Talk:Brahmagupta/Archive 1

Archive 1

You know...

"Brahmagupta discovered the most important concept in all of mathematics, the zero." This is biased. I don't know who was crushing on Brahmagupta when that person wrote this section of the article, but clearly someone was, since this is not anything resembling common knowledge, nor is it cited (but of course, who could be legitimately cited in such a clear cut case of bullshit). This must be unbiased, and rewritten more fluidly.

I agree. The concept was probably in use for several centuries before he used it extensively in his works. deeptrivia (talk) 16:58, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Pronounciation

the pronunciation is horrible —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.50.31.14 (talk) 07:26, 1 March 2007 (UTC).

Father of arithmetic etc.

Four fundamental operations as done today first appeared in Brahmagupta's work. The book was translated by Henry Thomas Colebrooke. Modus Indorum or the method of the Indians has become our arithmetic today. Western scholars has given credit to Greeks for inventing arithmetic which is a scam. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.1.48.108 (talk) 16:10, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

I removed the following sentences:

"In mathematics, Brahmagupta is considered the father of arithmetic, algebra, and numerical analysis. The modern arithmetic used today spread from India to Arabia and then to Europe. Initially, it was known as Al Hind in Arabic and De Numero Indorum in Latin. De Numero Indorum means "method of the Indians" and has become our arithmetic and algebra replacing the earlier Roman numerals and abacus-based methods."

Brahmagupta is not generally considered the father of arithmetic, algebra, and numerical analysis. Whether modern arithmetic originates from India depends on what you mean by modern arithmetic; the sentence "Addition, subtraction, division and other fundamental operations using Hindu Arabic numerals first appear in Brahmasputha Siddhanta" which appears later in the article is more specific and thus preferable. "De Numero Indorum" does not mean "method of the Indians" but something like "on the number of the Indians". -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 07:47, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Elliptic verse

Google finds only 11 distinct pages which contain the two word phrase "elliptic verse". Thus it is exceedingly obscure and rare. I have no idea what it means. Obviously no one else in the world does either. I therefore removed it. Before restoring it please define it.

Nick Beeson (talk) 17:14, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

http://www.answers.com/topic/elliptic

el·lip·tic (ĭ-lĭp'tĭk)

3
 a. Of or relating to extreme economy of oral or written expression.
 b. Marked by deliberate obscurity of style or expression.

selfworm^Talk) 07:54, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Pell

Ranjitr303 (talk) 04:58, 25 June 2010 (UTC)hi this is regarding the Pell's equation section where it is stated that "Unfortunately, Brahmagupta was not able to apply his solution uniformly for all possible values of N, rather he was only able to show that if x2 − Ny2 = k has an integral solution for k = \pm 1, \pm 2, \pm 4 then x2 − Ny2 = 1 has a solution." This statement is confusing, since it states that it should have solution for k = \pm 1 to have a solution for k=1. So please edit this text.

No, he showed that if there is a solution for any of the six values ±1, ±2 and ±4 for k, then there is a solution for the value 1. (Of course, in one of the six cases, namely k=1, the statement is tautological.) Shreevatsa (talk) 21:17, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Division by 0

I have just removed the following text from the article:

"Though his concept of 0 itself divided by 0 yield 0 in dimention is not viable with modern concept but if we convert or map a number into one-, two-, or n-th dimensional space or n-1 numbers in n-th dimensional space or n-2 numbers in n-1 dimensional space then we can follow the 0 by 0 rule (For example, take the number 16. It can be mapped as a straight line in one dimensional space or a length in a two dimention space, such as a circle of perimeter 16 or a square with all sides measuring 4. In all the cases the perimeters or each entity remains same. If we take 0 number in two dimension presenting area of a square of side 0, then it is clearly assumed.)"

It's unsourced, makes almost no sense whatever, and appears to be nothing more than an opinion of the editor who inserted it. It's nevertheless possible that the passage's incoherence is mainly attributable to the responsible editor's not being a native English speaker, and that there's some genuinely worthwhile content which it's attempting to convey. However, until someone can provide a reliable source with a comprehensible explanation of that content, I believe it doesn't belong in the article.
David Wilson (talk · cont) 04:00, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Contradiction?

