INDIAN JOURNAL OF HISTORY OF SCIENCE最新文献

The scientific enquiries of the Austroasiatic languages date to the first half of the 19th Century and gained momentum in the first half of the 20th Century. The study delineates the history of the development of Austroasiatic linguistic genealogy and the establishment of the Stammbaum. The scientific studies of sub-groups (spoken in India) like—Mon-Khmer (Khasi and Nicobarese) and Northern Munda (Ho, Korku, Mundari, and Santali) are considered integral to the present work as these are major language groups of the Austroasiatic family. The inter-ethnic connection and the genetic relationship of this Austroasiatic group living in India with those in mainland Southeast Asia have been established with scientific enquiries into these languages. This has not only revealed information regarding the chronological development of the scientific studies of the languages at different levels of linguistic analysis but also focuses on the change of dimensions of the enquiries across time and space. The language structure, being the remnants of the discourse of the past forms, the comparative linguistic enquiries of the less explored Austroasiatic languages have the potential to engage us to establish the cognate relationship on a stronger footing. This has been considered a prerequisite to language planning, feeding the Government's ‘Act East Policy’. Revisiting the ethnolinguistic connections with the speech communities of Southeast Asia can help in nation-building vision by reinforcing the age-old genetic connection by means of international co-operation and co-ordination in the fields of language, culture, and economy.

The aim of this research is to explore the philosophical position of various scientific theories based on the history and philosophy of science. This is because the philosophy of science, which has usually dealt mainly with epistemology and methodology, is extended to the concern of problems of ontology, that is, metaphysics. Determinism, which is rooted in the metaphysical belief that objective scientific knowledge exists independently of humankind’s perception, is comparable to a well-defined mechanism and can be described as “mathematization” of objective scientific knowledge—this is exemplified in the natural laws of dynamics established by Newton, Einstein, and Schrödinger. Conversely, if we move away from determinism, we need anthropomorphic concepts such as “possibility” and “contingency” to define the laws of nature. This paper investigates the shift from classical deterministic thought to the contingently perceived probabilistic theory, changes in scientific theories from a naturalistic viewpoint, and the convergence of theories achieved through this process. Since Darwin announced his theory of evolution, natural sciences have steadily undergone a shift from endeavoring to name, classify, and measure to emphasizing the transience of things, historical interest, and theorization. On the other hand, weak determinism states that things in the world are inevitable but also coincidental. Because there are coincidences, even if we know the current state of an object accurately, we cannot know its future state accurately; we can only know it probabilistically. It seems that things in the world occur through both necessity and coincidence and are not strictly determined. This kind of probabilistic weak determinism can be said to correspond to quantum theory and evolution theory.

Pascal’s wager is considered an important stepping stone for the emergence of probability that expresses subjective belief. Pascal is also sometimes credited with having invented decision theory. This paper analyzes the pre-modern Indian contributions to both decision theory and probability-as-subjective-belief theory. For that purpose, I have a close look at selected passages from the birth-story of Brahma, the Hitopadeśa, the Arthaśāstra, and the Mahābhārata. The main thesis is that the lottery offered by the king to the Buddha-to-be may be the world’s first use of a lottery in order to find out about the strength of a decision maker’s belief.

The latitude algorithm of Indian astronomy has been a long-standing puzzle. All interpretations of the algorithm by various authorities of the past have failed to produce a reasonably accurate result for the latitude of the heavenly bodies. In this paper we examine the latitude algorithm of the Moon in detail. It is determined that a central cause for the failure is a misinterpretation of the mean-max parameter as specified in ancient texts such as the Sūryasiddhānta. In addition, there appears to be a missing sub-algorithm for the calculation of maximum latitude, a key component in the overall latitude algorithm. After a detailed analysis, we provide a conjecture of what the missing algorithm for the Moon’s maximum latitude may have been like and why it was possibly expunged from the Sūryasiddhānta.

This article highlights and describes the important historical developments in critical care medicine worldwide, including India’s initial journey in this field. The concept of critical care is modern; however, its underlying foundations are profound and have their starting point in the work of Ignaz Semmelweis and Joseph Lister, who laid the foundation for scientific developments in medicine. The routes of critical care can also be found in the contribution of Florence Nightingale in the 1850s during the Crimean War, which included the concept of separate geographical areas for those who were sicker than others. With the emergence of this concept, the establishment of separate post-operative units, the formation of shock wards, the use of artificial airways and mechanical ventilators, the constant evolution of biomedical technology, etc., further led to advancements in critical care medicine. In India, critical care remained focused on cardiac and respiratory care in its initial days but later expanded to involve other unstable patients. The private sector took the lead in establishing separate critical care units, followed by government teaching hospitals. In the current era, critical care medicine represents tremendous growth in the field of biotechnology, innovative communication approaches, the use of multi-disciplinary approach, and essentially the use of evidence-based practices. Furthermore, the emergence of precision medicine has started influencing treatment choices and healthcare decisions to provide more personalized medical care.

