"The translated Indian texts would naturally have gone first to the Jesuit general. There is ample circumstantial evidence that did happen. Christoph Clavius, who authored the Gregorian calendar reform, also published in his name a table of sines in 1607. Curiously, these were the so-called Rsines, in that they explicitly involved the radius of the circle. Simon Stevin follows the same practice for his secant tables. Curiously, Clavius used the same large number for the radius as used in Madhava’s values (Clavius 1607). Documentary evidence of a connection comes from Clavius’ student Matteo Ricci who visited Cochin just prior to the Gregorian reform to get information about Indian methods of timekeeping (Ricci 1581). The Indian timekeeping or astronomy texts near Cochin contained detailed accounts of the calculus. On the epistemic test, those who copy don’t fully understand what they copy. This is also evidence of transmission: Clavius got the imported sine values explicitly interpolated to build a larger table, but did not know enough trigonometry to calculate the size of the earth. Recall that this size was routinely mentioned in Indian texts, and that the size of the earth was a key parameter needed for determining longitudes. (The calendar reform only settled the problem of latitudes.)"
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Computer scientistsEducators from IndiaMathematicians from IndiaPhysicists from IndiaScientists from India
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Imported from EN Wikiquote
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/C._K._Raju
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
C. K. Raju
78 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by C. K. Raju →
Related Quotes
"Such forgeries were common enough... So unenviable was the reputation that priests had acquired in this matter that I…"
"note here that the long-standing claims of Euclid's existence, and the surprisingly flimsy evidence on which they are…"
"The khichdi geometry in the NCERT text for Class 9 is indigestible because it has mixed up the Elements by mixing up …"
"It would be rather pointless and confusing to retain in these books information that was incorrect or defective or in…"
"Nevertheless, this laughable hypothesis is exactly what has been adopted with the 12th and 16th c. sources of “Greek”…"
"Attributing a book to a famous early source added not only to-the authority of the book, but also to its market price…"
"“Ptolemy’s” Almagest begins (as natural for an 11th c. text) with what look like paraphrases of controversies from th…"
"So, in practice, Western history has used two standards of evidence for transmission: one ultra-lax standard of evide…"
"The Doctrine of Christian Discovery, which instigated the subsequent triple genocide in three continents of South and…"
"There is not the slightest doubt that every piece of empirical evidence can be explained away by one who wants to han…"