"It should be mentioned also that the Hindus, unlike the Greeks, regarded irrational roots of numbers as numbers. This was of enormous help in algebra, and Indian mathematicians have been much praised for taking this step; but one must remember that the Hindu contribution in this case was the result of logical innocence rather than of mathematical insight. We have seen the lack of nice distinction on the part of Hindu mathematicians between exact and inexact results, and it was only natural that they should not have taken seriously the difference between commensurable and incommensurable magnitudes. For them there was no impediment to the acceptance of irrational numbers, and later generations followed their lead uncritically until in the nineteenth century mathematicians established the real number system on a sound basis."
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quoted in : Bhaskar Kamble, The Imperishable Seed: How Hindu Mathematics Changed the World and why this History was Erased, Garuda Prakashan Private Limited, 2022 ISBN 9798885750189
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Carl_Benjamin_Boyer
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Carl Benjamin Boyer
Carl Benjamin Boyer (November 3, 1906 β April 26, 1976) was an American historian of sciences, and especially mathematics. He wrote the books History of Analytic Geometry, The History of the Calculus and Its Conceptual Development, A History of Mathematics, and The Rainbow: From Myth to Mathematics. He served as book-review editor of '.
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