Namaste Everyone,
I've been away from my PC for a long time now. Had my 6th semester exams, and as you know about us would-be engineers, we open our books only the night before each dreaded paper. Add an eye infection to this already precarious scenario, and you can understand why there's no post for about a month.
This is the 2nd instalment in the series of posts on India's most famous Mathematician, Aryabhatta. He was also a renowned astronomer, and this post gives credance to the fact that he formulated some very important laws based on his observations.
Our curriculum teach us that theory on Planetary motion was propounded by Johannes Kepler, a German Astronomer and Mathematician. This was done as late as the 17th century AD. But as usual, India had an answer to the same question way back in the 5th Century AD. The following Sloka from Aryabhatiyam-Kalakriyapada gives Aryabhatta's version:
The meaning of this Sloka is as follows:
"The mean planets move on their orbits and the true planets move in eccentric circles. All such planets move with their own motion, anti-clockwise from their apogees and clockwise from their perigees."
So it took around 1200 years for the Western "Civilization" to re-discover something that Aryabhatta had stated in the 5th Century! Truly Amazing!
- Nikhil Mundra
www.gandhistamps.com
www.nikhilloids.blogspot.com
6th June 2009
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