Thread by @JoeAgneya

Venkatesh Bapuji Ketkar(1854-1930)

The last great astronomer in the Siddhanta lineage of Aryabhata, Bhaskara & Madhava.

He predicted with remarkable calculations the existence of the 9th planet in 1911 before Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto in 1930

Do you know him, countrymen?

Though forgotten by India, he predicted many orbital parameters of Pluto. Bapuji's calculations were better than those of Percival Lowell & Henry Pickering who are still honoured. He published in May 1911 issue of Bulletin of Astronomical Society of France
worldcat.org/identities/lcc…

Bapuji was a school teacher. Learned in the ancient Siddhanta texts, he sustained the dying Vedic scientific tradition for one more generation. He compiled 'Jyotir-ganita' in Sanskrit, with 1875 as epoch

Vedic astronomy survived into the 20th century only with Western patronage.

Before Clyde announced the discovery of Pluto in Feb 1930, Bapuji died of severe paralytic stroke.

It will be said that Clyde did not know of Ketkar. That he used only the work of his western predecessors

We do not have proof. No study has been done on possible influence.
But..

We do know that Bapuji published in Europe. It is not proper to allege without adequate proof, but learning the 1000 year history of the Aryabhata school of mathematics and what happened to their work, you will become a cynic and pessimist of human nature.
rajeshkochhar.com/data/publicati…

Kochhar, Rajesh & Narlikar, Jayant (1995) Astronomy in India: A Perspective (New Delhi: Indian National Science Academy)

Narinder Singh Kapani (92 years) is acknowledged as the Father of 'Fiber optics'-a term he coined. His work in 1953 ushered in a new era of High speed Internet, endoscopy, spectroscopy etc An unsung hero, he never patented it. He NEVER won a nobel.

Do you know him, countrymen?

The world map of submarine optic fiber cables today. This is the backbone of the internet, not satellites. Forget a Nobel, NOTHING in this entire infrastructure is named after Kapani.