In UPSC Exam, there have been questions related to poets, saints of Ancient Indian History, Medieval Indian History and that too on foreign travellers from the section of Modern Indian History. Similarly, questions can be asked on the Indian Mathematicians from Ancient Indian to Modern Indian times in IAS Exam.
This article will provide you with a list of Indian Mathematicians and their contributions in India.
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It is essential to know about the ancient, medieval and modern time Indian mathematicians and their contribution to Science and Mathematics. Ancient Indian mathematicians have contributed immensely to the field of mathematics. The invention of zero is attributed to Indians and this contribution outweighs all other made by any other nation since it is the basis of the decimal number system, without which no advancement in mathematics would have been possible. The number system used today was invented by Indians and it is still called Indo-Arabic numerals because Indians invented them and the Arab merchants took them to the western world.
Here we are giving the list of important Indian mathematicians from ancient to modern times.
Famous Indian Mathematicians and their Contributions
1. Bhaskara
- He is also known as Bhaskaracharya.
- He was born in 1114.
- He was the one who acknowledged that any number divided by zero is infinity and that the sum of any number and infinity is also infinity.
- The famous book “Siddhanta Siromani” was written by him.
2. Aryabhata
- He was born in 476 CE at Kusumapura.
- He was regarded as the first of the major mathematician-astronomers from the classical age.
- Aryabhaṭiya and Arya-Siddhanta were his known works.
- He worked on the ‘place value system’ using letters to signify numbers and stating qualities.
- He discovered the position of the 9 planets and found that these planets revolve around the sun.
- He also described the number of days in a year to be 365.
3. Brahmagupta
- He was born in 598 CE near present-day Rajasthan.
- The most important contribution of Brahmagupta to mathematics was introducing the concept and computing methods of zero (0).
4. Srinivasa Ramanujan
- He was born on 1887.
- His important contributions to this field are
- Hardy-Ramanujan-Littlewood circle method in number theory
- Roger-Ramanujan’s identities in the partition of numbers
- Work on the algebra of inequalities
- Elliptic functions
- Continued fractions
- Partial sums and products of hypergeometric series
5. P.C. Mahalanobis
- P.C. Mahalanobis was born in 1893.
- He is known for
- Mahalanobis distance
- Feldman–Mahalanobis model
6. Calyampudi Radhakrishna Rao
- R Rao was born in 1920.
- He is a well-known statistician.
- He is famous for his ‘Theory of estimation’.
- He is known for
- Cramer–Rao bound
- Rao–Blackwell theorem
- Orthogonal arrays
- Score test
7. D. R. Kaprekar
- D. R. Kaprekar was a recreational mathematician.
- He discovered several results in number theory, comprising a class of numbers and a constant named after him.
8. Satyendranath Bose
- He was born in 1894.
- He is known for his collaboration with Albert Einstein.
- He is best known for his work on quantum mechanics.
- He famous contributions are
- Bose-Einstein correlations
- Bose-Einstein condensate
- Bose-Einstein distribution
- Bose-Einstein statistics
- Boson
- Bose gas
- Photon gas
- Ideal Bose equation of state.
9. Shakuntala Devi
- Known as the ‘Human Computer’ she was famous for solving the most complex maths equations without needing calculators.
- She was famous for setting many world records in mathematics with her superior intellect
10. Narendra Karamkar
- Best known for his work regarding polynomial algorithms. He is listed as an ISI highly cited researcher.
- Narendra Karamkar one of the first provably polynomial time algorithms for linear programming, which is generally referred to as an interior point method. The algorithm is a cornerstone in the field of Linear Programming.
Frequently Asked Questions about Indian Mathematician
Who was India’s first mathematician?
Who invented numeral zero?
Aspirants can read other related articles linked in the table below:
| Major literary works and authors in the Gupta Period | Important Poets in Ancient Indian History | Foreign Envoys who visited Ancient India |
UPSC Preparation:
| UPSC FAQ | UPSC Age Limit |
| Documents Required for UPSC Exam | Language Papers in UPSC – Tips to Study |
| UPSC Admit Card 2024 | IAS Eligibility Criteria |
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