 16 2002 - 16:33:12 MST
>>>>
1 "Vedic Maths" made exaggerated (to be kind) claims of accuracy and
significance for early Indian mathematics - claims not supported by any
non-religious affiliated source;
>>>>
I responded at great length in my last post. Care to say anything about what
Georges Ifrah, a recognized historian of mathematics had to say about the
dating of the katapayadi system built by Haridatta, for example? Maybe you
can't understand French, then I'll wait for you to read the same passages in
English if you are really interested in researching the subject as you
obviously are. Then maybe you'd care to take back what you just said or else
you would have to prove that Ifrah's a fraud and that he is a religious
source as you seem to imply even after I have shown you the evidence from a
respected, world-reknowned source.
You only thing you can say is: <bullshit, blah blah blah..., Fuckwit>
Well, same to you.
There have been no claims to great antiquity to the Pi encoding. You are the
one raising that claim in the first place. It's a simple thing: just show us
where the dates are claimed or where anybody claims that the encoding of Pi
is very old. It's all things you either assumed or third parties may have
claimed to further their own agendas and you heard or saw that. Then show us
where you found them and which parties did that. Then go fight them if you
so wish...
In any case as I've said already, all this shouldn't detract from building a
new scheme in English or in a new language (I think I'll rather stay with
English than build a whole new language which nobody speaks).
Another quote from Ifrah:
T2 p63 (Dictionnaire des Symboles Numériques Indiens)
"
HARIDATTA: Astronome indien qui vécut aux alentours de + 850. Auteur
notamment du traîté intitulé Grahachâranibandhana, dans lequel il expose
notamment le fruit de son invention: un système de notation numérique
mettant à contribution les lettres de l'alphabet indien. Celui-ci repose sur
le principe de position avec l'usage d'un zéro (indifféremment figuré par
deux lettres). c'est le système dit katapayadi: la première numération
alphabétique positionnelle de l'histoire (cf. Sarma).
p118:
Bref, si l'oeuvre d'Haridatta se situe certainement avant 869 (date de
l'oeuvre de Shankaranârâyana), elle remonte très probablement ainsi aux
alentours de +850.
"
So if you hear any dates claimed (smaller than +850) about that encoding of
Pi, you should check it out against this date mentioned by R. Billard in
Ifrah's work. The encoding can only have been built after the invention of
the gematric system itself. That's how you should have researched your data
if you were serious about it, not the shoddy piece of supposedly rational
discourse you served us up with your usual doses of 'Fuckwit' and what-not.
And that some of these astronomers were also probably astrologers doesn't
change anything: they needed to perfect their astronomical knowledge and
needed systems to store their knowledge to improve whatever they were doing
with the data. That's why Ifrah doesn't even mind mentioning all the
mathematicians and astronomers in his book. Since he's interested in the
mathematical part and has no axe to grind against religion, it's all fine,
he's done a scholarly piece of work on the history of mathematics. A
masterful endeavour indeed. Newton was himself an alchemist.
Here's the backcover blurb:
"Georges Ifrah, né en 1947, fut d'abord professeur de mathématiques avant de
devenir historien du nombre et de sa mystique, et historien des chiffres et
du calcul artificiel. Autorité mondiale en la matière."
Some reviews of the book at amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/stores/detail/-/books/0140099190/custom
er-reviews/102-6094107-1072166
It's even there:
http://www.sigmaxi.org/amsci/bookshelf/centurylist.html
(
November-December 1999, Volume 87, No. 6
Scientists’ Bookshelf
100 or So Books That Shaped a Century of Science - The List
American Scientist.
)
Yash.
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