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 Dedicated to
Asma Firdous
 Contents

Acknowledgements 1

Foreword 2

Essay 1. On Lewis Carroll and Alice’s Wonderland 3

Essay 2. Alice’s Question to the Inhabitants of the Wonderland 6

Essay 3. That what Aches us All Starts with the Letter ‘S’ 9

Essay 4. Understanding what Russell Said about Mathematics 12

Essay 5. Professor Abdul Aziz of Mathematics: A Delayed Eulogy 15

Essay 6. Artificial but Intelligent Mathematicians 18

Essay 7. The Legacy of Al-Khwarizmi 21

Essay 8. National Mathematics Day Turns Ten 24

Essay 9. Gauging Ramanujan's Acumen through the Words of Hardy 27

Essay 10. On Ramanujan and his Mathematics 30

Essay 11. Statistical Universals of Language 33

Essay 12. Recent Mathematical Findings of Multiple Lockdowns 36

Essay 13. Implications, Inverses and Misuses 39

Essay 14. On Devlin’s Death of Mathematics 42

Essay 15. A Mathematician’s Social Plight 45

 Acknowledgments

I acknowledge the support of Asma Firdous, my better half, who has been
instrumental in providing me with the necessary space and time required
for endeavours such as this. I put on record my gratitude for Ubaidullah
Pandit, a law and IT graduate from Kashmir pursuing MBA from IGNOU,
India, whom I hold dear and who took pains to proofread the last essay of
this anthology.

1
 Preface
Mathematics is a subject like no other. Its marvels and its surprises are hard
to enumerate. A society that has excelled at mathematics has achieved
considerable success and has distinguished itself from many others.

Essays on Mathematics: Three Essays on Alice and Others is a

compendium of the author’s fifteen write-ups that have appeared in several
dailies including Rising Kashmir, Kashmir Reader, Kashmir Observer and
Kashmir Horizon. A few have appeared in the monthly, Kashmir Scan and
one in the weekly, Kashmir Life. A more academic version of the first
essay appeared in the open access ESCI journal, namely Humanistic
Journal of Mathematics, Claremont Center for the Mathematical Sciences,
United States of America.

The purpose of bringing together these write-ups on mathematics is simply

to gain wider readership, more visibility and, most importantly, more
feedback. The author is striving hard to excel in the field of writing, and
solicits any kind of criticism, feedback and comments.

Firdous Ahmad Mala

06-05-2022
firdousmala@gmail.com

2
On Lewis Carroll and Alice’s
Wonderland

A lot of us must have heard about the story of how Alice mistakenly fell
into a wonderland in pursuit of chasing a rabbit wearing a waistcoat and
muttering the words, “Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be too late.” Despite its
popularity and fame in literature, especially in the genre of children’s
fiction, there is a lot of seriousness and a lot of meaning behind the
characterization, the plot, the dialogues and the nonsensical-looking
questions posed in the masterpiece, “Alice’s adventures in the
Wonderland”.

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson aka Lewis Carroll was a mathematician and he

was also keenly interested in literature. He is known for his fictional pieces
including “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” besides “Through the
Looking Glasses” and for his fantastic literary non-sense poems “The
Hunting of the Snark” and “Jabberwocky”.

In the words of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, “Mathematicians are like

Frenchmen: whatever you say to them they translate into their own
language and forthwith it is something entirely different.” It appears that
Carroll did precisely what Goethe said. Given the fact that Carroll was a
traditionalist, in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Carroll gave vent to
his distress that was caused by the new theories which were sweeping away
the realistic look that mathematics possessed. One could argue that Alice’s
Adventures in Wonderland was, in fact, a mathematical satire and a
masterful way of belittling the transition that was going on in the
mathematical world at the time of Carroll. Mentions of magical
mushrooms, babies transforming into pigs, and questions that have no

3
answers were made to show how pointless, wasteful and annoying these
new theories were. A clothed white rabbit with a pocket watch, the hookah-
smoking caterpillar, the mad tea party, and others seem to have been on-
purpose and brought about to ridicule the mathematicians and the theories
they presented which were, to Carroll, snatching the realistic touch and
relevance that the old theories of algebra and geometry possessed.

Carroll liked the old-styled mathematics and was somewhat non-receptive

to the alternate theories that were being popularized in his time. For him,
two and two made four and there was no other possibility. Regarding this,
Alice says, “Four times five is twelve, and four times six is thirteen, and
four times seven is—oh dear! I shall never get to twenty at that rate!”
Herein Carroll made an artful comment on the other-than-ten base
arithmetic. This was nothing less than a satire on the use of switching over
to base representations other than that of the decimal one.

However, Carroll does acknowledge that, on the one hand, these new
theories are bizarre and misleading, yet on the other hand, going through
these new motions is the only way forward for if one gets stuck to tradition,
one is akin to be left high and dry. Alice’s frustrations and her not being
able to get on with the multiplication table points out that those who do not
embrace the newfangled theories in mathematics are going to be left in a
state of puzzlement and self-disbelief like that of Alice.

Regarding the incident of a child turning into a pig, it seems to be the case
of what happened to Euclidean geometry with the advent of subjects like
topology. Since in mathematical branch of topology, completely different
geometrical objects could be considered the same, Carroll believed that the
innocent baby-like geometry has turned into an abominable pig-like one;
though a traditionalist would consider a baby and a pig different, yet for a
topologist, there is no difference between the two. A topologist does not

4
differentiate between a teacup and a torus. Taking the bull by the horns,
Carroll craftily expresses his contempt for the work of mathematician,
Jean-Victor Poncelet who propounded that geometric figures undergoing a
continuous transformation, without any sharp changes or deletions, are
likely to retain some of their original features. The transforming of a baby
into a pig is a way Carroll shows how absurd and unwelcome such a notion
is.

Apart from these, there is a lot more in the story that could be commented
upon from a purely mathematical viewpoint. This includes commenting
upon the infamous Cheshire cat, the dragon called The Jabberwocky, the
Dormouse and the Hatter.

Take time and have a fresh reading of the story while imagining Carroll as
a mathematician and not just as an author of children’s fiction.

5
Alice’s Question to the Inhabitants of
the Wonderland

“What is it that aches us all?” asked Alice. The Cheshire cat replied, “That
what aches us starts with the letter S”. Alice asked, “What is it? Can you
give me a few more clues?” The cat replied, “Let me think. Oh! That which
aches us all must be known to all. Isn’t it so?” At this stage, Alice was more
than puzzled. She started her best to figure it out, but all she could get was
chaos and confusion. After a deep thought, she decided to go to the mad
Hatter. She went to the Hatter and asked her the same question. She asked,
“What is it that aches us all?” The Hatter, somewhat tickled by the
question, started to laugh hysterically. Not before more than half a dozen
minutes had passed did he stop his hysterical laugh. And once he was done
with this laughing, he said to Alice, “What is it that you wanted to know?”.
Alice repeated her question once more only to send the Hatter into another
indistinguishable hysterical laugh lasting not less than another half a dozen
minutes.

Although frustrated by the puzzlement of the inhabitants of the

wonderland, Alice decided to give it another try and she decided to go to
the hookah-smoking caterpillar. As soon as she reached the caterpillar, she
found herself bamboozled by the smoke that was, not just a persistent
companion of the caterpillar, but an incessant and hard-to-get-rid-of
epidemic engulfing all in the wonderland. At last, making her way through
the smoke, and catching a glimpse of the caterpillar, she asked him, “Will
you for the sake of god tell me what is it that aches us all?”. The caterpillar,
somewhat unmoved and unexcited by Alice’s question, replied “I don’t
think that there is anything that aches us all. I don’t think there is anything

6
that aches me. And I don’t think, as long as I am smoking my pipe,
anything can ever ache me. And I do not think that the divinity that binds
us all, to which I am a special representative, and which invites all of us to
think and ask, lets or allows you to think or ask this question.”

