BOOK PREVIEW
About the Book:
This book presents
well-established modern methods of representation and quantitative evaluation
for a variety of entities, constants, functions, vectors, random quantities,
fuzzy sets, and abstract entities such as relationships, cooperation,
dependence, etc. and reveals striking similarities between these modern
concepts and the Hindu-Arabic Decimal Number System. We regularly work with
them without realizing these similarities perhaps because the centuries old Indian
Number System became so commonplace today that these connections are not
evidenced either by citations in the literature. It is hoped that this book
will serve to throw some new light on the INS which is held in high esteem by
great minds. The size of this book, its presentation in simple terms devoid of
mystifying jargon, and its capture of the basic elements of the vast subject of
mathematical concepts, especially in the field of systems and signals, are
expected to be attractive to both teachers and students.
Review
“Considering Ganti Prasada Rao's
book “Indian Number System (INS)- At the Center of the Mathematical world” I
remember his visit in Berlin in 2003. He was guest of our Research Institute
for Computer Architecture and Software Technology (FIRST) of the Fraunhofer
Society /German National Research Center for Computer Science and gave a
lecture with his historical view on number systems in mathematics and natural
sciences up to their use in computer technology. Now I read his comprehensive
book on this topic. It describes all the ideas and findings in the history of
numbers and his experience as expert in systems theory of linear systems and
self-organized systems. The book is a comprehensive description of the
different number systems with special focus on the Indian number system and
ended with mentioning functions and transformation. The book reflects Ganti
Prasada Rao's wide field of interests and knowledge in the basics of
mathematics and engineering and his novel insight into their connections with
the Indian Number System. I recommend this worthwhile book to all scientists
and students with interest in the basics of mathematics.”
- Achim
Sydow,
Professor
for Applied Systems Analysis,
Fraunhofer
Institute FIRST, Berlin.
“This book is a masterpiece and a
treasure house, data mining of number systems world over, unraveling the
knowledge inherent in the ancient Hindu number system, the Vedic scriptures,
and associating it to the multitude of present day mathematical concepts. We
all know elementary mathematics and the Indian Number System (INS), but very
few of us realize the original structure, its difference from the number
systems of the rest of the world, and the hidden power in it. In this book the
author has explained vividly the origin of the ancient Hindu number system, the
origin of 1,2,3,.. and the radix 10. He also brought out the advantages of the
INS over the other number systems. INS was originally known as the Hindu-Arabic
system, since the Arabs were responsible mainly in spreading it to the western
World, where the developments have taken place mostly. The author has also
brought out clearly and amazingly, how many modern mathematical concepts such
as scalars, vectors, functions f(t), representations as power series, orthogonal
series, correlation, convolution, Integral Transforms, etc., up to the
mathematics of Linear Dynamical Systems, ALL with examples, can be brought into
the fold of the INS. He called the special feature of the INS as “Array Pair
Structure” which is shown to be common between the INS and many mathematical
modern mathematical concepts of representation and evaluation. Thus, the field
of Mathematics is highly influenced by the INS. I consider this as the real
contribution of this book and we adore the intellect and novelty of the
author's presentation. This book is written very lucidly with original ideas,
evident of the underlying hard work and with easy flow, will be a proud
possession of any teacher and student.”
– B.L.
Deekshatulu,
Padmasri
Awardee,
Former Distinguished Scientist & Director
NRSA. |
Contents: 1.
Mathematics, the science of quantity 2. The saga of zero-one of the
greatest concepts and scientific discoveries of all time 3. The evolution of the number
concept 4. The hindu decimal number system 5. Evolution of modern forms of
representation of quantities from the ins 6. Relationships between pairs of
arrays of discrete entities and of functions 7. Array-pair evaluation with
shifted argument 8.
Representation of Polynomials in Matlab 9. Concluding Remarks |
About the Author:
Ganti Prasada Rao is an Emeritus Professor of Electrical Engineering, Indian Institute of
Technology, Kharagpur, India, with several decades of experience in teaching
and research. He is well known for his direct methods of Identification of
Continuous-time Systems and applications of special orthogonal functions in the
field of Systems and Control. He is an Honorary Professor of East china
University of Science and Technology, Shanghai, PR china and was visiting
professor at universities in the UK and Europe. He was Technical Advisor to the
Water and Electricity Department, Government of Abu Dhabi. He authored/
co-authored over 150 research papers and six books in the field of systems and
control. He is on the editorial boards of several International Research
Journals. He is a Member of UNESCO-EOLSS Joint Committee. He is a Life Fellow
of IEEE and Indian National Academy of Engineering and other professional
bodies in India and abroad.
He has been a frequently invited speaker on the
Indian mathematical heritage and the impact of the Indian number system on the
field of mathematics, subjects on which he has been pursuing independent
research over the last 30 years. The results have not been published so far but
are put together only in this book for the first time at the behest of many
colleagues and friends. This book begins with Aristotle’s definition of
mathematics as “the science of
quantity” and reveals many
connections between the Indian Number System (INS) and some key concepts in
modern mathematics. They are methods of representation and quantitative
evaluation of a variety of entities we handle today. We work with them without
realizing that conceptually their roots can be traced back to the centuries old
structure of the Indian Decimal Number System. |