(In response to a post asking about the possible cure for racism, by Ron Eglash on the Isgem mailing list (International study group on ethnomathematics) Well Ron, Let us ask what we and Isgem, in particular, can do about it. The false sense of racist superiority was created and is…
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Recently, I presented my talk on “Pre-colonial appropriations of Indian ganita: epistemic issues”. This was at a round table at IIAS Shimla which replaced the now-postponed conference on Indology. My talk was primarily about the inferior math we teach in school today based on the European misunderstanding of the Indian…
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My point in part 1 and part 2 of this post was that there were no axiomatic proofs among Greeks, and that the cult of Pythagoreans as also the book Elements were both concerned with religious beliefs about the soul linked to geometry. The church reinterpreted the book Elements, to…
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As pointed out in the previous blog entry, there are, in fact, no axiomatic proofs in Greek math. But there is a widespread and sticky belief to that effect. Why is this false belief about axiomatic proofs among Greeks so widespread and sticky? In fact, Western/church education spread the false…
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Greek history for idiots: Greediots and Pythagoras. 1: No axiomatic proofs in Greek math Recently, I presented my talk on “Pre-colonial appropriations of Indian ganita: epistemic issues”. This was at a round table at IIAS Shimla which replaced the now-postponed conference on Indology. The key point of my talk was…
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So, what are the lessons for decolonisation from part 1 and part 2? Lesson 1. Do not blindly trust Western/White authority. Fight to reject any system which forces such trust. If the editor of the most prominent math journal (Notices of the AMS) can act so shamelessly in such a…
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Part 1 of this post restated the facts regarding my novel mathematical point about “Einstein’s mistake”, how it was copied by Michael Atiyah during his AMS Einstein Centenary lecture of 2005, and its subsequent report published in the Notices of the AMS, 2006. Also copied was the claim that the…
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Background: What the decolonisation activist should know By way of background theory, decolonisation activists need to understand the following. Western wealth was initially built on the obvious theft of land (e.g. of “Red Indians” by killing them) and the theft of labour (of blacks by enslaving them) and forcing them…
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My first “official” seminar at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla, introducing the topic of my research project as a Tagore Fellow. Ganita vs formal math: re-examining mathematics, its pedagogy, and the implications for science. Here is the extended abstract, and the official tweet from the Director (seated, extreme…
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Colonial education was church education, which changed our traditional math teaching by bringing in myths and superstitions, directly related to the post-Crusade church theology of reason. Most people fail to understand this, since colonial education ensured they know nothing about (a) mathematics or its philosophy, or (b) the church theology…