Blogs

1. Eigenvalues and Eigenvectors—Why are they important?

   A university academic friend of mine recently remarked that it was not easy to motivate students to study eigenvalues and eigenvectors, let alone appreciate their importance: the subject itself was abstract, and the applications tended to be domain-specific and somewhat arcane.

2. What Ails Indian Education?

   The QS World University rankings for 2013 have just been released. This is one of several league tables ranking universities according to various criteria of academic performance. Such rankings are symptomatic of the relentless trend to quantify more and more aspects of our lives. May this madness be checked before intangible attributes best left qualitative—like love and loyalty—are also subjected to mindless, simplistic metrology!

3. Asking Questions in English

   This blog is devoted to the art of asking questions in English. This seemingly undemanding task often trips up the aspiring learner of English, especially one who is studying it as a second or third language.

4. Mastering English

   This blog first found exposure in 2012 as a prescriptive essay intended to help students learning English. The Web was a hot resource then, much like what AI is today—in 2026. But the fundamentals of language learning remain unchanged, despite changing times and tools. It is my hope that this blog is as relevant to students today, as it was when it was first written. It has been suggested to me that I should write a whole series on Mastering English, and I shall endeavour to do so.

5. Varieties of Multiplication

   I want to look at some of the varieties of multiplication that mathematicians have developed over time. It is a survey that will serve as a pinhole through which we can view how a single, simple mathematical idea has been expanded and elaborated into uses far beyond its historical moorings.

6. Two Rupees

   I was driving through the grey haze conjured up by soft rain and bleak sky when my gaze chanced upon a human form crouched in the mud by the road. I looked into my rear-view mirror and discovered that it was a hapless man struggling to rise and stumbling and falling, to rise and fall again, perhaps defeated by the slushy mud, or by fatigue, or by cold. Thrice I saw him struggle to stand and thrice fall, drenched in the rain. The pantomime being enacted had all the makings of a Chaplinesque comedy on screen, except that this was not reel life but real life: so comedy turned to tragedy.

7. Same Action: Four Castes

   This blog was originally penned on 24 October 2008. It is one among many dozen blogs that have not been previously released publicly on the Web. I will be gradually refreshing and releasing all those unpublished blogs on this website. They are generally short and tightly focused pieces of writing, readable in a few minutes. Where possible, I have retained the original contextual immediacy and topical relevance. I have used the IAST transliteration scheme for the Sanskrit terms; consult the link for the correct pronunciation. The upshot of this blog is that caste is spiritual in nature, and that all individuals may exhibit all four castes at different times—according to attitude to action—regardless of birth or occupation.

8. Zero, One, Two, Many

   As has been observed above [1], in the context of computer programming, there are only three numbers worth being concerned about: zero, one, and many. And if you are into the arcana of “regular expressions” and “pattern matching”—which is, incidentally, something done implicitly every time you do a Google search, or look for a book at an online bookstore—that is very sage advice. But how serviceable is this dictum in everyday life?

9. Reflections on the Mind of Nikola Tesla

   Nikola Tesla was a complex genius whose prolific mind produced many electrical marvels. In this paper, we focus on only four of his documented mental characteristics: (1) an extremely acute sense of hearing and sight; (2) a visualization so vivid as to mimic reality; (3) eccentricities of habit and behaviour; and (4) making grandiose claims, some of which remain open until today. Each of these is examined in some detail, especially with respect to his creativity, and questions worthy of further investigation are posed. Finally, the hypothesis of mental evolution, as proposed by R M Bucke, is put forward as a possible explanation for Tesla’s prodigious and rare mind.

10. e Unleashed

    This blog follows on from the previous blog The Exponential and Logarithmic Functions. We begin with a brief review of the life of Euler both as a human being and as a mathematician. We look at the complex exponentials, the hyperbolic functions, the catenary, and the linear and logarithmic spirals. We conclude with the recognition that the complex exponentials may be viewed as vectors undergoing linear transformations when they are differentiated or integrated. There is a third blog A Tetrad of Captivating Problems. It is meant to be read in conjunction with these two blogs on e.