Bhaskara-II
When I first found out about the show on Bhaskara-II, I had questions - "Who is this guy? and why was he given so much importance in Math!!!!" I researched the online resources on Bhaskara's works a bit. Something quickly struck a chord with me Bhaskara-II documents five different modes of multiplying two numbers, as practiced in those days. One of them is a split method. For example, 12 * 12 is split as (10 + 2) * 12 to make it easy for beginners to multiply. 120 + 24 = 144. Interestingly this is how I used to do addition when I was a kid. I used to split to smaller numbers to add up to 10. For eg: 17 + 15. I see the units as 7+3+2 = 10+2. I used to split it to make 10 first and add the rest. Sounds crazy but it worked for me. I also came to know some more interesting facts In those days they weighed with fruit seeds and grains!!!! Isn’t awesome. Bhaskara-II was not only a mathematician but also very good at astronomy. He was good at poe...