OT: Something odd about that queue?

[Custos Custodum]

Loads, actually, as even a cursory google would reveal.

[zall]

Not gifted, paid for by taxation of the inhabitants.

Nope, sold, actually.

[Jeff Gaines]

You really have no idea what is happening in the world do you?

[Cursitor Doom]

Nope! The foundations of physics were laid by English and German scientists all the way. Indian scientists are merely riding on the coat-tails of greats like Faraday, Maxwell, Newton and Leibnitz.

>

[Tim Streater]

Inefficient, scruffy, and f****ng arrogant.

[Rod Speed]

You really have no idea what real slavery involves, do you?

Real slaves don't get paid, are bought and sold and if they attempt to leave their slave owners, the authoritys return them to their slave owners.

There are NONE in that situation today, particularly with the last bit.

[Tim Streater]

Not quite true. You're overlooking physicists like Satyendra Nath Bose, astronomers like Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar. Then there's Abdus Salam, scientific advisor to the Ministry of Science and Technology in Pakistan from

1960 to 1974, and Professor of Physics at Imperial while I was an undergrad.

[Cursitor Doom]

Did you graduate with a degree in physics from Imperial, then?

[Custos Custodum]

That's how science works. What did Newton say about "standing on the shoulders of giants"? (Even if he was having a dig at Hooke). The concepts of zero and negative numbers, and even the decimal system were developed by Indian mathematicians long before the time of Newton and Leibnitz. Maxwell was Scottish, BTW.

[williamwright]

They all had black clothes.

Bill

[williamwright]

No, it's mostly in your skull.

Bill

[williamwright]

Not sure about that comma.

Bill

[Tim Streater]

I already posted that I did.

[Cursitor Doom]

Nope the developments of early mathematics are all due to the efforts of Arabs, not Indians. I'm not saying Indians are useless; they've come a very long way indeed. But it's thanks solely to the British that they're not still running around in loincloths and talking a dozen different languages. It's THEY who owe US and it's about time somebody told them.

[Cursitor Doom]

The *technologies* not the actual infrastructure itself (although of course the early road and rail was all built under the direction of the British in their attempts to modernise the country.

Nope, gifted. Where do you think they got their education from? They came over to GB, studied hard at our universities, made something of themselves and can now, thanks to the Brits, stand on their own two feet, contributing something back to the growth and prosperity of India. They owe us an enormous debt of gratitude. It's only fools like you who keep making them think otherwise.

[Cursitor Doom]

Anyway, the point is that the countries of India, Pakistan et al would be nowhere today without the foundation gifted to them by the British.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Actually, they still are.

[Max Demian]

You could say the Indians invented NOTHING (and it's their most important invention).

[SteveW]

No, Indians had a very important contribution - the value of zero.

Until then, various symbols were used to denote a "placeholder" where a line of an addition or in a list would otherwise be empty, but it was from India that the concept that subtracting a number from itself or multiplying any number by zero gave a *value* of zero. Without that the whole concept of a digit having different values in different positions within a number would not work (as you could not have no hundreds in a four digit number for instance). It is a fundamental concept that massively progressed maths.

Certainly railways, voting, the justice system etc. was brought to India by the British. I am sure that they would have seen what was going on elsewhere and introduced much of it themselves, but maybe running some decades behind.

[Jeff Gaines]

Note the distinction:

The Indians invented zero.

The Indians invented the zero.

:-)