Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts with the label knowledge

From myths toward mathematics

Courtesy: The Hindu 11 – 10 = ½ = 0.5 The equation on the blackboard baffled me as I walked into a classroom where I was given an exam duty.  Somebody had rubbed out something, I thought.  My mind started playing its usual game.  Come on, change it, said my mind. This is how I changed it:  11 – 10 = 1 I erased two figures mentally, the denominator 2 and the final decimal part of the equation.  Such a simplistic solution failed to satisfy me especially since I had a lot of free time in the exam room.  Seeing my solution, Sherlock Holmes would have said, “Elementary, Mr Matheikal.” My mind made the following equation: (11 - 10 ) ÷  2 = ½ = 0.5 That was neat, said my mind.  I had added a denominator 2 to the first part of the equation.     11 – 10 = 1 = 0.5 x 2 What I did was to transpose the denominator 2 to the RHS (right hand side) of the equation. One could go on.  How far you go with it depends on your capacity to work with numbers as well

Meditation

Page 87 of The Prayer of the Frog - Volume I by Anthony de Mello Published by Gujarat Sahitya Prakash, 1988