Palaeodietary reconstruction, a rapidly emerging field of multidisciplinary archaeology, helps to reconstruct prehistoric people’s food consumption or subsistence behavior. Trace element analysis plays a vital role in the palaeodietary reconstruction of prehistoric populations. Trace elements such as Strontium (Sr), Zinc (Zn), Barium (Ba), Calcium (Ca), Copper (Cu), Magnesium (Mg), and Iron (Fe) found in the human bone provide valuable indicators for reconstructing dietary behavior of the ancient human population. It has been observed that the concentration of the trace element Zn depleted from herbivore to carnivore, whereas it is reversed in the case of Sr. The present study of the dietary behavior of the Roopkund skeletons shows higher concentrations of strontium than Zn, as reported in the human skeletons of Roopkund. Based on preliminary results, a significant component of vegetal material can be ascertained in the diet of most of the human skeletons reported from the Roopkund region.

The pandiagonal magic squares have been known in India from the time of Nāgārjuna (c.100 CE) and Varāhamihira (c.550 CE). In his comprehensive mathematical study of magic squares presented in the Bhadragaṇita chapter of Gaṇitakaumud(bar{iota }) (c. 1356 CE), Nārāyaṇa Paṇḍita has briefly outlined a method for constructing 4 × 4 pandiagonal magic squares based on turagagati or horse movements in a chess board. In this paper, we present a study of the verses of Nārāyaṇa Paṇḍita which leads to a method of construction of 4 × 4 pandiagonal squares by horse moves only. We also show that this algorithm generates all (and only) the 384 pandiagonal squares of order 4. Besides presenting this algorithm, this paper discusses various properties exhibited by these squares along with their proofs.

Historically, Indian Knowledge, has been classified into Aṣṭādaśa-vidyāsthānas (अष्टादशविद्यास्थान), eighteen abodes of knowledge. This classification scheme assigns an appropriate place for all components of Indian knowledge in a consistent system. In modern libraries, based mainly on the Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC), there is no natural place for the corpus of Indian Knowledge (IK), and different components of IK get split over widely separate diverse classes. In this article, we describe India’s traditional classification of knowledge and propose a national modification of the DDC to incorporate the former. The proposed scheme shall ensure that the diverse corpora of IK are compactly brought together in Indian libraries. This shall help the students and scholars appreciate the breadth and depth of IK and also the interconnectedness of its different components. It is impossible to understand the history of any element of IK, including Indian Sciences and Technologies, without comprehending the interconnectedness of the entire corpus.

How did the European industrialists influence the nature and form of the course in sugar chemistry and technology, as well as its standard and form of training at Harcourt Butler Technological Institute, Kanpur? This course led to the Imperial Institute of Sugar Technology's establishment (renamed National Sugar Institute after independence) in 1937 at Kanpur. The overwhelming presence of Europeans in the sugar industry until the 1920s gave European industrialists an influential role in deciding policy for technical education in colonial India. Although the sugar industry became a prominent political arena for Indian industrialists after the tariff protection of 1932, technical education for industrialization was not a serious concern for industrialists. The paper examines the process of initiating advanced courses for sugar chemists and technologists at HBTI by the second decade of the twentieth century. Proceedings of the Department of Industries of the Government of India and the United Provinces and official reports are analyzed to understand the political and social underpinning of the process of setting up a sugar technology course at HBTI, which subsequently emerged as an independent institute for sugar technology named as Imperial Institute of Sugar Technology Kanpur.

This paper presents a brief history of semiconductor science and technology and examines the role of Indian scientists in the decade following the invention of the transistor. The paper first outlines the development towards identifying and understanding the special characteristics of semiconductors. The current understanding of the physics of semiconductors and their properties are briefly mentioned thereafter. A chronological listing of different works, starting from the first report by Volta in 1782 and other scientists, is given, and how their findings gave evidence to this special class of materials is pointed out. In the list, a brief mention is also made about J. C. Bose’s invention of the first semiconductor device and his work related to materials, later identified as semiconductors. This listing, with a brief mention, continues by outlining the progress towards developing semiconductor science and technology until the end of World War II. The invention of the transistor, announced on December 23, 1947 created a boom in activities worldwide in semiconductors, improvement in device performance, and announcement of newer semiconductor devices. Indian research in this area over the decade after the invention of the transistor is identified. International research had been in full swing in this period, and some of these developments that paved the way for the invention of integrated circuits in 1958–1960 are listed and discussed. Finally, the reasons are sought for limited work and the general unawareness or lack of interest of Indian workers in this important area, leading to the present Information Age, compared to international activity.