June 05, 2018 Tuesday
Bedtime Story
Lagrange Gets Hooked on to Mathematics (1753)
There was nothing in the parenting of
Lagrange that could be considered very special even though I must say that is
father was not an average Italian by any means.
I should not say Italian as there was no
nation-state of Italy then; in its place there existed this Kingdom of
Savoy-Sardinia or Piedmont-Sardinia.
Lagrange’s father held the post of
Treasurer of the Office of Public Works and fortifications a well as in charge
of the King’s military chest.
Neither did he display any kind of childhood
mathematical precociousness and brilliance as we hear in the anecdotal tales of
Gauss (who happened to be a son of illiterate peasants); in fact in school his
favorite subject was the dull Latin and moreover, he found geometry to be
boring.
Yet, when he attained age of seventeen he
came across a paper by Edmund Halley, the English mathematician and astronomer
who funded publication of Newton’s Principia in 1687, and was dazzled by it.
I can almost bet my life savings that never
has a single mathematical paper transformed so deeply a single individual; after
reading the paper Lagrange threw himself totally into mathematics, completely
unaided by any mathematical tutor.
For a year he toiled in mathematical
studies almost the same way a modern Indian or a Chinese student throws himself
or herself to prepare for competitive exams either to get admission into top
colleges or most lucrative government posts.
After that year, Lagrange came out a
transformed man having converted himself into a mathematician of highest
caliber; this man’s mathematical talent was late to reveal itself but when it
did, it was literally transformative.
One can safely say that in one year he
acquired that much knowledge of mathematics as an average human would acquire
in his three years of Bachelor’s degree in mathematics; Or that may be an understatement.
It was the year of perhaps 1753 then.
Now we are all fully aware that science and
even more so the queen of sciences, that is, mathematics can survive and thrive
only if it gets financial aid, and that too lots of it.
When I say it, I mean men of mathematics
need to be supported otherwise they may easily die of hunger and starvation.
Without the right and timely aid, even the
most brilliant minds end up simply withering and dying away as we saw in the
case of the great mathematician Bernhard Riemann.
We all are keenly aware that most societies
fail to support their scientists and specially mathematicians as we see in case
of all third-world countries today.
Gauss found his early benefactor in Charles
William Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswik-Wolfenbüttel in 1792 whereas Euler found
his in Catherine I of Russia in 1727 who was a keen supporter of the Imperial
Russian Academy of Sciences in Saint Petersburg.
Luck played a great role in Euler getting
that coveted post in Saint Petersburg, the post which was earlier occupied by
Nicolaus Bernoulli who happened to die unexpectedly of acute appendicitis (which
probably might have perforated leading to peritonitis which is a certain death
without crucial antibiotics absent then), paving the way for Euler.
Stay tuned to the voice of an average story storytelling
chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.com
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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