Hinduism: Details about 'Aryabhata'
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Aryabhata (आर्यभट) Āryabhaṭa) (476 - 550) is the first of the great astronomers of the classical age of India. He lived in Kusumapura, which his commentator Bhāskara I (629 AD) identifies with Pataliputra (modern Patna). It is speculated that he may have been a native of Kerala as his astronomy remained most popular there.
AryabhatiyaHis book, "Āryabhatīya", presented astronomical and mathematical theories in which the Earth was taken to be spinning on its axis and the periods of the planets were given with respect to the sun (in other words, it was heliocentric).He believes that the Moon and planets shine by reflected sunlight and he believes that the orbits of the planets are ellipses. He correctly explains the causes of eclipses of the Sun and the Moon. His value for the length of the year at 365 days 6 hours 12 minutes 30 seconds is remarkably close to the true value which is about 365 days 6 hours. This book is divided into four chapters: (i) the astronomical constants and the sine table (ii) mathematics required for computations (iii) division of time and rules for computing the longitudes of planets using eccentrics and epicycles (iv) the armillary sphere, rules relating to problems of trigonometry and the computation of eclipses. In this book, the day was reckoned from one sunrise to the next, whereas in his "Āryabhata-siddhānta" he took the day from one midnight to another. There was also difference in some astronomical parameters. He was the first to explain how the Lunar Eclipse and the Solar Eclipse happened. Aryabhata also gave close approximation for Pi. In the Aryabhatiya, he wrote: "Add four to one hundred, multiply by eight and then add sixty-two thousand. The result is approximately the circumference of a circle of diameter twenty thousand. By this rule the relation of the circumference to diameter is given." In other words, π ≈ 62832/20000 = 3.1416, correct to four rounded-off decimal places. Aryabhata was the first astronomer to make an attempt at measuring the Earth's circumference since Erastosthenes (circa 200 BC). Aryabhata accurately calculated the Earth's circumference as 24,835 miles, which was only 0.2% smaller than the actual value of 24,902 miles. This approximation remained the most accurate for over a thousand years. He also propounded the Heliocentric theory of gravitation, thus predating Copernicus by almost one thousand years. The 8th century Arabic translation of Aryabhata's Magnum Opus, the Āryabhatīya was translated into Latin in the 13th century, before the time of Copernicus. Through this translation, European mathematicians got to know methods for calculating the areas of triangles, volumes of spheres as well as square and cube root, while it's also likely that Aryabhata's work had an influence on European astronomy. Aryabhata's methods of astronomical calculations have been in continuous use for practical purposes of fixing the Pancanga (Hindu calendar). MathematicsOne of the books of Aryabhatiya is on mathematics. Aryabhata describes the kuttaka algorithm to solve indeterminate equations. In recent times, this algorithm has also been called the Aryabhata algorithm. He also created a novel alphabetic code to represent numbers that is now called the Aryabhata cipher. Aryabhata, in his work Aryabhata-Siddhanta, first defined the sine as the modern relationship between half an angle and half a chord, while also defining the cosine, versine, and inverse sine. His works also contained the earliest tables of sine values and versine (1 − cosine) values, in 3.75° intervals from 0° to 90°, to an accuracy of 3 decimal places. He used the words jya for sine, kojya for cosine, ukramajya for versine, and otkram jya for inverse sine. The words jya and kojya eventually became sine and cosine respectively after a mistranslation (see Etymology above). One of the trigonometric formulas Aryabhata developed was sin(n + 1)x - sin nx = sin nx - sin(n - 1)x - (1/225)sin nx. Overview
See also
Âryabhata Aryabhatakn:ಆರ್ಯಭಟ Aryabhatasa:आर्यभट: Aryabhata I. Aryabhata Aryabhata
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