There seems to be a contradiction between this article and the article on the History of gravitational theory:

"Brahmagupta also followed the heliocentric solar system of gravitation, earlier developed by Aryabhata in 499, and hence he understood there was a force of attraction between the Sun and the Earth."

...is surely incompatible with the notion that Brahmagupta assumed the Earth was stationary?

The article on Aryabhata seems to claim that he was responsible for introducing the concept of zero, while the article on Brahmagupta seems to give him the credit. The wordings can confuse most readers. I think someone has to make corrections somewhere.

Vsasi (talk) 13:42, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Typographical Error In Quadratic Equation Solution

Someone who knows how to do it should edit this as it now reads: sqrt(4ac + b^2) and should read sqrt(b^2 -4ac). Probably obvious and unnecessary for anyone who is likly to be reading this article but still shouldn't be left there. Gjames04 (talk) 17:36, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

 Fixed

Thank you for drawing attention to this. The formulae are in fact an accurate representation of the solutions given in Brahmagupta's descriptions. However, readers of the article shouldn't have to remain puzzled by what the original equation might be. I have now added it to the article.

David Wilson (talk · cont) 11:33, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

Reversion of old edits by Jagged85

I have reverted these edits as a gross misrepresentation of the passages quoted from al-Biruni's India. Contrary to the assertion—made in one of the edits—that Brahmagupta believed the Earth to be moving, al-Biruni explicitly states exactly the opposite. The target of the critics' arguments cited in the first quotation was not Brahmagupta, as asserted in the added text, but Aryabhata, who did indeed assert that the Earth rotates. According to al-Biruni, Brahmagupta thought that these arguments were fallacious, for some of the reasons given in the second quotation, but also that the Earth could not be rotating for the reason given in its first sentence. In fact, the order of the first two parts of this quotation, separated by ellipses, is the reverse of that in which they appear in al-Biruni's India, and the remaining parts of the quotation do not appear anywhere near the first two. I haven't thought it worth the bother of trying to track down exactly where they do appear.
David Wilson (talk · cont) 08:13, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the fix. Indeed it was Aryabhata who said that the earth rotates (and not the stars in the sky), and Brahmagupta (among others) who criticized it. Shreevatsa (talk) 11:44, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

Probable hoax

These edits seem likely to have been a hoax:

• No source is provided, and I have been unable to find a reliable source which mentions any works by Brahmagupta titled Cadamekela or Durkeamynarda. I have found no source of any kind which both mentions these supposed works and predates the edits.
• The vast majority of sources returned by a google search on the expression "cadamekela durkeamynarda" simply contain a verbatim copy of text lifted from this Wikipedia article. All of the few exceptions which I took the trouble to examine more closely seemed to me likely to be still just regurgitating their information from Wikipedia or a Wikipedia copy.
• A google scholar search on the same expression returns just two results, both Portuguese language theses from Brazil, one dated 2010 and the other dated 2014. In neither case is there evidence that there was any ultimate source for the information other than Wikipedia.
• The Encyclopedia of World Biography's article on Brahmagupta refers to Brahmasphutasiddhanta and Khandakhadyaka as "his two surviving treatises", and these are the only works of his I have been able to find mentioned in any reliable source.
• A total of 7 edits were performed from the same IP address as the ones being discussed here. Of these, 6 (i.e. all but the last), including all 3 others to the article Brahmagupta, were clear cases of vandalism.
• The supposed work "Durkeamynarda" is assigned a date of 672, which is four years later than that of Brahmagupta's death given in the lead of the article, and two years later than the latest date of c.670 given in any source I have consulted. The title of this supposed work was initially entered as the suspiciously comical sounding "Dorkeamynarda".
  

