Promoting Eastern Mathematics

Discovery of mathematics did not prevail only on the west. As the west became developed, east is part of their progress.

The great wall China is amazing coup of engineering. Chinese then realized that they need to calculate distances, angles of elevation and amounts of material. Through this, it helped to build the Imperial China. The discovery of the “Magic Square” or the early version of soduku was discovered on China; where all the numbers on each line vertically, horizontally and diagonally equal to 15- a pattern of numbers.

Through a geometric progression, an emperor should sleep with every 121 women in 15 days. Mathematics has its own “fun” purpose but plays a vital role for the progression- to acquire the best possible imperial succession of Imperial China. The emperor’s decision or plans are dependent on the calendar and even movements of astronomical objects influenced his selection; this is where astronomers are always considered as mathematician.

Qin Jiushao was described as a fantastically corrupt emperor; fierce as a tiger and poisonous as a viper. But his military life according to him, took away his true passion- the Mathematics. Qin Jushao did searching for the solution of cubic equations through knowing the exact dimension of Chairman Mao’s Mausoleum but unfortunately he only get an approximation not the exact solution.

But there was a missing number that a country lying to the southwest China would introduce this to the world- the India. Since 9^th century India had a representation of nothingness- the number “0”. For the Greeks, zero did not exist. For the Egypt, Mesopotamia and China number zero is a placeholder. But India transformed zero to make sense and represent nothing, yet “0” revolutionized mathematics. Nowadays, we used ten digits of numbers namely 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 including zero and these are used for calculating efficiently large numbers. Then, there was this man named Brahmagupta who coined his rule in calculating zero which is taught in school all over the world; 1+0 equals 1; 1-0 equals 1 and 1x0 equals 0 and for Bhaskara II 1/0 is infinity.  Also, the Indians recognized the new sort of nothing- the progression of negative numbers or the Indians called it a “debt”.

Trigonometry is like a dictionary, translating geometry to numbers. The sine function was then created and used for measuring the angles and the sides a right triangle. The use of this function helped them to navigate the seas, survey the land, and explore solar system without even going outside the surface of the earth. But the Greeks and Indians did not know how to use sine function to calculate all type of degrees they might encounter. In 15^th century, in Kerala, South India, a man named Madhava who was passionate about infinite numbers was able to calculate the exact value of pi (π) by adding the sums of fractions. He went on his the same style of calculation and came up with a sine formula in trigonometry and the wonderful thing is that this formula nowadays is used to calculate the sine of all any angle of any degree.

In Middle East, where the Muslim scholars were collecting ancient text, translating it and preserving it for future purposes. Then they realized that they should not be only contented on translating mathematics from different civilization, they must be having their own mathematics. Al-Khwarizmi who created the Hindu-Arabic numerals to speed up calculation and do things efficiently which Al-Khwarizmi proposed these numerals to the west and was later adopted by the people by common sense. These numbers are 1-9 and 0. Also, Algebra which is grammar of the numbers that underlies the way it works came into a new step. This is the time in Middle East when algebra was now able to analyse problem and give a solution that will work whatever the number.

Led by Italy, Europe was already trading to the east. So, through trading of the materials there was also a trade of knowledge from the east to the west and there was a development of Western mathematics. The Hindu-Arabic numerals were adopted by the people of Europe despite of the opposition of the authorities. Fibonacci series or a series of numbers in which each number is the sum of the two preceding numbers.  These kind of series are the nature’s best-loved; a number of petals in a flower, segments of pineapple and even the snail’s shell or wherever there is a growth of nature there is always Fibonacci series. Finally, 16^th century came and Italy found the general method of solving all kinds of cubic equation. Before, it was then concluded that solving and finding general solution for cubic equation was impossible. But a man proved everyone is wrong his name is Tartaglia. He is scholar that believed that he found the solution of a type of cubic equation. But there was also named Fior who boasted that he too found the solution but then he lost in an intellectual competition and Tartaglia won. Furthermore, Tartaglia was still finding a solution for all types of cubic equation but a desperate man called Cardano who kept the secret of Tartaglia’s work revealed the secret to his brilliant student named Ferrari then make use of Tartaglia’s work to make a solution for quartic equation. After that, they published their work and Tartaglia’s work but the name was Cardano’s Formula in which this formula is used today to solve cubic equations. At that moment, Europeans now had in their hands the language of algebra, the powerful Hindu-Arabic numerals and the beginning of mastering infinity.

Before the west discovered their mathematics in their own, some of the greatest discovery and development of mathematics was first happened in the east a century before including the exact value of pi. And without these discoveries like the zero and Hindu-Arabic numerals from the east I think that it will be very hard for the students to solve equations; for the mathematicians to discover new mathematical things and for an engineering student to calculate angles.