The Indian government and UNESCO will be hosting conferences on the number zero, its history and significance on December 22 every year, in the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore and UNESCO’s headquarters at Paris. They will work jointly to spread a love for mathematics among students across the world by introducing innovative teaching methods and presenting positive role models.
As a part of the collaborative effort, both parties will also highlight the works of Ramanujan and Aryabhata. Ramanujam, who passed away at the young age of 32 in 1920, made pioneering contributions to number theory and authored hundreds of papers with many top mathematicians of the day, including British mathematician GH Hardy. Ramanujam who is famous for his work on very large numbers and infinity also authored several papers on mathematical concepts that form the basis for today’s advances in cosmology and astrophysics. His birth anniversary falls on 22 December and is celebrated in India as National Mathematics Day.
Aryabhata, who lived in the fifth century AD is one of many mathematicians who made India a scientific powerhouse at the time. Working on mathematics and astronomy, he was among the earliest to use the concept of zero, besides calculating the time of the day with remarkable accuracy, and postulating that the Earth revolved around the Sun. A product of the famed Nalanda University in eastern India, which was a melting pot of cultures and academic thought, the mathematician later moved to Varanasi, where he wrote most of his works. His astronomical treatise Aryabhatiyya, was hugely influential on later mathematicians in India, the Arab world and Europe. Written in dialectical form, it was the culmination of a long history of scientific thought expressed in this form. UNESCO will be setting up a statue of Aryabhata at its headquarters.