At this stage, Alice was more than sure that ached them all was unknown
to them all. She decided to find a cure for the ailment despite knowing not
what the ailment was. While Alice was in this state of puzzlement and
confusion, she caught sight of the white rabbit wearing a waistcoat and
taking out a pocket watch now and then to see what time it was even though
his watch was completely out of function and it did not even have the hands
to tell the time. Alice decided to ask him the same question. As Alice went
to the rabbit to ask him this question, the rabbit started to sprint and soon
the sprint changed into a run. Alice decided to dog the rabbit. She ran as
fast as she could and noticed that the distance between the two was
decreasing and she was getting closer to the rabbit. It was not very long
though when she realized that the sequence of the distances between her
and the rabbit converged to a positive number and not to zero and as such
she would never be able to catch hold of the rabbit.

That was simply too much for Alice. She was completely devastated by
seeing that neither the cat nor the Hatter; neither the caterpillar nor the
rabbit; nobody whosoever had an answer to her question, “What is it that
aches us all?”.

Alice who had once commented upon the Hatter, “I think you might do
something better with the time than waste it in asking riddles that have no
answers.”, is now thinking if her own question is one of those that have no
answers. She is thinking of if her being in the wonderland and being able
to get her answers can go hand in hand. She is thinking of if, like Gödel’s

7
second incompleteness theorem, she is going to be unable to get her answer
as long as she is in the wonderland.

8
That what Aches us All Starts with the
Letter ‘S’

Reflecting upon the behavior of the inhabitants of the wonderland in

response to her question, Alice is now in a position to put two and two
together. She recalls how the Cheshire cat, the mad Hatter, the hookah-
smoking caterpillar and the waist-coat-wearing white rabbit did not answer
her question. She catches sight of the almost-indistinguishable pair,
Tweedledee and Tweedledum. Alice goes to the pair and greets them.

“I hope you are fine. But even though you did not ask if I was fine, let me
tell you that I am definitely not fine. I am, as the Hatter says, completely
bonkers. And whether you accept it or not, you have to settle my confusion.
You have to answer my question. You have to tell me what it is that aches
us all.”, said Alice. The pair started looking at each other, trying to
understand what Alice just said. The two asked Alice, “How on earth, do
you think we can answer you when some of the best in the wonderland
have not been able to answer your question.” Alice thoughtfully replied,
“Haven’t you heard about the famous Scottish adage?” Tweedledee asked,
“Which one?” To this, Alice replied, “Do not judge by appearances. A rich
heart may be under a poor coat.” Tweedledum and Tweedledee look at
Alice like they had never done before.

The three decide to put things together. Tweedledee asks, “What was your
question that made everyone in the wonderland run?” Alice narrated the
whole tale of how she was made to wander from pillar to post in search of
an answer to her simple question. Meanwhile, while Alice was discussing
it with the pair, Tweedledee said, “Wait. Wait. Wait. What was it that the
Cheshire cat told you in response to your question?” Alice replied, “The

9
cat replied that what ached everybody started with the letter S.”
Tweedledum replied, “There are a thousand things that start with an S.”
Adding to it, Tweedledee said, “It could be sorcery or stupidity or slavery
or selfishness or a thousand other things that start with an S.”

Alice made a mention of how the Hatter had been sent to hysterical laughs
by the question. Tweedledum said, “The mad Hatter is actually not mad.
He is an unmatchable seer, a sage, a silent thinker and above all a simple
and succinct speaker. He is a source of sagacity. There must have been
something behind his stupid and similar snigger.” That made Alice more
circumspect and cautious. She thought to herself, “Judgements must be
delayed. Not all those who are labelled mad are necessarily unintelligent.
The Hatter has a plethora of attributes that start with the letter S.”

While narrating her tale, she told them about the caterpillar whose smoke
and superiority made her mad. To this, Tweedledum commented, “Perhaps
you did not pay attention to the smoke and the superiority of the caterpillar.
They start with the letter S.” Alice commented, “Oh yes. Not being able to
notice that was silly on my part.”

Then Alice talked about how the rabbit started to sprint at the sight of her.
And how, despite all her attempts, it was simply impossible for Alice to
catch hold of the rabbit. To this, Tweedledum replied, “Oh dear Alice, have
not you seen that the words sprint and sight start with the letter S. That
whom you call a rabbit is the snow-white March Hare and it is he who
made you visit the wonderland. He possesses a watch that shows no time.
His watch has no hands to show it. I know it. You know it. Everyone in the
wonderland knows it and so does he. But the fact is that no one cares about
time and most surely about the watch. And thus he carries a watch to show
people how stupidity, insanity and lack of purposefulness has crept into the
society. And by the way did you notice Alice, that the society that includes

10
not just some, but the sum and that which includes not just the special, but
also the stupid, starts with the letter S?”

Alice, with a completely new outlook and an older head on her young
shoulders, was reminded of Oscar Wilde’s beautiful advice to young
people, “I am not too young to know everything.” She understood that even
though all the inhabitants were suffering, the ailments were different. Some
suffered of sorcery, some of stupidity, some of slavery, some of
selfishness, some of silence, some of smoke, some of superiority and some
suffered of other things that start with the letter S.”

11
Understanding what Russell Said
about Mathematics

Known for his mathematics, logic, philosophy and honoured for his
contributions in the field of literature, Bertrand Russell is famous as one of
those who have had a prominent influence on several subjects of study and
have discussed the intricacies that otherwise would have been hard to even
catch sight of or get wind of. Although he is known for being a philosopher,
yet, he was unlike a lot of them. He considered and maintained that logic
is not a part of philosophy. In his words, “Logic, it must be admitted, is
technical in the same way as mathematics is, but logic, I maintain, is not
part of philosophy. Philosophy proper deals with matters of interest to the
general educated public, and loses much of its value if only a few
professionals can understand what is said.”

This British Nobel Laureate and polymath, Bertrand Russell wrote in the
Mysticism and Logic, “Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only
truth, but supreme beauty—a beauty cold and austere, like that of sculpture,
without appeal to any part of our weaker nature, without the gorgeous
trappings of painting or music, yet sublimely pure, and capable of a stern
perfection such as only the greatest art can show.” In what follows, an
attempt is made at a brief analysis of this infamous quote of his.

At the very outset, we are made to acknowledge the importance of being

earnest. We are driven to believe in the premise of having the right
approach. To Russell, mathematics must be “rightly viewed”. Viewing
mathematics rightly means getting the essence of it. It means that one must
appreciate and understand mathematics rather than get lost in its
symbolism and calculations. One must appreciate the ideas woven in the

12
language of mathematics rather than merely look for computations and
algorithms. In the words of the Field Medalist, William Thurston,
“Mathematics is not about numbers, equations, computations, or
algorithms: it is about understanding.”

The next thing Russell mention is the fact that mathematics possesses both
truth and beauty. To Russell, mathematics possesses truth and that is not
an astonishing claim. However, mathematics possesses beauty and not
everyone can see or appreciate that beauty. It is pertinent to mention that
truth, beauty and goodness have been the sought of the philosophers. In the
words of Albert Einstein written long back in 1930 in his essay, What I
believe, “The ideals which have always shone before me and filled me with
the joy of living are goodness, beauty, and truth.” It is not strange that the
virtues of truth and beauty have been discussed by Russell as mathematics
cannot and must not be considered completely irrelevant to philosophy.
Interestingly, something similar was opined by Einstein. As per Einstein,
"The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are
permitted to remain, children, all our lives."

