Mathematics – History and Overview
Scientific paper
2009-04-07
In History of the Mathematical Sciences II, edited by B.S. Yadav and S.L. Singh, Cambridge Scientific Publishers, 2010
Mathematics
History and Overview
To appear as a chapter in Ancient Indian Leaps into Mathematics, Birkhauser, 2009
Scientific paper
We provide textual evidence on divisibility and primality in the ancient Vedic texts of India. Concern with divisibility becomes clear from the listing of all the fifteen pairs of divisors of the number 720. The total number of pairs of divisors of 10,800 is also given. The motivation behind finding the divisors was the theory that the number of divisors of a certain periodic process is related to the count associated with some other periodic process. For example, 720 (days and nights of the year) has 15 pairs of divisors, and this was related to the 15 days of the waxing and waning of the moon. Numbers that have no divisors appeared to have been used to symbolize the "transcendent" that is beyond periodicity and change.
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