ProofWiki:Mathematicians/Sorted By Nation/India

For more comprehensive information on the lives and works of mathematicians through the ages, see the MacTutor History of Mathematics archive, created by John J. O'Connor and Edmund F. Robertson.

"The army of those who have made at least one definite contribution to mathematics as we know it soon becomes a mob as we look back over history; 6,000 or 8,000 names press forward for some word from us to preserve them from oblivion, and once the bolder leaders have been recognised it becomes largely a matter of arbitrary, illogical legislation to judge who of the clamouring multitude shall be permitted to survive and who be condemned to be forgotten."

India

Baudhayana

c. 800 BCE

Indian mathematician, also a priest, believed to have flourished c. 800 BCE. Believed to have been a skilled craftsman, thus to have used his mathematical expertise in practical ways.

Did some early research into creating a circle with the same area as a given square.

Discovered $\pi$ to some degree of precision, and discovered what is now known as Pythagoras's Theorem.

Also evaluated the square root of 2 to five decimal places of accuracy.
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Piṅgalá

c. 5th or 2nd century B.C.E.

Indian mathematician about whom practically nothing is known, not even when he lived.

Notable for being the first in history to mention what is now known as Pascal's Triangle.
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Āryabhaṭa

476 – 550

Indian mathematician and astronomer.

An early believer in the irrationality of $\pi$, and developed an approximation for it of $3.1416$.
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Brahmagupta

598 – 668

Indian mathematician and astronomer.

Gave definitive solutions to the general linear equation, and also the general Quadratic Equation.

Best known for the Brahmagupta-Fibonacci Identity.
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Bhāskara I

c. 600 – c. 680

Indian mathematician who was the first on record to use Hindu-Arabic numerals complete with a symbol for zero.

Gave an approximation of the sine function in his Āryabhaṭīyabhāṣya of 629 CE.
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Mahāvīrāchārya

c. 800 – c. 870

Mahāvīrāchārya (literally: Mahāvīrā the teacher) was an Indian mathematician best known for separating the subject of mathematics from that of astrology.

Gave the sum of a series whose terms are squares of an arithmetical progression and empirical rules for area and perimeter of an ellipse.
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Gopāla

11th century

Gopāla was an Indian mathematician noted for studying the Fibonacci numbers before 1135.
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Acharya Hemachandra

1089 – 1172

Hemachandra Acharya Sūrī (Sanskrit: हेमचन्द्र सूरी) was an Indian all-rounder who, among other things, investigated the Fibonacci sequence, following Gopāla.
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Bhāskara II Āchārya

1114 – 1185

Bhāskara (Kannada: ಭಾಸ್ಕರಾಚಾರ್ಯ) was an Indian mathematician and astronomer.

He is known as Bhāskara II, Bhāskara Āchārya ("Bhāskara the teacher"), or Bhāskarāchārya, to distinguish him from Bhāskara I).
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Narayana Pandit

c. 1340 – c. 1400

Narayana Pandit (Sanskrit: नारायण पण्डित) was an Indian mathematician who made considerable contributions to several areas of Indian mathematics.
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Mādhava of Sañgamāgrama

c. 1350 – c. 1425

Indian mathematician who made pioneering contributions to the study of infinite series, calculus, trigonometry, geometry and algebra.

It has been suggested that his works made their way to Europe and had an influence on the later European development of calculus.
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Srinivasa Ramanujan

1887 – 1920

Srīnivāsa Aiyangār Rāmānujan (also Srinivasa Iyengar Ramanujan, in Tamil: சீனிவாச இராமானுஜன் or ஸ்ரீனிவாஸ ஐயங்கார் ராமானுஜன்) was an Indian mathematician who made substantial contributions to mathematical analysis, number theory, infinite series and continued fractions.

His name is also seen rendered as Ramanujam: the final letter of such names is ambiguous in Tamil.
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