Title: Calculus, the Kerala school, and math teaching today
13th Jan, 2018, 3:00 – 5:00 PM
Saj Earth Resort (Location)
Abstract: Post-independence India uncritically retained the inferior and unscientific Gregorian calendar, which is not secular and damages the Indian economy. Ironically, the Gregorian calendar reform was based on scientific knowledge stolen by Europeans from India, for its practical value for navigation (determining latitude). But this knowledge was poorly understood in Europe: Isaac Newton died believing he was born on Christmas, on a wrong calendar!
Likewise, most school math—arithmetic, algebra, trigonometry, calculus, probability, and statistics—was first imported by Europeans from India for its practical value. For example, arithmetic was imported for its practical value for commerce, trigonometry for navigation. Leading European minds struggled for centuries to understand it—even elementary arithmetic. Descartes, Leibniz, and Newton failed to understand how the Kerala school of mathematics summed the infinite series of the calculus, which is an essential ingredient of science today. Church-dominated Europe ultimately understood infinite series in a theologically-correct way, compatible with the church dogmas of eternity, a way we imitate today.
History was falsified to claim that this stolen Indian knowledge originated in “post-Renaissance” Europe: for example, the calculus is today falsely attributed to Newton and Leibniz. This systematic falsification of history followed the model established at Toledo during the Crusades, when the Arabic library at Toledo was mass translated into Latin, and the origin of knowledge in those books was wildly attributed to early Greeks, real or imaginary like Euclid.
This false history was used to trick Indians into accepting colonial/church education, as essential for science. Hence, school math is today taught not the way it originated, but in the inferior way it was misunderstood in Europe. This makes math difficult, even 1+1 =2 took Bertrand Russel 378 pages. Obviously, Russell’s metaphysics is irrelevant to the practical value of 1+1=2. Likewise, the metaphysics of infinity (formal real numbers) added to the calculus in Europe makes it exessively difficult without adding an iota to its practical value for science and engineering.
Rejecting that metaphysics leads to my method of teaching calculus the way it originally developed in India, without limits, and using non-Archimedean arithmetic. This also makes math very simple, and preserves (indeed enhances) its practical value for science. However, the colonised mind learns only to uncritically imitate the colonial master. Hence, it regards any critique of the master as taboo and rushes to denounce it as heresy, in the usual way, without engaging with evidence or arguments.
The original way of doing calculus derives from the sulba sutra way of doing geometry with a flexible string rather than the ritualistic compass box used today. I also briefly explain my method of teaching this universal way of doing geometry, used also in Africa, in contrast to the gross falsehood about Euclid in our school texts, and the church metaphysics (rational theology) which those falsehoods promote.
Check out some of his other videos videos:
Check some of his books:
Indian Institute of Education
D. Parikh Centre, J. P. Naik Bhavan
Mumbai University Kalina Campus
Vidyanagari, Santacruz (E)
Mumbai 400 098