I shall thus be reverting these edits.
David Wilson (talk · cont) 16:21, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

They indeed look like hoaxes; thanks for catching these! Shreevatsa (talk) 04:34, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

I am supprised by the fact that the hoax was there for so long. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.198.96.27 (talk) 10:17, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

Image ("Dybuck")

It turned out the image presented as "Brahmagupta" is a drawing of an anonymous Hindu astronomer from the 1790s. Of course by now, the entire internet thinks this is the "image of Brahmagupta", this typically happens with Wikipedia, especially poorly referenced topics.

Now, the original caption for the image was Daybouk ou astronome hindou. I have not been able to identify the word Daybouk ( Daybuc, Dybuk, Dybuck). It seems to be an 18th-century Indian (Hindustani, Hindi-Urdu?) term for "astronomer". Maybe someone here recognizes it? --dab (𒁳) 12:20, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Nice catch. Given that the location of the astronomer seems to be Calcutta, the term "dybuck" might be Bengali. At any rate, the entry on Hindoostan in volume 10 of the 1811 Encyclopaedia Londinensis says on p.184 that, in Bengal, "dybuck" was the name of the professional "cast" of an "astronomer, astrologer, or calculator of eclipses".

David Wilson (talk · cont) 14:45, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

This Bengali-English dictionary gives the following as the corresponding English for the Bengali word দৈবজ্ঞ :

"a. prescient. n. a diviner, a prognosticator, a sooth sayer; a fortune teller, an astrologer."

It gives "daiba" as the transliteration of the root-word দৈব, and the Wikipedia article on the Bengali alphabet gives "gg" as the transliteration of the final consonant জ্ঞ . So there seems a good chance that the Bengali word দৈবজ্ঞ was the origin for Solvyns's term "Daybouk" .

David Wilson (talk · cont) 01:32, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

Brahmagupta's Multan connection?

Xinjao, a member of WP:WikiProject Pakistan, added "Multan, in present day Pakistan" to the "residence" entry of Brahmagupta. After challenge, he added G. S. Ghurye's writings as a source. Now, Ghurye is a sociologist, not a historian. Whether he investigated the historical records for this claim is not clear.

Al-Beruni wrote that Brahmagupta was from Bhillamala, which he described as being "in between Multan and Anhilwara." Bhillamala (Bhinmal) is 870km from Multan and 320km from Anhilwara (Pattan). That is not exactly what we would call "between." However, it is clear that Al-Beruni was picking two cities that were most familiar to the Turko-Persian audience that he was writing for.

In later Islamic sources, Bhinmal became "near Multan," [1] [2], and a lot of scientists/mathematicians seem to have copied the wording [3], [4], without actually checking if Bhinmal was "near Multan." And, for some lazy mathematicians, he became "Bramhagupta of Multan" [5]. Islamists seem thrilled [6] as do Pakistani militarists [7].

Wikipedia is the place where these kind of speculations stop. That is why we insist on WP:HISTRS. Going by authentic sources, we don't know exactly where Brahmgupta was born (which is why we don't mention it in the infobox), but we know that he lived in Bhinmal and later Ujjain. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 23:20, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

Very original research. I am very disappointed in you. You are speculating on the background of authors in the provided sources and removing them because you don't like them. This goes against the Wiki code. I hope you are very happy that Multan is not mentioned in this article. EDIT: I have raised a case with Wiki Arbitration. I will post a link to your page--Xinjao (talk) 12:14, 23 April 2016 (UTC)

The point is that G. S. Ghurye is not a historian and he is also badly out of date. Do you have a recent WP:HISTRS source that corroborates this claim? -- Kautilya3 (talk) 13:14, 23 April 2016 (UTC)

He was known as Brahmagupta of Multan. I am not the one speculating here. You are the one who added a second Indian city without any sources. Tell me why you disagree with below sources. The first two are scholarly sources referring to "Brahmagupta of Multan". The third source is a published book by an Indian author. The other sources are French, as you clearly seem to have biased opinion of "Islamist and Pakistani Militarist" resources. Do note an important a point here. Arabic sources came across his work after the invasion of Sindh and Multan. Your omission of this is very biased.

