Tag Archives: Gauss

Two squares that sum to a cube

Introduction This note records an exploration that began in our youth with the simple arithmetic question: Sum of the squares of which pair integers yields a perfect cube? Some obvious cases immediately come to mind: . In both these cases … Continue reading

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A note on the least prime divisor sequences of 2p plus or minus 1

Let be the sequence of prime numbers: 2, 3, 5, 7… Define the sequences such that . Then sequence is defined such that is the lowest prime divisor (LPD) of and sequence is defined so that is the LPD of … Continue reading

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A sequence related to prime counting

The current note arose as an exploration branching off from the matter discussed in these earlier notes: this one and this one. As we saw before, Carl Gauss, while still in his teens, produced his first estimate of the prime … Continue reading

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Counting primes, arithmetic functions, Ramanujan and the like

We originally wished to have a tail-piece for our previous note that would describe more precisely the relationship between the Möbius function and the distribution of prime numbers. However, since that would have needed a bit of a detour in … Continue reading

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Of lives of men; of times of men-II

Of lives of men; of times of men-I Vidrum: “When we attended the discussions at the Right Wing Debate club we heard the president Rammandir Mishra repeatedly emphasize that South Asian civilization was not a ‘history-centric’ civilization and that history-centricism … Continue reading

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Triangles, Hexes and Cubes

One philosophical question which we have often ponder about is: Are numbers “real”? One way to approach this question is via figurate numbers, where numbers directly manifest as very tangible geometry. This idea has deep roots in our tradition: as … Continue reading

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The square root spiral and the Gamma function: entwined analogies

The topic discussed here is something on which considerable serious mathematical literature has published by P.J Davis, W. Gautschi and others. This partly historical narration is just a personal account of our journey through the same as a non-mathematician. As … Continue reading

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Some personal reflections on Carl Gauss, Bernhard Riemann and associated matters

The biochemist Albert Szent-Györgyi had famously remarked that as he successively, journeyed for a better understanding of life from cell biology, to physiology, to pharmacology, to bacteriology, to biochemistry, to physical chemistry to quantum mechanics he lost life between his … Continue reading

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Constructing a regular heptagon with hyperbola and parabola

There is little doubt that Archimedes was one of the greatest yavana intellectuals. He would also figure in any list of the greatest mathematician-scientists of all times. His work on the construction of a regular heptagon has not survived the … Continue reading

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upakathā of previous: śūlapuruṣa-catvārakam

It was a bright spring day, when the vaṭakinī mahotsava was being celebrated. Several families from the town were arriving early in the morning at a shrine, which contained a gigantic image of the terrible ape Hanūmat. Even as Somakhya … Continue reading

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