ABU JAFAR MOHAMMAD IBN MUSA AL-KHWARIZMI

Arab Mathematician, Astronomer and Geographer

He was  a member of the academy  of sciences in Baghdad, which flourished during the rule of Caliph alma'mum. He mainly contributed on astronomy and algebra  in mathematics. The algebra enlarged upon the work of Diophantus and is largely concerned with methods for solving practical  computational problems rather than algebra as the term is now understood. Al-Khwarizmi confined his discussion to equations of the first and second degrees.

         His other works are a treatise on the Hindu system of numerals and treatise on geography. Al-Khwarizmi was the first Arab mathematician to expound the new number system systematically. His famous astronomical work, zij-al-sind-hind was based on other  scientists work.

JOHN COUCH ADAMS

British Astronomer

Adams was born in the small Cornish town of Launceston, where his father was a tenant farmer. He graduated in 1843 from Cambridge University and became Lowndean Professor of Astronomy and Geometry in 1858. In 1860, he was appointed director of the Cambridge Observatory.

His fame rests largely on the dramatic events surrounding the discovery of the planet Neptune in 1846, independently of Leverrier, the French astronomer. Adam's calculations, however, were ignored by Airy until Leverrier had published his own prediction. Later, James Challis and John Herchel were publicly pointed out that Adam's work had priority over Leverrier.

Adams later worked on the perturbations of the planets (1866), and on the secular variation of the mean motion of the Moon (1852), both difficult questions of mathematical astronomy. His scientific papers were published by his brother in two volumes in 1876 and 1901.

DR. C. V. RAMAN

The first Asian scientist to win the Nobel Prize was Dr. C V Raman.

Dr. Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman was born on 7tg November 1888 at Thiruchirapally. His father was a teacher a scholar in physics and mathematics. Raman was considered a genius since early childhood. He completed his matriculation at the age of 12 years. He passed B A Winning a gold medal. He had a boundless curiosity to learn new things, a love for science and enthusiasm for work. He topped M A as well as Indian audit and accounts service examination from Madras University.

In 1907 he got married to Lokasundari Ammal. At the age of 19 he already was on a high government post. Then he was promoted to Calcutta as assistant accountant general. In Culcutta he began research work at the Indian association for the cultivation of science. In 1915 he left the highly paid government job to teach as a professor in science college of Calcutta. He became Palit Professor at the age of 29.

Dr. Raman’s college laboratories became active research centres as many students came him for post graduation studies. He was so dedicated to his work that he often forgot to eat or sleep.

In 1921 he attended the Congress of the universities of the British Empire in London. While traveling by sea, the scientist in him was fascinated by the deep blue colour of the Mediterranean Sea. He made research on the scattering of the sunrays by the water molecules. His work was well appreciated. He was invited to many scientific seminars and conferences all over the world.

In February 1928 he discovered that the monochromatic light on scattering does not remain monochromatic. This discovery of nature’s hidden phenomenon, ‘The Raman Effect’, earned him many honours including British government’s Knighthood as well as the Nobel Prize in 1930.

In 1933 he was appointed the director of Indian Institute of science. He established Indian academy of science in 1934 and also the Raman research institute, which is based on our ancient scientific research. In 1954 he was honoured with Bharat Ratna.

This grand old man of Indian science passed away on 21^st November 1970.

ARYABHATTA

Our country has been pioneer in many fields from art, culture to science. When the rest of the world wasn’t even aware of many concepts, out sages invented and established quite a few facts.  Aryabhatta was one such great Indian Mathematician. 

Aryabhatta was born in Kerala in 476. He studied at Nalanda University. In 499 he wrote a book Aryabhatiya, which gives Hindu mathematics of that time. Subjects like astronomy, spherical trigonometry, arithmetic, algebra and plane trigonometry are dealt with in this book.

Aryabhatta also worked for the areas of a triangle and a circle. He was well appreciated . The Maurya ruler Buddhagupta appointed him as the head of the university . Aryabhatta was the first one to put forward the theory that our earth is round and day and night are created because it rotates around his own axis.

At that time it was believed that Rahu swallows the sun or moon, thus creating solar or lunar eclipses. But Aryabhatta cleared the misconception and declared that the eclipse are caused by the shadows cast by the earth and the moon. He also stated that the moon is dark and it shines only because of the sunlight.

However he also gave some wrong conclusion like the formulae for the volumes of a sphere and pyramid. He also wrongly claimed that the earth is centre of universe.

He was a great mathematician, the first one to give the ‘table of sines'. He was the  one who derived the value of pi as 3.1416 and claimed that it was an approximation.

Our first Indian satellite was named after him as Aryabhatta.