Person: Sridhara
Sridhara was an Indian mathematician who wrote on practical applications of algebra and was one of the first to give a formula for solving quadratic equations.
Mathematical Profile (Excerpt):
- However, there has been much dispute over his date and in different works the dates of the life of Sridhara have been placed from the seventh century to the eleventh century.
- We do know that Sridhara was a Hindu but little else is known.
- Some historians give Bengal as the place of his birth while other historians believe that Sridhara was born in southern India.
- Sridhara is known as the author of two mathematical treatises, namely the Trisatika (sometimes called the Patiganitasara ) and the Patiganita.
- We give details below of Sridhara's rule for solving quadratic equations as given by Bhaskara II.
- There is another mathematical treatise Ganitapancavimsi which some historians believe was written by Sridhara.
- Through the whole book Sridhara gives methods to solve problems in terse rules in verse form which was the typical style of Indian texts at this time.
- Indeed there is no suggestion that Sridhara realised that proofs are in any way necessary.
- Often after stating a rule Sridhara gives one or more numerical examples, but he does not give solutions to these example nor does he even give answers in this work.
- After giving the rules for computing with natural numbers, Sridhara gives rules for operating with rational fractions.
- Sridhara was one of the first mathematicians to give a rule to solve a quadratic equation.
- There is no suggestion that Sridhara took two values when he took the square root.
Born about 870, possibly Bengal, India. Died about 930, India.
View full biography at MacTutor
Tags relevant for this person:
Ancient Indian, Origin India
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
