Mathematicians of India

Many of the ideas in this lab were discovered, or discovered again, by mathematicians in India. Here are ten of them, from the Śulba-Sūtras to the twentieth century, with the activities where their ideas appear.

Baudhāyana

around 800 BCE

His Śulba-Sūtra gives rules for building fire altars with a cord and pegs. It states that the square on the diagonal of a rectangle equals the squares on its two sides together, and shows how to make a square with double the area.

In this lab: Squares on the Sides · Doubling a Square

Piṅgala

around the 3rd century BCE

In his book on poetic metres, the Chandaḥśāstra, he listed patterns made of two kinds of syllables, short and long, an idea very close to counting in base 2. Later scholars explaining his work drew the number triangle 1; 1, 1; 1, 2, 1; 1, 3, 3, 1.

In this lab: Landmark Numbers in Another Base · Number Pyramids

Āryabhaṭa

born 476 CE

His Āryabhaṭīya used a place-value system, gave the value of π as about 3.1416, and gave rules for the sums of squares and of cubes of the counting numbers.

In this lab: Ends-In Is Not Enough · Double the Side

Brahmagupta

598 – about 668 CE

His Brāhmasphuṭasiddhānta gave rules for working with zero and with negative numbers, which he called debts, and a formula for the area of a quadrilateral drawn inside a circle.

In this lab: Angles of a Quadrilateral · Below Zero Powers

Bhāskara II

1114 – 1185 CE

His Līlāvatī is a book of arithmetic and geometry written as problems, many about buying, selling and interest. He also showed the Baudhāyana-Pythagoras theorem with a rearranged figure.

In this lab: Interest on Interest · Up 20%, Down 20%

Mādhava of Saṅgamagrāma

about 1340 – 1425 CE

The founder of the Kerala school of mathematics. He found ways to write π and the sine of an angle as never-ending sums, long before such series were known in Europe.

In this lab: Steady Steps · Sierpinski Steps

Srinivasa Ramanujan

1887 – 1920

A self-taught genius from Erode and Kumbakonam who worked with G. H. Hardy in Cambridge. He noticed that 1729 is the smallest number that is a sum of two cubes in two different ways: 1³ + 12³ = 9³ + 10³.

In this lab: Double the Side · Power Play

P. C. Mahalanobis

1893 – 1972

He founded the Indian Statistical Institute in Kolkata in 1931 and showed how careful sampling and data could be used to plan for a whole country.

In this lab: Mean with Frequencies · Where the Mean Balances

D. R. Kaprekar

1905 – 1986

A school teacher from Devlali who loved number patterns. He found the number 6174: arrange the digits of most 4-digit numbers largest-first and smallest-first, subtract, repeat, and you always reach 6174.

In this lab: Reverse the Digits · Divisibility Shortcuts

Shakuntala Devi

1929 – 2013

Known around the world for doing very large calculations in her head, faster than the computers of her time. She also wrote books to make mathematics and puzzles enjoyable for everyone.

In this lab: The Missing Rectangles · Sum Times Difference

The CBSE Maths Lab SOP suggests a display of Indian mathematicians. Schools can print this page as a poster set, or ask each group of students to research one name and add a portrait.