Moving on, we find that Russell draws a liking between the beauty
mathematics possesses and the beauty of a sculpture. He calls this beauty
“cold” and “austere”. However, he kind of chooses and prefers a sculpture
to a painting or a piece of music. Russell makes a mention of paintings and
music. But, he seems to be not impressed by them. He seems to be
unmoved and not tempted by their attraction and calls that attraction
“trappings”. Sculptures have been known for their durability, longevity and
their beauty. A sculpture is more like the real in comparison to a painting
that provides just a two-dimensional view. Though one might argue that
paintings are no less beautiful than sculptures, the fact, however, remains

13
that, to Russell, paintings and music are somewhat less beautiful and
somewhat derogatory compared to sculptures.

Towards the end, we observe one important thing. We are made to note
Russell’s claim that art is capable of a certain perfection. He believes that
mathematics is capable of perfection too. Russell is not very different from
John Locke in what John Locke said about mathematics. To Locke,
“Mathematics is a way to settle in the mind a habit of reasoning.” In the
words of Russell, “Mathematics takes us into the region of absolute
necessity, to which not only the actual word, but every possible word, must
conform.”

To sum it up, we are able to read between the lines, and see how Russell
was capable of weaving together his acumen, his knowledge of literature
and different arts and coming up with beautifully interwoven subtle
observations that are probably not cups of coffee for everyone.

14
Professor Abdul Aziz of Mathematics:
A Delayed Eulogy

Bertrand Russell once said, “It might seem that the empirical philosopher
is the slave of his material, but that the pure mathematician, like the
musician, is a free creator of his world of ordered beauty.” Several such
creators of their worlds of ordered beauties have appeared before the world.
They have appeared from unexpected whereabouts and unheard-of
descents. And one such appearance was that of Prof. Abdul Aziz.

Prof. Aziz came of a not-financially-poor yet not-highly-educated family.

He was born in 1952. He was one of his kind in his family. Not many from
his locality were educated. Owing to this state of the affairs, it is somewhat
unfortunate that his contributions to mathematics, in general, and to
Complex Analysis, in particular remained understandable to hardly anyone
in his locality. Fortunately, mathematics has an audience neither divided
by lands nor separated by the tongues. In the words of David Hilbert,
“Mathematics knows no races or geographic boundaries; for mathematics,
the cultural world is one country.” And, thus, Prof. Aziz’s work did not go
unnoticed. Prof. Aziz’s expertise in Complex Analysis can be gauged by
the fact that one of his contributions culminated into being known after him
as Aziz’s theorem. Mentions of Aziz’s theorem can still be found echoing
in books including that of Victor Prarolov’s book, ‘Polynomials’.

Having rendered his services in the capacity of a teacher, a dean, head of

the department and a supervisor to several researchers, Prof. Aziz retired
from the official services years back in 2010. His retirement did not,
however, stop him from following his passion, mathematics. As per one of
his family members, Prof. Aziz remained immersed with research even

15
after his superannuation at the University of Kashmir. In harness, Prof.
Aziz breathed his last on June, 26, 2021 after having contracted the deadly
coronavirus. There is no denying the fact that the world cannot mourn a
demise for good. In the words of the Bohemian writer, J.R.R. Tolkien, “In
sorrow we must go, but not in despair. Behold! we are not bound for ever
to the circles of the world, and beyond them is more than memory.”

Prof. Aziz was known for his contributions in the field of Complex
Analysis. Owing to his untiring efforts and God-given acumen, he earned
a name and fame for himself. His research papers in Complex Analysis
appeared in some of the best journals in the field including the Journal of
Approximation Theory, Glasnik Matematicki, Journal of Mathematical
Analysis and Applications, Proceedings of the American Mathematical
Society, Indian Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics, Bulletin of the
Australian Mathematical Society and Pacific Journal of Mathematics, to
name a few. It is pertinent to mention that these journals are considered to
be the best in the business when it comes to maintaining the highest
possible standards in mathematical research.

As per Google Scholar, one of his papers titled “Inequalities for a

polynomial and its derivative” published in the Journal of Approximation
Theory appeared in 1988. This paper has been cited two hundred times.
Pertinent to mention that this paper was coauthored with another son of the
soil, Qazi Muhammad Dawood, the son of another son of the soil, Qazi
Ghulam Muhammad.

Some people are remembered for long owing to their contributions and
their toil. In the words of G. H. Hardy in his ‘A Mathematician’s Apology’,
“Archimedes will be remembered when Aeschylus is forgotten, because
languages die and mathematical ideas do not. Immortality may be a silly
word, but probably a mathematician has the best chance of whatever it may

16
mean.” In the words of Paul Erdős, “Mathematics is the surest way to
immortality. If you make a big discovery in mathematics, you will be
remembered after everyone else will be forgotten.” Prof. Aziz’s work has
is good enough to leave him mentioned for long, at least in the academic
circles.

It is not uncommon that the foundations laid and the work done by a
mathematician can keep engaged the next to come. In the words of Charles
Hermite, “Abel has left mathematicians enough to keep them busy for five
hundred years.” Prof. Aziz’s work has had profound impact on the
mathematics research done in Kashmir. A lot of researchers are busy doing
Complex Analysis. The legacy has been continued and several useful and
beautiful generalizations have been obtained capitalizing on his work. It
looks like his work will engage more mathematicians from the valley for
some more time if not for very long.

17
Artificial but Intelligent
Mathematicians

The question of whether mathematics is invented or discovered is a

longstanding open debate. From the way results are deduced and obtained
as corollaries from axioms and theorems, it appears that mathematics is
discovered. From what mathematicians choose to study or the names they
give to things, it appears that some part of it is created or invented. The
binary is not at all clear.

A more serious and less-discussed discussion is that of whether machines

are capable of doing mathematics the way mathematicians do. The
question is about the possibility of artificial but intelligent mathematicians.
This should not be taken to mean that we aspire to know if machines can
do complex manipulations or calculations. Rather this should be taken to
mean if machines are capable of inventing or creating new mathematics.
Surprisingly enough, denial is not an acceptable option anymore.

According to a research article titled “Advancing mathematics by guiding

human intuition with AI” published in open access in the journal Nature on
the first day of this very month, authored by fourteen contemporary
scholars, there exist “examples of new fundamental results in pure
mathematics that have been discovered with the assistance of machine
learning thereby demonstrating a method by which machine learning can
aid mathematicians in discovering new conjectures and theorems.” The
authors write in the abstract of the paper, “We propose a process of using
machine learning to discover potential patterns and relations between
mathematical objects, understanding them with attribution techniques and
using these observations to guide intuition and propose conjectures.”

18
This seems to have serious implications, to say the least. The question of
whether mathematics is discovered or invented is a bygone tale. The hot
topic is if mathematicians are required or needed to discover or invent,
whatever it be, mathematics. This is a bolt from the blue. The question of
whether machines can reproduce more of their kind is one, and now, the
question of if machines can invent theorems, proofs and theories is another,
and almost settled.

Though it is not rocket science to understand that computers and machines

can come very handy when it comes to doing drudgeries and monotonous
calculations, the fact remains that, it was not clear until very recently that
artificial intelligence can be immensely helpful in something more
meaningful and more important, and that is the psychological mystery
called “intuition”. Amazingly enough, there is something non-routine and
something unexpected that the findings published in the Nature journal
revealed. In the words of the authors, “Our contribution shows how mature
machine learning methodologies can be adapted and integrated into
existing mathematical workflows to achieve novel results.” They further
proclaim that “AI can also be used to assist in the discovery of theorems
and conjectures at the forefront of mathematical research. This extends
work using supervised learning to find patterns by focusing on enabling
mathematicians to understand the learned functions and derive useful
mathematical insight.”

There are a few ways to look at it. One is a positive thing. And one is a
very enervating one. If Artificial Intelligence is potent enough to discover
theorems or to make conjectures, it will simplify the work of
mathematicians. However, there is another danger. That one thing humans
almost always took pride in is the notion that creativity is not possible for
machines and that it is the monopoly of the flesh-and-blood creatures only.

19
This notion appears to be shattered and not attractive anymore. The
supremacy of humans over machines appears to be a misnomer. A
machine, or more specifically artificial intelligence, is doing much more
than what it was expected to do. It is leaving us high and dry, and it is
making us rack our brains regarding our understanding of its power. Our
understanding of how much we know about AI is put into question again
and again. In the words of Eliezer Yudkowsky, "By far the greatest danger
of Artificial Intelligence is that people conclude too early that they
understand it."

The danger is that the advent and advancement of AI in mathematics- with

the possible potential of discovering theorems, patterns and conjectures- is
making inroads, making us doubt ourselves and making us feel inferior.
However, the fact remains that we may be filled with a similar complex of
being inferior when we draw a parallel between ourselves and a beautiful
object such as a flower or a rainbow. AI is just one among a plethora of
things that make us self-doubt and that make us think about our position in
the world. In the words of Alan Kay, “Some people worry that artificial
intelligence will make us feel inferior, but then, anybody in his right mind
should have an inferiority complex every time he looks at a flower."

20
The Legacy of Al-Khwarizmi

Long back in the parts of the eighth and the ninth centuries, there lived a
Muslim mathematician and astronomer, Muhammad ibn Musa. Though
nothing certain is known about his place of birth, as per the tenth-century
bibliographer and biographer, Ibn al-Nadim, he was born in Khwarizm
owing to which he came to be popularly known as Muhammad Al-
Khwarizmi or simply Al-Khwarizmi. It is pertinent to mention that the
word algorithm is factually a distortion of Al-Khwarizm.

It was the work of Al-Khwarizmi that set the systematic and foundational
basis of what is now popularly known as Algebra. From his work, “al-Kitāb
al-Mukhtaṣar fī Ḥisāb al-Jabr wal-Muqābalah” translated into English as
“The Compendious Book on Calculation by Completion and Balancing”,
the word Algebra came into bright light. The book expounded upon the
basics of transportation of terms and cancelling of like terms besides the
fundamental concepts of reduction and balancing. In the words of Victor
Katz, it is the first true algebra text that is still extant. According to
Robertus Castrensis, the book was used as the principal textbook of the
European universities as far as the sixteenth century. This book didn’t just
introduce the fundamentals of balancing, but it, at the same time, offered
practical answers for land distribution, inheritance rules and salary
distribution.

The importance of the book and the contributions of the author are hard to
overstate. Al-Khwarizmi’s text was not an emulation of the Babylonians.
It was non-routine and out of the ordinary. In the words of R. Rashed and
Anjela Armstrong, “Al-Khwarizmi's text can be seen to be distinct not only
from the Babylonian tablets but also from the Diophantus' Arithmetica. It

21
no longer concerns a series of problems to be resolved, but an exposition
which starts with primitive terms in which the combinations must give all
possible prototypes for equations, which henceforward explicitly
constitute the true object of study.” In the words of J. J. O'Connor and E.
F. Robertson, “Perhaps one of the most significant advances made by
Arabic mathematics began at this time with the work of al-Khwarizmi,
namely the beginnings of algebra. It is important to understand just how
significant this new idea was. It was a revolutionary move away from the
Greek concept of mathematics which was essentially geometry.”

Apart from mathematics, al-Khwarizmi made non-trivial and significant

contributions to the study of geography. His contributions to medieval
geography, his systematizing and correcting Ptolemy’s work on geography
and his finding concerning the shape of the earth are noteworthy.
Praiseworthy to mention that he created, with the help of seventy
subordinate geographers, the map of the then known world. His works on
the astrolabe and the Jewish calendar speak for themselves.

He is famous for teaching the world the solution of linear and quadratic
equations by putting them in six different standard forms. Although al-
Khrawizmi confined his discussion of polynomial equations to those of
degrees one and two, known as linear and quadratic equations, that is not
all he is known for. Calculation of the position of celestial objects such as
the sun, the moon besides some other planets, his work on spherical
geometry, his work on the tables of sines and tangents and his parallel and
eclipse calculations are awe-inspiring.

One of the issues that were a hindrance to his worldwide recognition for
his contributions was the fact his works were written in Arabic. The
language was a barrier when it came to catering to the needs or intellectual
aspirations of a worldwide and world-class audience. Fortunately, his book

22
on algebra, which is for some people the only work they remember him,
was translated twice into Latin, once by Gerard of Cremona and Robert of
Chester in the twelfth century. This resulted in a wider recognition of the
book.

Unlike most of the discoveries and inventions of today, algebra was

introduced to the Europeans much later, some three hundred years later,
after it made its appearance in the works of al-Khwarizmi. Unfortunately,
such instances seem few and far between now. The Muslim world seems
to have given a wide berth to its legacy and it seems to have forgotten its
forerunners in the fields of science, art, literature and astronomy. However,
the journey of a thousand miles is said to begin with a single step. The
legacy can be capitalized upon. Mathematics is not for fun alone. It is, as
John Locke said, a way to settle in the mind a habit of reasoning. In the
words of Alfred North Whitehead, “Algebra is the intellectual instrument
which has been created for rendering clear the quantitative aspects of the
world.” And one must not forget that it is a legacy worth continuing.

23
National Mathematics Day Turns Ten

Ever since the declaration by the then prime minister of India, Dr

Manmohan Singh, regarding the celebration of the National Mathematics
Day, the nation has been celebrating it every year on December, the
twenty-second. It is pertinent to mention that the day is celebrated to
commemorate the contributions of a life that was cut short but not deterred
by poverty, tumult and illness, the life of Srinivasa Ramanujan.

Ramanujan’s life has been both a source of inspiration and that of

disappointment. Born in 1887 in Madras, Ramanujan could not afford
accessibility to books and the relevant mathematics literature, let alone
quality education. Though it did not stop him from becoming what he is
known for today, the fact remains that it culminated in wasteful
ramifications and redundant discoveries. In his book, Hyperspace, the
American theoretical physicist, futurist, and popularizer of science, Michio
Kaku wrote, "Srinivasa Ramanujan was the strangest man in all of
mathematics, probably in the entire history of science.” He further adds,
“The tragedy of his life is that much of his work was wasted rediscovering
known mathematics."

Ramanujan’s getting elected to become a member of the London

Mathematical Society in 1917 when he was thirty was a rare feather in the
national mathematics cap. The subsequent year, he become a Fellow of the
Royal Society (FRS). He was the youngest person to achieve the feat. But
he was not the first to have achieved this feat. Ardaseer Cursetjee, an Indian
engineer, a Parsi, was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) some
seventy-seven years before Ramanujan achieved this milestone.

24
Robert Kanigel wrote in his celebrated book, The Man Who Knew Infinity,
“Plenty of mathematicians, Hardy knew, could follow a step-by-step
discursus unflaggingly—yet counted for nothing beside Ramanujan. Years
later, he would contrive an informal scale of natural mathematical ability
on which he assigned himself a 25 and Littlewood a 30. To David Hilbert,
the most eminent mathematician of the day, he assigned an 80. To
Ramanujan, he gave 100."

