Education - History and Philosophy of Mathematics

Calculus for social scientists

Europeans made calculus difficult because they did not understand it. The infinite series of the Indian calculus did not fit their religious idea of mathematics as eternal truth, hence perfect.  (Newton made a mistake in his physics just because he did not understand the calculus, and that physics has only recently been corrected.) Throwing out those politically warped religious ideas from mathematics makes math easy.

To demonstrate this, I conducted a five-day workshop on “Calculus for social scientists” at Ambedkar University Delhi. Here is the poster of the workshop, followed by an informal group photo (under a tree) and a more formal one with the Vice Chancellor.

AUD workshop poster

AUD group photo 1

AUD group photo 1

What was most rewarding was that after the workshop the students understood they were not inferior just because they did not get good marks in school maths. The sweet card they gave me, said it all.  

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