Re: BHARAT'S (INDIA'S) CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE WORLD

From: Robert Israel (israel_at_math.ubc.ca)
Date: 08/02/04 

Date: 2 Aug 2004 03:57:29 GMT

In article <WWx6f87rhLp0@TR099c9lSUIPZh>,
Dr. Jai Maharaj <usenet@mantra.com> wrote:
>Following are a few highlights of some inventions by our
>ancient sage-scientists -- most of these are excerpted from
>the MICHIGAN DAILY of January 24, 1992:

> ASTRONOMY: In the 5th century CE, Vedic scientist and
>astronomer Bhaskaracharya confirmed earlier calculations of
>the ancients of the time taken by earth to orbit the Sun to
>nine decimal places, 365.258756484 days -- a value that was
>later accepted by modern science.

That's ridiculous precision. 10^(-9) days = 86.4 microseconds.
Since Bhaskaracharya had no clock better than a sundial, there's
no way he could measure that. Anyway, he's way off: the right
answer is approximately 365.25636 days (assuming you're talking
about the sidereal year).

Robert Israel israel@math.ubc.ca
Department of Mathematics http://www.math.ubc.ca/~israel
University of British Columbia
Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1Z2

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