July 14, 2018 Saturday
Bedtime Story
Understanding Life of Galois
In order to step inside the shoes of
Évariste Galois, I had asked you to force yourself to answer the following
question:
How many original papers of your field of
interest you have read so far, if any?
If you got a definitive number as an answer
to the above self-raised question, then ask yourself how many original papers
in your field of interest you read at the age of 18 or even ever considered
doing so.
If yet again you got a definitive number as
an answer to that question, then don’t fee smug about it but ask yourself yet
another question - how did that paper felt to you?
Did you enjoy reading that original
technical paper like a novel or a comic book?
Because if the answer to this last question
is an affirmative yes, then you are not a mere average intellectual but belong
to the league of Évariste Galois, who in his teens read an original mathematics
paper of someone of the stature of Lagrange as if it were a popular novel.
If the answers to the above three or four
questions were largely without any substantial number, then do not fret for
even if you had possessed that type of unique brain by any rare chance event,
you might still have gone unrecognized and perhaps ended up as a pitiful
failure because such uniqueness often results in converting a person into a pathetic
student as far as competitive exams go.
At least in the short run.
This is exactly the fate that Galois
encountered and tragically, no teacher of his could read or comprehend the
genius of this brilliant mind.
Moreover, when he attempted the competitive
entrance exam of the most prestigious institute of Mathematics of France, the
École Polytechnique, (without any kind of formal preparation) he failed in the
viva part mainly for his lack of verbal skills in explaining the solutions that
he had arrived at.
At the age of 18 he published his first
paper on continued fractions and also was starting to make fundamental
discoveries in the theory of polynomial equation.
The poor boy was never short of tragic
events in his life for as when he turned 18, his father committed suicide for a
reason that seems very trivial today – a political dispute with a local village
priest!
Once again he attempted the entrance exam
of École Polytechnique, just two days after his father’s suicide which was his
second and as per the strict and tough laws of the university, the final
attempt.
Yet again he failed.
It is said that there was no factual
deficiency in his mathematical knowledge that was the cause of his failure in
these entrance exams; it was his mathematical intuitiveness.
In his answers to the examiners (who were
average mathematicians) his mind made giant leaps of mathematical intuition
that is so characteristic of brilliant mathematicians such as Bernhard Riemann
and Ramanujan that baffled them.
We shall continue with our story on Galois
in the nights to come.
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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