Baudhayana is an Indian mathematician who lived in, approximately, the IXth century BC.
But he’s above all a priest, like most of the Indian mathematicians. At that time, priests were the most educated, they were teachers and they were all Brahmans. That’s why, as a mathematician priest, Baudhayana wrote the SulbaSutra, a chapter about mathematics, which is the completing part of the Vedas. The Vedas which means “knowledge”, is a long book written in ancient India. The Vedic religion is, we can say, the ancestor of the Hinduism. This “book” contains four “chapters” which are: The Rig-Veda, the Yajurveda, the Samaveda and the Atharvaveda. Coming back to Baudhayana, Baudhayana has been known to have calculated the value of pi to some degree of precision and to have discovered the actual Pythagorean theorem. But in all that, he hasn’t proved that what he said was right, but now, with all our formulas, we can agree with him even if it’s mysterious. Now, we’ll see what he’s found with more details:
The Pythagorean theorem:
Baudhayana discovered that the square of the diagonal of a square is equal to the sum of the squares of two sides of it. a2=b2+c2.
Baudhayana also demonstrated that 2 into the side into another side of a square is equal to the sum of the two sides of a triangle. 2*ss*ss=st2+st2.
Circle the square:
Baudhayana has found how to draw a circle and a square having the same area:
“Draw half its diagonal about the center towards the East-West line; then describe a circle together with a third part of that which lies outside the square.”
Value of the square root of 2:
Baudhayana found also the approximate value of pi which is calculated and correct to five decimals:
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Baudhayana found many other theorem:
- Diagonals of rectangle bisect each other,
- diagonals of rhombus bisect at right angles,
- area of a square formed by joining the middle points of a square is half of original,
- the midpoints of a rectangle joined forms a rhombus whose area is half the rectangle, etc.
not bad
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