Person: Bhaskara
Bhaskara I was an Indian mathematicians who wrote commentaries on the work of Aryabhata I.
Mathematical Profile (Excerpt):
- There are other references to places in India in Bhaskara's writings.
- For example he mentions Valabhi (today Vala), the capital of the Maitraka dynasty in the 7th century, and Sivarajapura, which were both in Saurastra which today is the Gujarat state of India on the west coast of the continent.
- Also mentioned are Bharuch (or Broach) in southern Gujarat and Thanesar in the eastern Punjab which was ruled by Harsa for 41 years from 606.
- Harsa was the pre-eminent ruler in north India through the first half of Bhaskara I's life.
- A reasonable guess would be that Bhaskara was born in Saurastra and later moved to Asmaka.
- His works are the Mahabhaskariya Ⓣ(The big book of Bhaskara), the Laghubhaskariya Ⓣ(The small book of Bhaskara) and the Aryabhatiyabhasya Ⓣ(Commentary on Aryabhata's work).
- The Mahabhaskariya Ⓣ(The big book of Bhaskara) is an eight chapter work on Indian mathematical astronomy and includes topics which were fairly standard for such works at this time.
- It discusses topics such as: the longitudes of the planets; conjunctions of the planets with each other and with bright stars; eclipses of the sun and the moon; risings and settings; and the lunar crescent.
- These occur in Chapter 7 of the work.
- The formula which Bhaskara gives is amazingly accurate and use of the formula leads to a maximum error of less than one percent.
- The Aryabhatiya Ⓣ(The work of Aryabhata) contains 33 verses dealing with mathematics, the remainder of the work being concerned with mathematical astronomy.
- He considers problems of indeterminate equations of the first degree and trigonometric formulae.
- He was the first to open discussion on quadrilaterals with all the four sides unequal and none of the opposite sides parallel.
- One of the approximations used for π for many centuries was √10.
- He regretted that an exact measure of the circumference of a circle in terms of diameter was not available and he clearly believed that π was not rational.
Born about 600, (possibly) Saurastra (modern Gujarat state), India. Died about 680, (possibly) Asmaka, India.
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Tags relevant for this person:
Ancient Indian, Astronomy, Origin India
Mentioned in:
Epochs: 1
Thank you to the contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0! 
- Github:
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- non-Github:
- @J-J-O'Connor
- @E-F-Robertson
References
Adapted from other CC BY-SA 4.0 Sources:
- O’Connor, John J; Robertson, Edmund F: MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive
