Drawing Rangoli of Pi for the Sheer Joy of Mathematics: Ramanujan @125

Today December 22 2012 is 125th Birth Anniversary of Srinivasa Ramanujan.

Shiv Visvanathan:

"One misses the celebration of science today. Science acquired its creativity through play and it is the playfulness of science that created a Jagadish Chandra Bose, a Raman, a Ramanujan or Chandrasekhar. Science as playfulness has to come back as cultural form to childhood and the universities. Science has to be enjoyable...

...Try an experiment. Make a list of our top scientists and read their speeches. Pick the best and you will see that our scientists have little understanding of the nature of science. Just try it with a sample of speeches from the Indian Science Congress. The illiteracy of our scientists and our politicians about science seems to be co-produced." 

(The Asian Age, January 12 2012)

Evelyn Lamb:

"Ramanujan's discoveries have influenced several areas of mathematics, but he is probably most famous for his contributions to number theory and infinite series, among them fascinating formulas that can be used to calculate digits of pi in unusual ways."

 (Scientific American, December 22 2012)

 त्र्यंबक शंकर शेजवलकर:

"ज्या वर्गांत भास्कराचार्यांसारखा बृहस्पति असतो, त्या वर्गांत दुसर्या कोणा तरी मुलाचा दुसरा नंबर लागतच असतो. पण त्यावरून त्यांस पहिल्या व दुसर्या नंबरचे विद्यार्थी ठरविणें योग्य नाहीं..."

("In a class that has got  Bhāskarāchārya, a Bṛhaspati, guru of the gods, also always has a boy who comes second. But it is misleading to rank them number one and number two students...")

(from: 'Tryambak Shankar Shejwalkar Nivadak Lekh Sangraha', Aggregator-H V Mote, Introduction- G D Khanolkar, 1977)

('त्र्यंबक शंकर शेजवलकर निवडक लेख संग्रह', संग्राहक-ह. वि. मोटे, परिचय-गं. दे. खानोलकर, १९७७)

I quote this because I find it very interesting how Shejwalkar, a historian,  invokes Bhāskarāchārya, a mathematician,  to compare Nanasaheb Peshwa (1721-1761) (नानासाहेब पेशवा)- student claiming to be second in an imaginary class consisting of prominent personalities from Maratha history- to Shivaji (1630-1680) (शिवाजी), who obviously is first by a long shot.

I wonder if people now writing in Marathi invoke personalities like  Bhāskarāchārya or Ramanujan in such an easy manner.

 

Google Doodle on December 22 2012

Artist: Unknown at the moment; 

courtesy: Google Inc. 

Look at the kid enjoying drawing a rangoli (or so I imagine) of Pi...he has kept his books aside under a tree...and he will surely go play football- held stylishly under the foot by his friend-  little later...also look at the girl holding a skipping rope...

Science as playfulness has to come back as cultural form to childhood and the universities. Science has to be enjoyable...