The subject of mathematics is truly one of the offerings of India to the world.
The pre-eminent scientist Albert Einstein aptly sums it up in his famous quotation,
“We owe a lot to the Indians,
who taught us how to count,
without which no worthwhile scientific discovery could have been made”.
Let us start at the very beginning, from zero. Zero is today a commonly accepted numeral that is taught to every kindergarten school child. Can we imagine that just about 400 years back , Zero was not understood by Europeans or for that matter many other civilizations of the world?
Whereas in the Indian civilization Zero was commonly used in the calculations for 1000's of years.
The resistance to Zero in Europe,
how the Europeans came to accept Zero very grudgingly and
it was only then science developed.
Infact, till the year 1500CE Zero was considered a devil by the Europeans.
Like Zero, many other mathematical concepts like,
The origin of which concepts can be traced to India.
Right through the last few millennia to this date, Indians have produced outstanding mathematicians who have been rightly portrayed as the “crest of a peacock” as mathematics is the fountain head of all knowledge.
In this subject capsule, we look at in specific detail, India's offering of the very word Mathematics and its various individual components.