All About Aryabhata

A great mathematician emerged in the classical era of mathematics. Aryabhata is the most prominent scientist in history. He lived in the Gupta period (318-319 CE), and many ingenious scholars emerged after Aryabhata. But his contributions were the most profound. His place of birth is not yet known, but it is likely that he was born in Kerala and later moved to a place in Bihar for his advanced education. This place is assumed to be Kusumapura.

In Hindu traditions, Kusumapura is called Patalipura. Tarragona is a village in Bihar that in 2009 was declared by NASA as the best place to see celestial phenomena. There is a belief that Aryabhata would go to Taregna to study the planets, and he later built a famous astronomical observatory in the village. The one fact that remains certain is that Arybhata’s contributions changed the History of Indian Mathematics and that he was the greatest astronomer and mathematician of all time. Find out, in brief, about the achievement of the greatest astronomer and mathematician in the world.

Aryabhata’s contribution to mathematics

Aryabhata has made many contributions to mathematical fields such as arithmetic, algebra, and trigonometry. His most groundbreaking discovery was the approximate value of the pi- 3.14. Aryabhata also contributed to the development of the table of sines.

In trigonometry, the area of a triangle is defined by Aryabhata as ‘ the result of a perpendicular with the half-side is the area’. 

Aryabhata formulated the simplified formulas for the summation of a series of squares and cubes. The Hindu calendar used even in Modern times is developed based on Aryabhata’s calculations. Most of his work was lost. Fortunately, his work was referenced by various scholars in their work. And this is the reason that people were able to find out about his groundbreaking discoveries.

Aryabhata’s contribution to astronomy

In conflict with the traditional belief that the earth is the centre of the solar system, Aryabhata studied the celestial bodies and promoted the concept of Heliocentrism. For those unfamiliar, Heliocentrism is a concept in which the moon, earth, and all other planets move around the sun. He also calculated the planetary positions in our solar system. It was determined relative to the uniform points in the solar system. 

The two epicycle models given by Aryabhata are viewed as similar to the concepts in Greek astronomy. His work has a lot of importance in the theories and models developed by other mathematicians that came after him. The Arabic and Greeks have translated his work from the ‘Aryabhatiya’.

He also disagreed with the general belief that the moon shines with its light at night. It was Aryabhata who proved that the moon merely reflects the light, coming from the sun. Aryabhata has his unique way of studying and stating things. Instead of using the standard method to explain the ellipses, he used the information from the shadows cast by falling on earth for explaining the ellipses.

Aryabhata’s calculations were far more accurate than other well-known mathematicians even at that time. He is considered the Father of Indian Mathematics for his influence and work in the classical period that formed the basis of many mathematical discoveries throughout.

Conclusion

We have divided and explained in-depth, Aryabhata’s work in mathematics and astronomy for ease of reading. Aryabhata’s contributions were difficult to discover because most of the text was lost in the coming period. His work is known today from ‘Aryabhatiya’ and other texts in which his work was referred to by many mathematicians. His most famous and important discovery is the place-value system, in which the mathematician used zero. He has also broken some traditional astronomical beliefs about the movements of the celestial bodies in the solar system.