What tribute could be more befitting than that of Hardy’s! G. H. Hardy

wrote in his famous masterpiece, A Mathematician’s Apology, "I still say
to myself when I am depressed, and find myself forced to listen to pompous
and tiresome people, Well, I have done one thing you could never have
done, and that is to have collaborated with both Littlewood and Ramanujan
on something like equal terms."

The story of how Ramanujan happened to land in Cambridge working

alongside Hardy and Littlewood seems unreal. The story of how
Ramanujan failed to do good in his formal studies but brought laurels to
his name and that of his country is breathtaking. It is not just strange, but
rather bizarre and peerless. Ramanujan and Hardy were factually poles
apart. Ramanujan was a die-hard and devout believer in Hinduism, while
Hardy was a categorical atheist. The mystery of how Ramanujan was able
to do the kind of mathematics he did was ineffable. To Ramanujan, an
equation was an expression of a thought of God. But Hardy did not believe
in God. Despite this, the two had a memorable collaboration and came up
with several mathematical masterpieces and jewels.

Ramanujan’s intimacy with numbers could be gauged by many anecdotes

that have been reported off and on. Regarding the famous comment of
Hardy who regarded the number 1729 as one that did not have any
interesting properties, Ramanujan is reported to have said, “It is the

25
smallest number that can be written as the sum of two cubes in two
different ways.” This number came to be later known as the taxi cab
number or the Hardy-Ramanujan number.

In pursuit of keeping a record of his mathematics, Ramanujan maintained

notebooks that are now known as Ramanujan’s notebooks. The peculiar
thing about these notebooks is the fact that the records are observations and
results devoid of derivations and proofs. To Ramanujan, intuition was
almost infallible and a justification was not a must. This was, however,
objectionable given the nature of mathematics as a subject of supreme
rigour. Over a period of decades, these books have become a source of both
valuable literature, a compendium of challenging exercises and a source of
puzzlement and bewilderment.

The revolutionary, inspiring and somewhat mysterious life of Ramanujan

came to a close when he was merely 33 in 1921.

26
Gauging Ramanujan's Acumen through
the Words of Hardy

The national mathematics day turns ten this year. The day is celebrated to
commemorate the son of the soil, Srinivasa Iyengar Ramanujan. This piece
is an attempt at gauging the acumen Ramanujan possessed through the
words of one of the finest and celebrated brains in mathematics, Godfrey
Harold Hardy.

Though Hardy and Ramanujan were poles apart, yet they shared a bond
like no other. Ramanujan was a believer, a religious one. In his often-
quoted words, Ramanujan said, "An equation for me has no meaning unless
it expresses a thought of God.". This makes us realize the deep-rootedness
of religious beliefs Ramanujan had. G. H. Hardy, on the other hand, was
an atheist. Hardy even appears on Wikipedia’s page, English Atheists, that
enlists several known Englishmen who did not believe in God. This was a
strange juxtaposition. Another difference between Hardy and Ramanujan
was regarding their approach to the study of mathematics. Proofs were,
somewhat, immaterial when it came to Ramanujan. He disliked being
asked for proofs and justifications. Hardy, however, had a completely
different outlook. The proof was to him, somewhat, more important than
the result. Hardy wrote, "The seriousness of a theorem, of course, does not
lie in its consequences, which are merely the evidence for its seriousness."
Despite these striking differences, the two nurtured a remarkably
unforgettable companionship.

It appears the bond of understanding that existed between Ramanujan and

Hardy was a result of their common love for pure mathematics. Hardy
loved and preferred pure mathematics to its applications. For him, the

27
technique and the method carried more weight and deserved more
appreciation than an application of a theorem. In his words, "One rather
curious conclusion emerges, that pure mathematics is on the whole
distinctly more useful than applied. For what is useful above all is
technique, and mathematical technique is taught mainly through pure
mathematics." Acknowledging the fact that Ramanujan was a pure, or
rather a hyper-pure mathematician, Hardy did not find it hard to appreciate
the kind of mathematics Ramanujan engaged himself with.

Given the fact that Hardy collaborated with Ramanujan better than anyone
else, it would be safe to render that there could be no one more qualified
who could have written anything on Ramanujan, more authoritatively, than
G. H. Hardy. This is what Hardy wrote in his famous work, A
mathematician’s apology, "I still say to myself when I am depressed, and
find myself forced to listen to pompous and tiresome people, ‘Well, I have
done one the thing you could never have done, and that is to have
collaborated with both Littlewood and Ramanujan on something like equal
terms."

This speaks for itself. Hardy was super-refined as a mathematician,

Ramanujan was hardly knowledgeable of the skills of proof; Hardy was
celebrated, Ramanujan was lost like a wildflower. It would be no
exaggeration to proclaim that Hardy’s discovery of Ramanujan could be
considered akin to Wordsworth’s preserving of Lucy at least through his
poems. But for Hardy’s involvement and efforts, Ramanujan could have
been an unknown tale or an unsung song.

Robert Kanigel, the author of Ramanujan’s biography, The Man Who

Knew Infinity, wrote "Plenty of mathematicians, Hardy knew, could
follow a step-by-step discursus unflaggingly—yet counted for nothing
beside Ramanujan. Years later, he would contrive an informal scale of

28
natural mathematical ability on which he assigned himself a 25 and
Littlewood a 30. To David Hilbert, the most eminent mathematician of the
day, he assigned an 80. To Ramanujan, he gave 100."

A tribute to Ramanujan better than that of Hardy’s is hard to pay. Hardy

wrote about Ramanujan, “The limitations of his knowledge were as
startling as its profundity. Here was a man who could work out modular
equations, and theorems of complex multiplication, to orders unheard of,
whose mastery of continued fractions was, on the formal side at any rate,
beyond that of any mathematician in the world. It was impossible to ask
such a man to submit to systematic instruction, to try to learn mathematics
from the beginning once more. On the other hand, there were things of
which it was impossible that he would remain in ignorance. So I had to try
to teach him, and in a measure, I succeeded, though I obviously learnt from
him much more than he learnt from me.”

29
On Ramanujan and his Mathematics

The national mathematics day has been celebrated every year since its
inception a decade ago in 2012. It is now in double figures. The day is
celebrated to pay homage to one of the finest, yet, arguably, the most
unrefined Indian mathematician, Srinivasa Ramanujan, the one who is now
popularly known as the man who knew infinity owing to the movie with
the same title that made its first appearance half a dozen years back in 2015.

Ramanujan was born in 1887 at Erode in Madras and had the strongest and
the strangest liking, which could be termed as obsession, for numbers and
mathematics. The saga of how he made it to being elected as a Fellow of
the Royal Society is inspiring, on the one hand, and enervating, on the
other. He was unrefined, unpolished and far from being properly educated.
Yet he was one of his kind, unbelievable and far from the prosaic stuff.

Ramanujan’s collaboration with G. H. Hardy left a lasting influence on

both. When Ramanujan died at the age of thirty-three, Hardy said
something that appears indicative of Hardy’s dissatisfaction and
displeasure at being departed from Ramanujan. He said, "No
mathematician should ever allow him to forget that mathematics, more
than any other art or science, is a young man's game. Galois died at twenty-
one, Abel at twenty-seven, Ramanujan at thirty-three, Riemann at forty.
There have been men who have done great work later; [but] I do not know
of a single instance of a major mathematical advance initiated by a man
past fifty. A mathematician may still be competent enough at sixty, but it
is useless to expect him to have original ideas." It was nothing less than a
vent to the frustration Hardy experienced at the untimely demise of
Ramanujan.

30
Ramanujan's early marriage, his lack of being well-versed with the formal
education and his being butter-fingered when it came to proofs could have
only added to his woes, however, none of these became a deterrent to his
untiring pursuit for mathematics, thanks to Hardy. His work on elliptic
functions and partitions brought to light his acumen and the kind of
intuition he possessed. If there was one thing that Ramanujan had in
abundance when there was a paucity of the same in others, it was his
intuition.

Ramanujan’s notebooks are another wonder. In his book, ‘The Discovery

of Ramanujan’s Lost Notebook’, Georg Andrews wrote that he was already
an advanced researcher in fields, such as mock theta functions
and hypergeometric series. Ramanujan stood much ahead of his time.

Having mastered S. L. Loney’s famous book on trigonometry at the age of

thirteen was a feat that speaks for itself. This book alongside the book
titled, A Synopsis of Elementary Results in Pure and Applied Mathematics
culminated and resulted in giving a meaningful and impactful impetus to
Ramanujan’s life.

Some authors have likened his intimacy with numbers to that of Milton’s
mastery over words. His famous response to Hardy about the latter’s
remark on 1729 being a number with not very interesting properties is
indicative of how closely and deeply he was in love with numbers and
mathematics. He is reported to have remarked that 1729 is the smallest
number capable of being written as the sum of two cubes in two different
ways.

There is a lot more to know about this pure mathematician, Ramanujan.

‘The man who knew infinity, the book and the movie, besides Hardy’s

31
masterpiece, ‘A mathematician’s apology’ are some of the sources to know
more about Ramanujan.

The revolutionary, inspiring and somewhat mysterious life of Ramanujan

came to a close when he was merely 33 in 1921.

Now that we are celebrating the national mathematics day, we must not
confine it to mere celebrations and commemoration. Schools, colleges and
universities need to inculcate in the students the kind of love Ramanujan
had for mathematics. It would be no exaggeration to declare that
knowledge of mathematics is an indicator of how progressed and advanced
a society is. Ramanujan has left us a very rich legacy, the legacy of
originality and that of unconditional love for research and discoveries. The
legacy is to be capitalized upon and continued. An evident and prominent
lesson we can derive from Ramanujan’s story is that of singleness of
purpose.

32
Statistical Universals of Language

This is a book review.

The author of the book is a computational linguist. She is Kumiko Tanaka-

Ishii, an associate professor in the Department of Creative Informatics at
the Graduate School of Information Science and Technology at the
University of Tokyo, Japan. The author is a seasoned writer. She knows
well how to bring the subtleties of language to the computational front. In
2010, she was honoured with the Suntory Prize for Social Sciences and
Humanities. The same year, she received the prestigious Okawa
Publications Prize for her book, Semiotics of Programming.

The book being reviewed is subtitled “Mathematical chance vs Human

choice” and that has a lot to say about the book. The book is divided into
twenty-two chapters. Several chapters have been clubbed together giving
rise to five different parts of the book. The chapters and the parts are
intelligently curated and well-thought-out to give the subject matter a free-
flowing and coherent structure.

The book is an attempt at showing that language is not entirely different

from computation. This is done by making evident the properties that the
writer finds both universal and statistical. The universality of these
properties is owing to their ubiquity. These properties being both universal
and statistical makes the author title the book as statistical universals of
language.

The book addresses the question of how statistical universals influence

language and of why language shows and demonstrates such universal
properties. Elucidating upon Harris’s Hypothesis, the author details how
linguistic boundaries of words can be gauged and detected by a number

33
that is unrelated to meaning. Acknowledging that the question of “what
meaning is” is one of the most difficult ones in human history, the author
explains how statistical universals could contribute to the meanings of
words.

The book has a lot of exciting discussions on offer. Though the book is not
expected to attract a wide readership, owing to the peculiarity of the topic,
the book has a lot to learn from. The insights and the analyses are given in
the book every here and there

Language models including the N-Gram models, grammatical models and

neural models bring to light the several possibilities that arise when one
attempts to bridge the gap between languages and commutations.

Understanding the kind of system that is inherent and relevant to a

language is not straightforward. It is somewhat counterintuitive but true
that a deeper contemplation of the meaning of language will come by its
use. The tricky part of the story is the fact whatever method of analysis we
adopt; we are cornered to use the language itself to analyze it. To come out
of such a dilemma, we must do something out of the box and think laterally.
One instance of such lateral thinking is to externalize. In the words of the
author, “One way to break this strong link between the method and its
target is to externalize the target, and for this, we can observe aspects of
the target that are beyond human control.”

Externalization of the language can, in the current times, be achieved in

two ways, at least. The first of these is neuroscience, which is credited for
being able to analyze the cerebral signals that result from stimuli. Since the
neural signals of the brain seem to have a lot to tell us about the language
and are not directly controlled by the speaker, they can safely be regarded
or declared as being external to the system of language. The author way,

34
as per the author, is the quest and search for statistical universals. This is
because they are present in all languages and are not a result of our
conscious efforts and endeavours.

The book is unique in the sense that language is presented being akin to
several natural and social systems. The language that poses itself unique in
comparison with other systems is not that different from these other
systems. The book provides excellent food for thought. It makes the reader
think of untrodden paths. It questions a big binary, the binary of language
being completely different from natural and social sciences.

The book has been published in the “Mathematics in Mind” genre by

Springer that needs no introduction when it comes to top-notch and high-
class mathematics content. In all, the book is worth every single second
that a reader would be spending on reading it, but it calls forth patience,
perseverance and stoicism on the part of the reader.

35
Recent Mathematical Findings of
Multiple Lockdowns

Now that we have witnessed multiple lockdowns that have been imposed
with the understanding that the imposition is going to bring the spread of
the virus down, let us chance our arms at the recent mathematics findings
behind it.

In an article published in the prestigious journal Scientific Reports, Nature

on April 13, 2021, Antonio Scala, a research scientist at the CNR-ISC
institute for Complex Systems came up with a detailed analysis of if
multiple lockdowns served any purpose.

Keeping into consideration the paucity of options we have at hand

regarding the containment of the spread of the pathogen, we should
understand that vaccination, lockdown, distancing are not only widespread
terms but rather the much-needed ones. In the words of Antonio Scala,
“[w]hile vaccination is the optimal response to an epidemic, recent events
have obliged us to explore new strategies for containing worldwide
epidemics, like lockdown strategies, where the contacts among the
population are strongly reduced to slow down the propagation of the
infection.”

Mathematical modelling is a very useful branch of study wherein one can

get a good understanding of how complex situations are modelled for a
deeper and better understanding and for taking the right or the most
appropriate decisions. Since taking the right decisions at the right time and
the place may not be easy. But that is precisely the situation in which
modelling comes in handy. Regarding epidemics or the general spread of
any contagious disease, the fact remains that mathematical modelling is not

36
just an option, but it is currently the only way forward. These models help
us understand how infectious diseases behave in terms of their spread,
outcomes, effect on public health and hopefully on the economy and
stability of a country or a nation. One can take the example of how much
mankind has progressed in the domain of weather forecasting. Though one
cannot claim that predictions and deductions are interchangeable, one
cannot give a wide berth to the fact that being good at predictions is a
blessing and a scientific study in its own right.

The mathematical model of an epidemic helps us estimate several crucial

parameters that, in turn, help us get wind of the facts that are otherwise
hard to know. In the words of the author, “[s]uch models help us to estimate
important epidemiological parameters like the potential growth rate of an
epidemic, the total fraction of people that will get infected, or the fraction
of people to vaccinate to stop the epidemic.”

