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> All thanks to the folks that laid down the foundation to Arabic numerals. As an Indian, it is particularly weird for me to see the achievements on Indian pio

> All thanks to the folks that laid down the foundation to Arabic numerals. As an Indian, it is particularly weird for me to see the achievements on Indian pioneer mathematicians attributed to a totally different group of people. Brahmagupta, Pingala, Aryabhatta etc. should be correctly attributed and celebrated for their towering contributions to laying the foundations of Maths as we see today.

NoOneNew 6y ago
Right, yes, sorry. I'm just a casual to the history of math. My bad.
reaperducer 6y ago
As an Indian, it is particularly weird for me to see the achievements on Indian pioneer mathematicians attributed to a totally different group of people. Unfortunately, the internet is full of this sort of thing. Wikipedia is especially rife with revisions that change inventors and originators in jingoistic ways. See also: The eight thousand tiny museums in villages scattered across the U.K. all celebrating the local "inventors" of different things that were already invented in other countries long before.
- scythe 6y ago
  The Internet did not trick Leonardo "Fibonacci" of Pisa into calling the number system he was advocating "Arabic" in the thirteenth century.
  - NoOneNew 6y ago
    I just wanted to have a casual, nerdy discussion of math god damn it. That's all. How did this turn to a politically correct issue already?
  - jacobolus 6y ago
    Fibonacci called them "Indian figures" and arithmetic the "Indian method". So you are technically correct that the internet did not trick him into calling them "Arabic": he was not tricked at all on this point! > As my father was a public official away from our homeland in the Bugia customshouse established for the Pisan merchants who frequently gathered there, he had me in my youth brought to him, looking to find for me a useful and comfortable future; there he wanted me to be in the study of mathematics and to be taught for some days. There from a marvelous instruction in the art of the nine Indian figures, the introduction and knowledge of the art pleased me so much above all else, and I learnt from them, whoever was learned in it, from nearby Egypt, Syria, Greece, Sicily and Provence, and their various methods, to which locations of business I travelled considerably afterwards for much study, and I learnt from the assembled disputations. But this, on the whole, the algorithm and even the Pythagorean arcs, I still reckoned almost an error compared to the Indian method. Therefore strictly embracing the Indian method, and attentive to the study of it, from mine own sense adding some, and some more still from the subtle Euclidean geometric art, applying the sum that I was able to perceive to this book, I worked to put it together in xv distinct chapters, showing certain proof for almost everything that I put in, so that further, this method perfected above the rest, this science is instructed to the eager, and to the Italian people above all others, who up to now are found without a minimum. If, by chance, something less or more proper or necessary I omitted, your indulgence for me is entreated, as there is no one who is without fault, and in all things is altogether circumspect.

NoOneNew 6y ago

Right, yes, sorry. I'm just a casual to the history of math. My bad.

reaperducer 6y ago

As an Indian, it is particularly weird for me to see the achievements on Indian pioneer mathematicians attributed to a totally different group of people. Unfortunately, the internet is full of this sort of thing. Wikipedia is especially rife with revisions that change inventors and originators in jingoistic ways. See also: The eight thousand tiny museums in villages scattered across the U.K. all celebrating the local "inventors" of different things that were already invented in other countries long before.

scythe 6y ago
The Internet did not trick Leonardo "Fibonacci" of Pisa into calling the number system he was advocating "Arabic" in the thirteenth century.
- NoOneNew 6y ago
  I just wanted to have a casual, nerdy discussion of math god damn it. That's all. How did this turn to a politically correct issue already?
- jacobolus 6y ago
  Fibonacci called them "Indian figures" and arithmetic the "Indian method". So you are technically correct that the internet did not trick him into calling them "Arabic": he was not tricked at all on this point! > As my father was a public official away from our homeland in the Bugia customshouse established for the Pisan merchants who frequently gathered there, he had me in my youth brought to him, looking to find for me a useful and comfortable future; there he wanted me to be in the study of mathematics and to be taught for some days. There from a marvelous instruction in the art of the nine Indian figures, the introduction and knowledge of the art pleased me so much above all else, and I learnt from them, whoever was learned in it, from nearby Egypt, Syria, Greece, Sicily and Provence, and their various methods, to which locations of business I travelled considerably afterwards for much study, and I learnt from the assembled disputations. But this, on the whole, the algorithm and even the Pythagorean arcs, I still reckoned almost an error compared to the Indian method. Therefore strictly embracing the Indian method, and attentive to the study of it, from mine own sense adding some, and some more still from the subtle Euclidean geometric art, applying the sum that I was able to perceive to this book, I worked to put it together in xv distinct chapters, showing certain proof for almost everything that I put in, so that further, this method perfected above the rest, this science is instructed to the eager, and to the Italian people above all others, who up to now are found without a minimum. If, by chance, something less or more proper or necessary I omitted, your indulgence for me is entreated, as there is no one who is without fault, and in all things is altogether circumspect.