Did Newton Lie ?

I was hoping to keep this Blog on 'Math And Science Tit Bits' a bit private as it started with a place holder for something I had worked on while solving a problem for my daughter, who was going to some special math challenge classes.

In the process I learnt something and found some interesting series and patterns. Then I went to Wikipedia and Mathworld and could not find anything like what I found. Then over the weeks, after repeated searches, I started finding something overlapping. But still there were many novelties in the findings and besides letting the experts know, and not being challenged, I have quietly dropped the subject. And I may be just completely wrong 100% but it does not matter and what matters more is that one is learning.

For me it is a waste of time to defend all this, as I have many better things to do - like learning more and reading more as I feel that I do not know anything and the Human Knowledge is just a small tip of the proverbial iceberg of the Universe Knowledge World. So please excuse the quality of earlier postings.

Then it also became a place holder on something about Space which I had said back in 1998 but was "shut up" by an expert and later found that now-a-days this has become a hot topic. So I thought I would keep this as a note to myself without much ado. I am still learning on this topic and feel that I know nothing - but have been thinking of General and Special Relativity for past 10 years and writing to give my twist on understanding of General Relativity. But this is going on in background and not sure of the outcome. This is just for me to understand the subject and also write in simple terms but at the same time try to push the understanding further - at least mine. I feel that Einstein's Space-Time Warping is a very mathematical like and a model-like explanation on Gravity.

Without much further ado, in process of trying to introduce the Blog, as well as defend its poor quality postings as private place holder, here I go.

In past I have said the same thing about Newton knowing more than he acknowledged and on Indian Mathematics. See my article on the Newton Stone. So you know Newton was a very influential person and a member of the Knight Templers as well as the Freemasons - both hot topics in Hollywood movies for past few years. And he is buried in West minister Abbey.

Also I have sent emails to friends and colleagues on the Indian Contribution on Math. This news only confirms what I have found. Please see Indian Mathematics: Redressing the balance and Indian Mathematics.

News Release from University of Manchester (http://www.physorg.com/news106238636.html)

Scholars in India discovered one of the founding principles of modern mathematics hundreds of years before Newton1


A little known school of scholars in southwest India discovered one of the founding principles of modern mathematics hundreds of years before Newton – according to new research.

Dr George Gheverghese Joseph from The University of Manchester says the ‘Kerala School’ identified the ‘infinite series ’- one of the basic components of calculus - in about 1350.

The discovery is currently - and wrongly - attributed in books to Sir Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibnitz at the end of the seventeenth centuries.

The team from the Universities of Manchester and Exeter reveal the Kerala School also discovered what amounted to the Pi series and used it to calculate Pi correct to 9, 10 and later 17 decimal places.

And there is strong circumstantial evidence that the Indians passed on their discoveries to mathematically knowledgeable Jesuit missionaries who visited India during the fifteenth century.

That knowledge, they argue, may have eventually been passed on to Newton himself.

Dr Joseph made the revelations while trawling through obscure Indian papers for a yet to be published third edition of his best selling book ‘The Crest of the Peacock: the Non-European Roots of Mathematics’ by Princeton University Press.

He said: “The beginnings of modern maths is usually seen as a European achievement but the discoveries in medieval India between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries have been ignored or forgotten.

“The brilliance of Newton’s work at the end of the seventeenth century stands undiminished – especially when it came to the algorithms of calculus.

“But other names from the Kerala School, notably Madhava and Nilakantha, should stand shoulder to shoulder with him as they discovered the other great component of calculus- infinite series.

“There were many reasons why the contribution of the Kerala school has not been acknowledged - a prime reason is neglect of scientific ideas emanating from the Non-European world - a legacy of European colonialism and beyond.

“But there is also little knowledge of the medieval form of the local language of Kerala, Malayalam, in which some of most seminal texts, such as the Yuktibhasa, from much of the documentation of this remarkable mathematics is written.

He added: “For some unfathomable reasons, the standard of evidence required to claim transmission of knowledge from East to West is greater than the standard of evidence required to knowledge from West to East.

“Certainly it’s hard to imagine that the West would abandon a 500-year-old tradition of importing knowledge and books from India and the Islamic world.

“But we’ve found evidence which goes far beyond that: for example, there was plenty of opportunity to collect the information as European Jesuits were present in the area at that time.

“They were learned with a strong background in maths and were well versed in the local languages.

“And there was strong motivation: Pope Gregory XIII set up a committee to look into modernising the Julian calendar.

“On the committee was the German Jesuit astronomer/mathematician Clavius who repeatedly requested information on how people constructed calendars in other parts of the world. The Kerala School was undoubtedly a leading light in this area.

“Similarly there was a rising need for better navigational methods including keeping accurate time on voyages of exploration and large prizes were offered to mathematicians who specialised in astronomy.

“Again, there were many such requests for information across the world from leading Jesuit researchers in Europe. Kerala mathematicians were hugely skilled in this area.”