Tomichan Matheikal's blog

Ancient India was a powerhouse of new concepts in mathematics and astronomy, asserts William Dalrymple’s new book, The Golden Road . India stood out most dramatically in scientific rather than spiritual ideas. Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister, wrote in his classic Discovery of India : “It is remarkable that the Indians, though apparently detached from life, were yet intensely curious about it, and this curiosity led them to science.” Why does the present prime minister of the country choose to highlight the religious contributions? Well, you know the answer. While reading Dalrymple yesterday, I was reminded of a math prof I had for my graduation course. Baby was his first name and I can’t recall the surname. ‘Baby’ was a common name for men in Kerala of the mid-twentieth century. The present General Secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) is a 71-year-old Baby from Kerala. Our Prof Baby was a middle-aged man who knew a lot more than mathematics. One day ...

“Zero was one of the greatest inventions in human history,” I remember one of my mathematics teachers telling us at St Albert’s college, Ernakulam.  Without zero we would have reached nowhere beyond some letters like X and M and C which were employed gratuitously in the Roman arithmetic.  Zero simplified and complexified mathematics at once.  It made easy not only counting but also all mathematical operations such as multiplication and division.  Just imagine division, for example, in the Roman system.  MMXLVI divided by IXCMXXXIII.  Wow, that is 1946 divided by 9933, after the invention of zero.  And the answer is 0.19591261451.  Imagine that figure in the Roman numerals.  Your imagination would go bust.  There was no decimal system before the arrival of the great zero. Take any number.  Say 20.  20 ÷ 20 = 1. 20 ÷ 10 = 2.  20 ÷ 4 = 5.  The smaller the divisor, the greater the quotient.  Take a big d...