ABQ – From Quad to Zero Mathematical and choreographic processes –between number and not number by Alessandro Carboni [8]
EULER MEASURE AS GENERALIZED CARDINALITY by JAMES PROPP, UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN [9]
Indian Sociology Through Ghurye, a Dictionary By S. Devadas Pilla [10]
maths-et-tiques.fr [11]
Brahmagupta | André Ross [12]
apmep.fr [www.apmep.fr/IMG/ppt/mathematiques_indiennes-2.ppt]
--Xinjao (talk) 19:22, 23 April 2016 (UTC)

Which of these sources meet the requirements of WP:HISTRS? As far as I can see, they are all mathematicians, one of them even a choreographer. (Ghurye, I have already dealt with.)

I am surprised that you are still going on about "second Indian city without any sources." Do you know who Al-Beruni is? Have you read the body of the article where the issue is discussed? -- Kautilya3 (talk) 23:18, 23 April 2016 (UTC)

If you search for "Brahmagupta Bhinmal" you will find plenty of sources claiming that Brahmagupta was born in Bhinmal, including Encyclopaedia Britannica, which says "possibly Bhinmal". I decided that none of these sources is authentic WP:HISTRS, which is why I don't make any claims about where he was born. EB's statement of "possibly Bhinmal" is the best we can do. Its author, Takao Hayashi, is an excellent scholar on Indian mathematics and astronomy. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 00:47, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

@Kautilya3 please do not WP:CANVASS people like you did at Ghatus' TP. Just a friendly reminder. FreeatlastChitchat (talk) 03:14, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

[Copied from User talk:Ghatus]

@Kautilya3

Brahmagupta...Newton of India... Post Gupta era... Represents the Golden Age of India... Born possibly in Rajasthan... No confirmation. (If historians can not even say where Chanakya was actually born, how could they be certain about any Tom-Dick-Harry's birth palce?)Ghatus (talk) 02:24, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

@Ghatus: Yes, it does seem to me that it is not known where he was from.

But why did G. S. Ghurye speculate that he might be from Multan? Is Ghurye a reliable source for history? -- Kautilya3 (talk) 09:39, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

Kautilya3, Person does not matter. What matters is his/her work. If a piece of work is appreciated by academicians of that specific field, the work is then considered good like Al-Beruni's or Ibn Battuta's (both were just travelers) or Kalhan's (just a court poet). Nowadays, historians do take the help of sociologists and anthropologists to decode history. But, it is also to note that I am hearing Mr. Ghurye's name for the first time. So, historians, for any day, would prefer Al-Beruni to Mr. Ghurye.Ghatus (talk) 10:01, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

Bhillamalacharya

@David J Wilson: I am afraid this addition is undue. The source does not say that he was "also known as". It was perhaps a respectful description, meaning "the teacher of Bhillamala" or the "teacher from Bhillamala". It is not even clear if this was a title. The body explains this well enough. Nothing is needed in the lead. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 20:43, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

I don't particularly care one way or the other whether this addition remains in the lead or not. Nor do I want to quibble over its precise wording, but I don't understand your objection to "also known as". It's obvious from several good secondary sources that "Bhillamalacarya" is a sobriquet, and here's one which uses precisely the words "also known as Bhillamalacarya".

David Wilson (talk · cont) 22:49, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

On second thought, since "Bhillamalacarya" is only a sobriquet, I agree that it's inappropriate for mentioning as an alternative name in the lead, and I have now removed it (with a badly garbled edit summary). We don't (and shouldn't) say "also known as the Iron Duke" in the lead of the article Duke of Wellington, for instance (although I do also note that the lead of the article Elizabeth I of England includes the aside "Sometimes called The Virgin Queen, Gloriana or Good Queen Bess, …")

David Wilson (talk · cont) 23:42, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

That was indeed my point. Thanks for taking care of it. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 00:58, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

