Supposed Influence From Indian Thought
The discoveries of Babbage (as to a lesser extent Herschel, de Morgan and George Boole) have been seen by some as being influenced by Indian thought, in particular Indian logic. Mary Everest Boole claims that Babbage, along with Herschel was introduced to Indian thought in the 1820s by her uncle George Everest:
Some time about 1825, came to England for two or three years, and made a fast and lifelong friendship with Herschel and with Babbage, who was then quite young. I would ask any fair-minded mathematician to read Babbage's Ninth Bridgewater Treatise and compare it with the works of his contemporaries in England; and then ask himself whence came the peculiar conception of the nature of miracle which underlies Babbage's ideas of Singular Points on Curves (Chap, viii) – from European Theology or Hindu Metaphysic? Oh! how the English clergy of that day hated Babbage's book!
Mary Boole also states:
Think what must have been the effect of the intense Hinduizing of three such men as Babbage, De Morgan, and George Boole on the mathematical atmosphere of 1830–1865. What share had it in generating the Vector Analysis and the mathematics by which investigations in physical science are now conducted?
Read more about this topic: Charles Babbage
Famous quotes containing the words supposed, influence, indian and/or thought:
“That is what we are supposed to do when we are at our best—make it all up—but make it up so truly that later it will happen that way.”
—Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961)
“Under the influence of fear, which always leads men to take a pessimistic view of things, they magnified their enemies’ resources, and minimized their own.”
—Titus Livius (Livy)
“There is no difference between the client and the prostitute. If a man goes to a prostitute, he is also a prostitute.”
—Sister Michele, Indian nun. As quoted in the New York Times Magazine, p. 35 (January 16, 1994)
“We thought it would be worth the while to read the epitaphs where so many were lost at sea; however, as not only their lives, but commonly their bodies also, were lost or not identified, there were fewer epitaphs of this sort than we expected, though there were not a few. Their graveyard is the ocean.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)