July 26, 2018 Thursday
Bedtime Story
"Evidence" for the Martians
The general idea (humorous of course) was
that these brilliant Hungarians were actually the descendants of a Martian
scout force that had chanced to land in Budapest somewhere in 1890s or even
1900s.
But finding the place and the planet either
hostile or not suitable to their needs they departed but did so only after
reproducing with some earthling women.
The children who were born out of this
chancy mating came to be known as the Martians and they all emigrated to the
United States.
Von Neumann makes a claim that these
Martians were born geographically very close to each other and showed
remarkable similarity in their academic careers.
Their academic interest usually started
with chemistry which would sooner or later take them to prominent German
universities where they would be drawn towards physics or mathematics.
The career in physics would eventually take
them to the United States (probably because fundamental research in pure
physics or astrophysics was getting costlier affair with each passing day
requiring either expensive telescopes or particle colliders that require a
large team of physicists and technicians to get them going smoothly).
György Marx had more convincing evidence about
the Martians.
He said that the names of three
extraordinary Martians John von Neumann, Leo Szilard and Theodore von Kármán
(you might recall that he featured in one of my story on the Kármán line many
nights ago) are not to be found in the maps of either Budapest or Hungary but
on the Moon as craters bearing their names.
So that was the story about the Martians of
the United States.
Now let us return back to the story of
mathematical education, or rather the educators of mathematics.
As I was making a claim that these days for
any person with a decent understanding of mathematics and possessing good
mathematical skills can easily make a decent living for himself as these skills
are as needed in modern society as those of a skilled surgeon.
But if one were to go a century back, things
were very difficult for mathematicians as the demand in the market for such a
skill was quite low.
Perhaps the best reward for an able
mathematician would have been access to or appointment in a senior faculty
position of some famous university whose salaries at the very best would be
fairly modest.
So let us hope we get to understand the
workings of the great mathematical minds in parallel with their work and the
implications to understanding of nature and reality.
Now I shall concentrate on real algebra
starting from elementary one and then slowly advancing to more difficult and
try to link it with our ongoing story of group theory and mathematics of
symmetry.
We have all been taught how to solve linear
equations, simultaneous equations and then quadratic equations in our high
schools so much so that these are perhaps one of the few things in mathematics
and algebra that are not only familiar but also seem to be friendly.
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.
Advertisements
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:
No comments:
Post a Comment