As it turns out, my second thought might have been a little too hasty. Encyclopedia Britannica opens its article on the Duke of Wellington with "Arthur Wellesley, 1st duke of Wellington, in full Arthur Wellesley, 1st duke of Wellington, marquess of Douro, marquess of Wellington, earl of Wellington, Viscount Wellington of Talavera and of Wellington, Baron Douro or Wellesley, byname Iron Duke … ", and its article on Elizabeth I with "'Elizabeth I, bynames The Virgin Queen and Good Queen Bess … ". Tellingly, however, it does not give "Bhillamalacarya" as a byname of Brahmagupta in its article on him.

I will, however, reverse my judgement on the inappropriatess of having "Bhillamalacarya" given as an alternative name in the lead, and return to my original sentiment of not caring much one way or the other. If there are editors who do have strong feelings on the matter, I will leave it to them to fight over whether it goes in or stays out.

David Wilson (talk · cont) 01:49, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

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References to "A Sourcebook

There are references to Plofker throughout this article which I believe should mostly be references to Victor Katz. (2007.) The Mathematics of Egypt, Mesopotamia, China, India, and Islam: A Sourcebook, Princeton University Press, ISBN:0691114854, 9780691114859. (Note that the ISBN number is the same as the one given for Plofker's book.) Plofker's book only has 360 pages, and most of the references are to page numbers higher than that. For example, the quote for the quadratic formula in Mathematics:Algebra cannot be found in Plofker's book by a text search on the electronic edition (I tried it), but it can be found in Katz's book. Unfortunately there is no electronic version of Katz's book. I can try to get hold of a physical copy and check all the references, but it will take some time. Or, I could just change the reference in the hope that this is a systematic error.

Wgmccallum (talk) 14:53, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

What you're calling "Katz's book" is a book with Katz as editor, but the “Mathematics in India” section was written by Plofker. This is different from Plofker's 2008 book, also called “Mathematics in India”. Let's just fix the reference. (It's not an error, but can be clearer.) Shreevatsa (talk) 17:48, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

I have fixed it in this edit. It now appears in the article as:

Plofker, Kim (2007), "Mathematics in India", in Victor Katz, The Mathematics of Egypt, Mesopotamia, China, India, and Islam: A Sourcebook, Princeton University Press, ISBN 978-0-691-11485-9

Hope that clarifies the matter. Cheers, Shreevatsa (talk) 17:51, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

Can someone fix this, I don't really understand how this citation thing works

Under Life and career, 2nd sentence <refname="Sachau2013">Sachau, Edward C. (2013), Alberuni's India, Routledge, p. 156, ISBN 978-1-136-38357-1, Brahma-siddhānta, so-called from Brahman, composed by Brahmagupta, the son of Jishnu, from the town of Bhillamāla between Multān and Anhilwāra, 16 yojana from the latter place (?)</ref> this thing — Preceding unsigned comment added by 3kliksphilp (talk • contribs) 18:06, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

 Done. Somebody had just vandalised a few days ago. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 09:55, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

Geography

Brahma Gupta 103.72.7.9 (talk) 13:48, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

Sunne mathadabeda chennai bari

H 2401:4900:22E5:D13E:1:0:E36E:EE88 (talk) 15:41, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

Mathematics

Brahamagupta 49.35.183.189 (talk) 13:46, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

Gravity

In 628 CE, Brahmagupta first described gravity as an attractive force, and used the term "gurutvākarṣaṇam (गुरुत्वाकर्षणम्)" in Sanskrit to describe it.

This sentence is there in the top itself. But cannot find the original verse in which the word gurutvākarṣaṇam is mentioned. none of the source cited mentions saṃskṛta verse. Among the sources, earliest available one is Al Beruni, who lived nearly half a millennium after Brahmgupta. Al Beruni's work are mostly in translation. He also doesn't quote the exact word. So where exactly is the word gurutvākarṣaṇam in Brahmagupta's works?. ChandlerMinh (talk) 11:39, 21 May 2023 (UTC)