Wednesday, December 16, 2015

ICPR
Aims and Objectives
The Council has been set up by the Government of India to achieve the following aims and objectives: 
  • To review the progress of research in Philosophy from time to time;
  • To sponsor or assist projects or programmes of research in Philosophy;
  • To give financial support to institutions and organizations engaged in the conduct of research in Philosophy;
  • To provide technical assistance or guidance for the formulation of research projects and programmes in Philosophy, by individuals or institutions, and/or organize and support institutional or other arrangements for training in research methodology;
  • To indicate periodically areas in and topics on which research in Philosophy should be promoted and to adopt special measures for the development of research in neglected or developing areas in Philosophy;
  • To co-ordinate research activities in Philosophy and to encourage programme of inter-disciplinary research;
  • To organize, sponsor and assist seminars, special courses, study circles, working groups/parties, and conferences for promoting research in Philosophy, and to establish institutes for the same purpose;
  • To give grants for publication of digests, journals, periodicals and scholarly works devoted to research in Philosophy and also to undertake their publication;
  • To institute and administer fellowships, scholarships and awards for research in Philosophy by students, teachers and others;
  • To develop and support documentation services, including maintenance and supply of data, preparation of an inventory of current research in Philosophy and compilation of a national register of philosophers;
  • To promote collaboration in research between Indian philosophers and philosophical institutions and those from other countries;
  • To take special steps to develop a group of talented young philosophers and to encourage research by young philosophers working in universities and other institutions;
  • To advise the Government of India on all such matters pertaining to teaching and research in philosophy as may be referred to it by the Government of India from time to time;
  • To enter into collaboration on mutually agreed terms, with other institutions, organizations and agencies for the promotion of research in Philosophy;
  • To promote teaching and research in Philosophy;
  • Generally to take all such measures as may be found necessary from time to time to promote research in Philosophy; and
  • To create academic, administrative, technical, ministerial and other posts in the Council and to make appointments, thereto in accordance with the provisions of the Rules and Regulations.

Wednesday, December 9, 2015

  
     

A Brief History of Mathematics

People seem compelled to organize. They also have a practical need to count certain things: cattle, cornstalks, and so on. There is the need to deal with simple geometrical situations in providing shelter and dealing with land. Once some form of writing is added into the mix, mathematics cannot be far behind. It might even be said that the symbolic approach precedes and leads to the invention of writing.
Archaeologists, anthropologists, linguists and others studying early societies have found that number ideas evolve slowly. There will typically be a different word or symbol for two people, two birds, or two stones. Only slowly does the idea of 'two' become independent from the things that there are two of. Similarly, of course, for other numbers. In fact, specific numbers beyond three are unknown in some lesser developed languages. A bit of this usage hangs on in our modern English when we speak, for example, of a flock of geese, but a school of fish.
The Maya, the Chinese, the Civilization of the Indus Valley, the Egyptians, and the region of Mesopotamia between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers -- all had developed impressive bodies of mathematical knowledge by the dawn of their written histories. In each case, what we know of their mathematics comes from a combination of archaeology, the references of later writers, and their own written record.
Mathematical documents from Ancient Egypt date back to 1900 B.C. The practical need to redraw field boundaries after the annual flooding of the Nile, and the fact that there was a small leisure class with time to think, helped to create a problem oriented, practical mathematics. A base-ten numeration system was able to handle positive whole numbers and some fractions. Algebra was developed only far enough to solve linear equations and, of course, calculate the volume of a pyramid. It is thought that only special cases of The Pythagorean Theorem were known; ropes knotted in the ratio 3:4:5 may have been used to construct right angles.
What we know of the mathematics of Mesopotamia comes from cuneiform writing on clay tablets which date back as far as 2100 B.C. Sixty was the number system base -- a system that we have inherited and preserve to this day in our measurement of time and angles. Among the clay tablets are found multiplication tables, tables of reciprocals, squares and square roots. A general method for solving quadratic equations was available, and a few equations of higher degree could be handled. From what we can see today, both the Egyptians and the Mesopotamia's (or Babylonians) stuck to specific practical problems; the idea of stating and proving general theorems did not seem to arise in either civilization.
Chinese mathematics -- a vast and powerful body of knowledge --, although mainly practical and problem oriented, did contain general statements and proofs. A method similar to Gaussian Reduction with back-substitution for solving systems of linear equations was known two thousand years earlier in China than in the West. The value of p was known to seven decimal places by 500 A.D., far in advance of the West.
In India mathematics was also mainly practical. Methods of solving equations were largely centered around problems in astronomy. Negative and irrational numbers were used. Of course, India is noted for developing the concept of zero, that was passed into Western mathematics via the Arabic tradition, and is so important as a place holder in our modern decimal number system.
The Classic Maya civilization (250 BC to 900 AD) also developed the zero and used it as a place holder in a base-twenty numeration system. Again, astronomy played a central role in their religion and motivated them to develop mathematics. It is noteworthy that the Maya calendar was more accurate than the European at the time the Spanish landed in The Yukatan Peninsula.

Ancient Greece

The axiomatic method came into full force in Ancient Greek times; it has characterized mathematics ever since. Geometry was center stage in ancient times. Mathematical models, or idealizations of the real world, were built around points, lines, and planes. Numbers were represented as lengths of line segments. Modern mathematics still relies on the axiomatic method, but tends to be more algebraically based.
Key to the axiomatic method are abstraction and proof. For example, the idea of a point as a pure location with no extension is an abstraction since a point cannot physically exist. A dot differs from a point in that a dot has extension, and represents only an approximate location. Nevertheless, since they can be seen, we use dots to represent points which cannot be seen. Lines, planes and circles are also abstract ideas. That is, they represent idealizations, rather than concrete objects which actually exist. After all, a plane has no thickness, and cannot be anything except a boundary between two regions in space.
An interest in investigating the properties of abstract objects characterizes Greek mathematics. Precise definitions; a small number of commonly accepted assumptions called axioms or postulates are made; then general results (lemmas, theorems, and corollaries) are proved using logic.
One of the best ways to learn more about the history of mathematics is by looking into the lives and work of mathematicians. What follows is a brief list of mathematicians. You can read about each by clicking on the hyperlinks. Use the back button on your browser to get back here.