Aryabhatta Great Indian Scientist and Mathematician (Born 476 A.D, Died 550 A.D)

Aryabhata I

was an Indian mathematician who wrote the Aryabhatiya which summarises Hindu mathematics up to that 6th Century.

Influence of Aryabhatta on science and mathematics

Aryabhatta is considered to be one of the mathematicians who changed the course of mathematics and astronomy to a great extent. He is known to have considerable influence on Arabic science world too, where he is referred to as Arjehir. His notable contributions to the world of science and mathematics includes the theory that the earth rotates on its axis, explanations of the solar and lunar eclipses, solving of quadratic equations, place value system with zero, and approximation of pie (π).

Aryabhatta worked out the value of pi.

He worked out the area of a triangle. His exact words were, “ribhujasya phalashariram samadalakoti bhujardhasamvargah” which translates “for a triangle, the result of a perpendicular with the half side is the area”.

He worked on the summation of series of squares and cubes (square-root and cube-root).

He talks about the “rule of three” which is to find the value of x when three numbers a, b and c is given.

Aryabhatta calculates the volume of a sphere.

Aryabhatta described the model of the solar system, where the sun and moon are each carried by epicycles that in turn revolve around the Earth. He also talks about the number of rotations of the earth, describes that the earth rotating on its axis, the order of the planets in terms of distance from earth.

Aryabhatta describes the solar and lunar eclipses scientifically.

Aryabhatta describes that the moon and planets shine by light reflected from the sun.

Aryabhatta calculated the sidereal rotation which is the rotation of the earth with respect to the stars as 23 hours, 56 minutes and 4.1 seconds.

He calculated the length of the sidereal year as 365 days, 6 hours, 12 minutes and 30 seconds. The actual value shows that his calculations was an error of 3 minutes and 20 seconds over a year.

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