There was a conference in Penang on “Decolonising our universities” 27-29 June. A very interesting part of the conference was to share similar experiences of colonial and racist deceit with people from different parts of the world. Another very interesting aspect was the involvement of a number of young student…
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Jay Jolly asked: “Could you expand more on the the concept of “Zeroism”as applied in Mathematics?What changes do you foresee in pedagogy of Mathematics if the philosophy is changed from formalism to zeroism?” First I have a whole chapter on zeroism in my book Cultural Foundations of Mathematics (chp. 8 with…
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Here is my new book (ISBN: 978-983-3046-15-7). Academic imperialism begins with Western education, which has not been seriously challenged in hard sciences. Colonialism changed the system of education to stabilise Western rule through indoctrination. The change was possible (e.g. by Macaulay in India) just because a large section of…
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This question is often asked. Here is the short answer (in the terse Indian sutra style) It makes math easy, by eliminating the religious bias in it, and gives a better math, physics and history.
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Dear Neeraj or Amartya (or whoever you are), You say >One of the chief reasons why most > of us are drawn to the notion of rigor today however, is not religious > but simply because of the elegant, sublime, almost surreal nature of > rigorous mathematical proofs. First,…
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Dear Mr Jain, For a masters level math student you seem quite enterprising. You ask: > Going through the material on your website, I was not able to decide > whether you envision a paradigm shift only in terms of the teaching of > calculus or a…
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Have been meaning to update this blog for a long time, but was too busy to do so. Sometime in early April I went to Ahmedabad to give a talk at the new IIT coming up there. One of those rare occasions when I missed my flight (even in Delhi,…
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A more detailed account of calculus without limits for those with a background in formal maths is here in this series of six presentations at the maths department of the Universiti Sains Malaysia in early Feb. Got a little time off only on my last day in Penang, when I…
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After seeing the Three Idiots, I felt I should blog about my experiences with IIT. I was always more interested in science than in engineering, and was put off further after seeing (and hearing) how my brother lived at IIT, Powai where he then was. I shuddered at the thought…
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Most people dread or dislike learning mathematics. What a pity for a subject which means by derivation the “science of learning”! On my theory, math became difficult, when it got entangled with the post-Crusade Christian theology of reason, used as a weapon against Islam. The way to make math easy, therefore, is to disentangle it…