Among the most common models that help better mitigate the effects of
infection are the SIR and the SIER models. The SIR model takes into
consideration the number of Susceptible individuals, the number of
Infected individuals and the number of Recovered individuals thereby
explaining why it is called so. The SIER model, on the other hand, takes
into consideration a fourth number, the number of Exposed individuals,
that is the individuals that have been exposed to the virus but have not yet
been infected by it. In what has been found, vaccination is a very good
option for curtailing the spread of the virus.

The author explains the situation in which vaccination is either not

available or is scanty to combat the pathogen. This is the situation wherein
the concepts like social distancing and lockdown come into the picture.
These non-pharmaceutical measures could be understood as the last resort
to fighting the invisible enemy. Just understand what happens when a

37
lockdown is lifted. Usually, lockdowns are lifted when the number of
present infections reaches its final stage. However, this is the situation that
poses a diabolical threat. Once a lockdown is lifted, complacency and a
sense of urgency result in another need for a lockdown. And the so-called
vicious circle starts taking a toll on the population.

As per the findings, the author goes on to claim that repeated and multiple
lockdowns are beneficial and far from being unnecessary. In the words of
Scala, “[R]epeated lockdowns have a beneficial effect, reducing the final
size of the infection, and that they represent a possible support strategy to
vaccination policies.”

38
Implications, Inverses and Misuse

Aristotle, long back, recognized that persuasion may be achieved via

appealing to credibility, to emotions or to logic. Among them, the most
convincing and the most satisfying is, unarguably, an appeal to logic.

Emotional arguments cannot be counted equal to logical arguments. In the

words of Douglas Adams, "All opinions are not equal. Some are a very
great deal more robust, sophisticated and well supported in logic and
argument than others."

Language is used for persuasion, emphasis, communication besides

making one’s point, exercising one’s power and entertaining others. The
fact remains that language is used in a plethora of ways, but it is misused
in no less manners. More often than not, language is blown out of
proportion.

Among the most misused or ill-used connectives of language is that of an

implication. Implications are also called conditional sentences. Before we
embark upon the journey of getting wind of how and where implications
are misused, let us try to gauge what constitutes an implication.

An implication is a statement of the type “If p, then q”. For example, the
statement “If the Sun is a star, then the Moon is a satellite” is an
implication. The p-part of an implication is termed as its hypothesis or
antecedent. The q-part is termed as the conclusion or its consequent. In our
example, “The Sun is a star” is the hypothesis, and “The Moon is a
satellite” is the conclusion.

One of the most important things about implications is understanding their

truth values. In other words, one ought to know which implications are true

39
and which are false. It may come to many as a surprise, but the fact is that
an implication is always true except the case when the hypothesis is true
and the conclusion is false. This means that implications with false
hypotheses are true irrespective of what their conclusions be.

After one has grasped this, one should be able to understand that
implications such as “If the Sun is a chocolate, then the Moon is a hockey
stick” is true irrespective of the fact that its hypothesis is false. Similarly,
the implication, “If Rome was built in one day, then life is a walking
shadow” is also true. It is a hard reality to acknowledge. Right?

A lot of people fail to be well-versed with this very basic fact about the
truth value of an implication and accordingly they misuse language. Not
knowing it is simply akin to playing ducks and drakes with language.

Having understood what implications are and having grasped what

constitutes their truth value, the next thing to gulp down is the notion of
the inverse of an implication.

Given the conditional statement “If p, then q”, the conditional statement
“If not p, then not q” is called the inverse of the given conditional
statement. For example, the inverse of “If the Sun is a star, then the Moon
is a satellite” is “If the Sun is not a star, then the Moon is not a satellite”.
A lot of people pass the inverse of an implication for the original
implication. Some others do acknowledge that an implication is not to be
passed for its inverse, yet they consider the two logically equivalent,
meaning that one of the two provides sufficient ground for determining the
truth value of the other. This is, however, far from being a fact.

The inverse of an implication may be true of false irrespective of the truth

value of the original implication. For example, “If two is a number, then
five is a number” is true, and its inverse “If two is not a number, then five

40
is not a number” is also true because the hypothesis of the latter is false, as
discussed before.

One cannot estimate the amount of despair and anger that one, versed with
logic, has to absorb in a world where logic is thrown to the wind and
interpreted as per one’s own wishes and whims. Seeing the misuse of
implications in diurnal matters is both agonizing and devastating as the
same time.

Although this write-up may not be good enough to incite the readers to
become well-versed with the correct use of implications and their inverses,
yet it seems fit enough as a caveat. It should act as a deterrent every time
the reader things of implications and their misuses. Go and grab some
sources and learn the basics of implications. Go and save the misuse of
language, in general and that of implications, in particular.

41
On Devlin’s Death of Mathematics

This write-up draws on the opinions of Doctor Keith Devlin expressed in

the essay “The Death of Mathematics”. Devlin is a professor of
mathematics at Stanford University and has authored several books
including The Language of Mathematics, The Man of Numbers and The
Unfinished Game, among many others. He is also known for his online
visibility. His course titled Introduction to Mathematical Thinking, offered
by Coursera, is one of the most celebrated Massive Open Online Courses
(MOOCs) on Mathematics. In all, he is someone who knows quite well
what it means to teach mathematics both offline and online. Devlin, in his
essay, points to a very enervating question. He drives our attention to a
very sensitive issue. This is the question of the death of mathematics, and
the subsequent impact on human life and its flourishing.

In his essay, Devlin makes readers realize that advances in science,

engineering, technology and management are heavily dependent upon
advances in mathematics. Mathematics kind of reshapes them over and
over again. It is indispensable for human progress and human flourishing.
No mathematics would have serious and ugly implications.

To understand what the death of mathematics means, consider the

following. The question of whether technology should be embraced and
welcomed without scrutinizing it and without weighing its pros and cons
is a common concern. Given the number of gadgets at our disposal, there
is a double-edged sword staring us right in the face. Not embracing the
technology of the times is like denying oneself the pleasures and benefits
of human advancements on the one hand, and, on the other hand, there is

42
an invariable danger of falling prey to it and playing in the hands of
technology.

In the essay, Devlin points to the transition or shift in which people turned
to using calculators and computers for carrying out the mathematical
calculation. While on the one hand, the use of such mechanical aids did do
away with some of the basic abilities to do mathematics sums in mind or
using pen and paper, yet, on the other hand, arithmetic skills gave way to
algebraic thinking. So, it was not a complete disaster.

Devlin is, however, deeply concerned with the danger that lies in the
excessive use of such devices. The advent of sophisticated machinery at
hand for carrying out both complicated and basic calculations in
mathematics has made it next to impossible that we witness again the likes
of mathematical gems such as Fermat, Gauss, Riemann and Ramanujan.
The habit of carrying out tedious and long calculations by hand dawned
upon them deep understanding of the behavior of numbers and it resulted
in several beautiful and insightful conjectures in mathematics.

But the beauty of having machines do calculations, which otherwise would

have not been easy or even in some cases humanly possible even for the
mathematical giants is also not a petty thing. Machines can find out quickly
what we may not be able to do even in years together.

This is a dilemma where one has to either do away with the traditional
methods of learning and doing mathematics with pen and paper, or else, do
away with the technology of the times. The latter seems not possible.

For Devlin, it is devastating and destroying if the tradition of doing

mathematics by hand goes for good. Devlin is somewhat unsure of what is
going to happen to mathematics given such circumstances. And he seems,
almost surely, to believe that this way, mathematics is going to die an

43
unfortunate death. To him, it is not going to be very long, just a couple of
decades. And if that happens, all genuine progress is going to be halted.
The death of mathematics is going to leave science, technology,
engineering and all other forms of human domains affected beyond repair.

