Page 113 - year book 22-23(22.08)

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Interesting facts on Indian Mathematics

1) The 'Place Value System' and the 'Decimal System' were developed in India in 100 B.C.

2) Algebra, Trigonometry and Calculus are studies, which originated in India.
3) The concept of zero originated from India.

4) Brahmagupta, an Indian mathematician also demonstrated rules for working with negative
numbers.
5) 16 sutras and 16 sub sutras from Vedic mathematics form the base which can be put to use in

almost any branch of mathematics.
6) Indian human calculator Shakuntala Devi holds the record of multiplying two 13-digit
numbers, in just 28 seconds. Her name came up in the 1982 Guinness book of world records.

Kavya.S
9-'C'

TAXICAB NUMBERS

The number 1729 is known as the Hardy–Ramanujan number. This number has an interesting
story behind it. When Ramanujan fell seriously ill and G. H. Hardy who had gone to visit him,
had travelled in a taxi cab numbered 1729. Hardy found it to be a very dull number. But when he
discussed about the same with Ramanujan, he replied, “No, it is a very interesting number. It is
the smallest number that can be expressed as the sum of two cubes in two different ways.”

3
3
3
1729 = 12 + 1 = 10 + 9 3
Now, coming to Taxicab Numbers, These numbers can be expressed as the sum of
the cubes of 'n' numbers in 'n' ways. It is represented as Ta(n). The known taxicab
numbers are
Ta(1) = 2
Ta(2) = 1729
Ta(3) = 87539319
Ta(4) = 6963472309248
Ta(5) = 48988659276962496
Ta(6) = 24153319581254312065344
Ashritha. A
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