March 20, 2017 Monday
Bedtime Story
Leibniz was Establishing the Zeitgeist of Total Formalization
Mind you, when Leibniz took on mathematical notations, it was not
a casual affair.
He took extreme pains in experimenting with all kinds of mathematical
notations, discussing them with other mathematicians and altering them or
outright discarding them if the consensus so demanded.
Take for example the simplest sign in calculus dy that stands for
differential of y.
Before settling for the symbol dy, Leibniz had tried the symbols ω
,l
Leibniz had bigger dreams regarding notations that he was unable
to fulfill.
Leibniz wanted not only formulas to be in mathematical language,
but also deductions and proof.
In short, to have complete and absolute formalization.
Though he never accomplished it, he set the idea “in the air” so
to speak.
When an idea is implanted in a community, it usually tends to grow
and becomes the zeitgeist of its time so that even if one man would not have
achieved, somebody would.
A classic example in science of this zeitgeist kicking in is the
Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection proposed by Charles Darwin.
The point is that by that time, enough hints and evidences were
popping up all over in various disciplines that conflicted with the Biblical
version of creation.
Almost simultaneously another British naturalist Alfred Wallace
was ready with the same theory of evolution.
I would even go to the extent of sticking my neck out that even if
both these great naturalists had not lived, there still would have been
advocates of evolution merely by the zeitgeist of that time period.
Though of course, it is another thing that even today this fact of
evolution is debated; it only confirms my view that most of us are average apes
with extremely limited thinking and imaginative power.
So in short, the zeitgeist was setting in for formalization of
logic though it was yet to be firmly established.
The next big name after Leibniz was of course Leonhard Euler,
probably the greatest gift that the tiny country of Switzerland has given to
the world.
Born in 1707, he greatly popularized the letter
for the ratio of a circle’s
circumference to its diameter though he was not the one to originate it.
The credit for that goes to a mathematician by the name of William
Jones who was a close friend of both Newton and Edmund Halley.
Jones used the symbol
as an abbreviation for
perimeter.
Stay tuned to the voice of an average story storytelling
chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.in/
Good night mon ami and my fellow cousin ape.
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Another great educator and a teacher that I am aware of is
Professor Subhashish Chattopadhyay in Bangalore, India.
While I narrate stories, Professor Subhashish an electronic
engineer and a former professor at BARC, does and teaches real mathematics and
physics.
He started the participation of Indian students at the
International Physics Olympiad.
Do visit him here:
All his books can be downloaded for free through this link:
For edutainment and English education of your children, I
recommend this large collection of Halloween Songs for Kids:
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