We may choose to embrace the technology of our times and do away with
pen and paper. But then, we need to gauge the possible danger that lies in
such adoption. Our educational institutions are becoming more and more
paperless. Tabs, screens, online or digital learning management systems
and streaming of content are becoming increasingly popular and
commonplace. It may be a good thing. It may be a bad thing. We need to
weigh the pros and cons. We need to strike a balance.

Calculators have their roles to play and humans have bigger roles to play.
Humans cannot afford to give away the power of being creative and
innovative by falling prey to their own inventions. In the words of John A.
Wan de Walle, “Calculators can only calculate - they cannot do
mathematics.” Although the advent of artificial intelligence has made it
possible that machines may come up with mathematical conjectures and
many other surprising things, it seems like man will have to bear the burden
of being creative. Humans cannot afford to bring the world to a standstill.
Humans must do mathematics.

44
A Mathematician’s Social Plight

Have you ever thought about what it means to think or behave logically in
a world that is overpopulated by illogical and unreasonable people? Do you
believe that being logically upright and argumentatively valid comes
cheap? Have you ever considered the social difficulties and dangers that a
mathematician is forced to face diurnally?

A person’s endeavours are likely to impact him. A person’s habits and

undertakings continually shape and reshape his personality. Studying a
subject as rigorous as mathematics is akin to bringing certain changes in
one's behaviour and attitude. The kind of everyday thinking and reasoning
that is needed in mathematics impacts a reader’s perspective and his very
disposition. Mathematics kind of reshapes the attitude, the behaviour, the
conduct and the deportment of the one who studies it. It embellishes,
furbishes, garnishes and harnesses the very self of the one who undertakes
its study.

Defining precisely what constitutes the subject matter of mathematics may

be hard. The fact remains that it is no less hard to define the life of a
mathematician. The life of a mathematician is a mystery in its own right.
Mathematicians are known for being precise or to the point. Rigour is a
hallmark of mathematics and proof is not considered a burden but rather a
confirmation, a thing of beauty. A mathematician is not burdened by the
requirement of proof; rather, he kind of enjoys and relishes the very taste
of it. A mathematician is a citizen of the world of proof and rigour. He
values truth beyond boundaries. In the words of David Hilbert,

45
“Mathematics knows no races or geographical boundaries; for
mathematics, the cultural world is one country.”

Mathematics, being an interplay of logic and language, impacts those who

engage with it. In the words of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,
“Mathematicians are like Frenchmen: whatever you say to them they
translate into their language and forthwith it is something entirely
different.” This leads to a very crucial point, that of precision and
symbolism. Note that, owing to its very nature and style, mathematics is
often written using symbols. This makes it similar to a language, though a
symbolic one. People not well-versed with the language struggle with it.
This results in further separation between a mathematician and the society
he dwells in.

The lives of hundreds of mathematicians who have come to pass in this

world have had a profound and prominent impact on the thought process
of their contemporaries and their antecedents. The likes of Pythagoras,
Euclid, Euler, Gauss, Cauchy, Riemann, Hardy, Russell and Gödel have
left lasting impressions on their readers. Remember that writing
mathematics is not like writing in other disciplines. A writer may have to
mind himself while writing in other disciplines; but in mathematics, a
writer has added responsibilities of being logical, correct and meticulous
besides being required to be more mindful of what he is writing. This is
because you can neither appeal to authority, nor can you appeal to emotions
or multitude or beg the question. This means that mathematicians while
writing mathematics exercise a lot of caution, precision and brevity.

History is witness to the unwelcome treatment meted out to those who

resorted to being mathematical in their approach. It should not take one
very long to gauge the danger that lies in being logical and mathematical

46
in a world populated by masses that have little or nothing to do with logic
and mathematical rigour. The fact remains that most people either do not
concern themselves with mathematics and logic or live with the wrong or
incorrect understanding of them. This culminates in a painful and
struggling situation. A mathematician has to survive every day between
logic and waywardness. He has to balance himself between the truth and
the falsehood. A mathematician lives a comprising life with his fellow men
who have no inclination towards being concerned, meticulous and
circumspect of their utterances, words or actions. A mathematician cannot
afford to be himself in a society that would not understand him or would
not appreciate being informed, in the face, that they resort to incorrect use
of language and beside-the-mark understanding of words.

A mathematician has to listen to nonsense and illogic if he has to be

recognized as a normal social being. He is not, mostly, allowed to pinpoint
the fallacies in others’ arguments. He has to bear the pain if he does not
want to upset his friends, colleagues and fellow men. He has to, on the one
hand, learn and master the rigour needed for enriching mathematical
knowledge. On the other hand, he has to see the same rigour being torn to
pieces. He has to face all of this. He has to live with the dilemma.

Another issue that a mathematician has to confront on a day-to-day basis

is that of not being able to make others understand their pitfalls and
aberrations. Sometimes, even the blunders of people go unnoticed if the
speaker and the listener are both bereft of the knowledge of logic and
knowledge. However, that should not be taken to mean that a
mathematician’s life is dull or less adventurous. The thrill of a
mathematical discovery or the joy of solving a mathematical problem is
ineffable. In the words of Bertrand Russell, “The pure mathematician, like
the musician, is a free creator of his world of ordered beauty.”

47
Do not ever live under the false impression that you are logical if you are
not. Test your logic. Learn it. Be mathematical. The invitation and the
doors are always open. The largest room in the world is the room for
improvement. One way to do that is to grab a source such as a book or a
teacher, an expository article or a discussion with a learned person. In a
world overpopulated by people that lack reason and logic, make efforts to
upgrade yourself to becoming not just a rational being but a mathematically
logical being, and thereby help give rise to more meaning and more
understanding for an intellectually healthier, satisfying and meaningful
coexistence.

48
 References and Further Readings

x Mala, F. A. (2022). Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland: Carroll’s Symbolic Attack on

Mathematical Symbolism. Journal of Humanistic Mathematics, 12(1), 348-351.
x Parker, T. (2012). ALICE in the real world. Mathematics Teaching in the Middle
School, 17(7), 410-416.
x Wright, A. (1997). Alice in pastaland: A math adventure. Charlesbridge.
x Van der Waerden, B. L. (2013). A history of algebra: From al-Khwārizmī to Emmy
Noether. Springer Science & Business Media.
x Rashed, R. (2014). Classical mathematics from al-Khwarizmi to Descartes. Routledge.
x Russel, B. (1956). Mysticism and logic and other essays. London, UK: George Allen &
Unwin.
x Ramanujan, S. (2015). Collected papers of srinivasa ramanujan. Cambridge University
Press.
x Berndt, B. C., & Rankin, R. A. (1995). Ramanujan: Letters and commentary. American
Mathematical Society.
x Hardy, G. H. (1999). Ramanujan: twelve lectures on subjects suggested by his life and
work (Vol. 136). American Mathematical Soc..
x Hardy, G. H. (1937). The Indian mathematician Ramanujan. The American Mathematical
Monthly, 44(3), 137-155.
x Hersh, R. (1979). Some proposals for reviving the philosophy of mathematics. Advances
in mathematics, 31(1), 31-50.
x Mala, F.A. Philosophy of Mathematics: Classic and Contemporary Studies. Math
Intelligencer (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00283-022-10178-x
x Lewis, C. I., Langford, C. H., & Lamprecht, P. (1959). Symbolic logic (Vol. 170). New
York: Dover Publications.
x Langer, S. K. K., & Langer, S. K. (1953). An introduction to symbolic logic (pp. 189-
190). New York: Dover.
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