Fun with Maths

It's Exam time at home... My elder son currently doing his Prelims before his tenth standard board exams.... and the younger one in Grade Four. 

And as I opened up the Economic Times this morning, this article - Fun With Maths just jumped out at me....

Manjul Bhargava is the first person of Indian origin to have won the coveted Fields medal in Mathematics for this path-breaking work in Number Theory. This professor of Mathematics at Princeton University discusses various issues with the Infosys founder NR Narayana Murthy.

When I asked the students of the MBA class I take about Mathematics the other day, only around 10% of them said they like it. Most of the others detested it. Years ago, I recall another MBA graduate in my office struggling with basic Arithmetic. Maths is an integral part of our everyday life. From waking up to the alarm clock... to train timings... to the price we pay for breakfast... it's all about Mathematics. We work with sheets and charts.... and get a salary at the end of the week or the month.... for which we need to know our numbers right... Yes indeed, That's Mathematics.

 

You liked that song by Tom Lehrer... we'll get him to give us a lesson a little later on. But first we'll do it very easy... ABC is as easy as One Two Three...

Well, the number 'three' reminds me of this song, a song my uncle Denzil used to sing... back in the day, Jake the Peg (Rolf Harris). 

That version did not have my favorite verse of the song.... the one about counting.... on fingers and toes...

Are you ready for the Maths lesson with Tom Lehrer.... on the New Math...

Didn't that song make Maths fun.... 

I put some thought into it... and recalled that I knew to read the time at age 5.... I learnt my tables in regular school.... and in class VI when I opened up a chapter on Bills and Receipts, I instead said Rec-i-pes, and had the entire class burst into laughter.... I was fairly good at Maths through school... though I slipped up when it came to Maths in college.... My Stats teacher in First Year B.Com was quite a terror and predicted based on past experience that more than half the class would end up struggling to Pass. I put my head down to it, and did extremely well. In B=School, I was actually coaching some of my weaker batchmates on Statistics... which made me one of my closest friends in the batch, that I'm still in active contact with. Working in data has been an absolute treat and the current trend of analytics absolutely amazes me.... 

I could go on and on.... which my stories on numbers.... but I'd rather just leave you with this song on advice for life... a sure formula to get the maximum out of life.... 

Acc-en-tu-ate the Positive. 

P.S. I've got another post on this blog on Maths... in fact the very first one.... Check out Music and Math