My VIF lecture (pic1) was on “Practical ganita vs religious mathematics”, I explained the difference between √2 in Indian ganita (pic2), and √2 in present-day formal mathematics (pic3). Briefly, early Indian tradition (sulba sutra) saw √2 as something empirical (“diagonal of unit square”) but recognized that an exact value for Read more…
My Cape Town challenge to prove 1+1 = 2 in real numbers and my related JNU prize of Rs 10 lakhs is well known, and were reiterated in my VIF talk. In response to this, Prasad gave two inexcusable public answers to a reporter from thePrint. First, he said, throughout Read more…
“Is math racist?” asked a recent article in USA Today, the largest circulated newspaper in USA. The headline was widely mocked following which the paper changed it, and clarified that the article was about math education being racist. Clearly, EVERYBODY in US thinks math (per se) can NOT be racist: Read more…
Axiomatic or formal math is like a metaphysical (=unreal, invisible) cloak over useful normal math. This metaphysics is neither useful for any applications of math, nor beautiful. Modern math is NOT “rigorous”; just resurrects the con-trickery of medieval church theology by injecting a metaphysics (fantasy) of infinity/eternity into math. It Read more…
The term “Pythagorean theorem” is #racist, based on a lie that (White) Greeks did a superior axiomatic math unknown in (Black) Egypt. Did they? Was “Euclid” a White Greek male as imagined by Wikipedia or a Black Egyptian woman as in the cover of this book? Does racism affect math? Let Read more…
Because the calculus is difficult. Why? Because Europeans stole it, and hence, like cheats in an exam, they failed to fully understand it. Snippet of handwritten letter from Matteo Ricci (Cochin, 1581) just before Clavius’ 1582 Gregorian reform of the calendar, which itself was needed for European navigation (latitude determination Read more…
Axiomatic proofs (like Russell’s 378 page proof of 1+1=2) add zilch to the practical value of math in a grocer’s shop, but they make math excessively difficult. The purported “superiority” of axiomatic proofs is a church superstition which was politically convenient to the Crusading church in developing its rational theology Read more…
Snippet of handwritten letter from Matteo Ricci (Cochin, 1581) just before Clavius’ 1582 Gregorian reform of the calendar, which itself was needed for European navigation (latitude determination in daytime). Ricci speaks of getting Indian calendrical knowledge from an “honest Moor or an intelligent Brahmin”. See, Cultural Foundations of Mathematics, Pearson Read more…
(Note: The following article speaks the truth, instead of taking sides. However, the Indian media being totally polarised, I could not publish the article in either English or Hindi. Hence, am now posting it on my blog, since I feel it is important for me to take a stand on Read more…
(Keynote Tübingen/Pretoria 13 May 2021. Related articles now online.) Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAP1BcK8mLE Presentation: http://ckraju.net/papers/presentations/Euclid-must-fall.html Articles: Part 1: Racist prejudice and the false history of “Greek” achievements in math and science Abstract.To eliminate racist prejudices, it is necessary to identify the root cause(s) of racism. American slavery preceded racism, and was closely Read more…