Download - India Currents - May 2016
by Roshn Marwah
A community lacking political representation is in danger of being misrepresented, or worse, forgotten.
INDIA CURRENTSAre You Really Saving Those Seats?
by Gauri SirurA Misplaced Sense of Pride
by Atanu DeyDoes History Matter?
by Vamsee Juluri
INDIA CURRENTSCelebrating 30 Years of Excellence
I+Vote = POWER
The Ethnic Equation
may 2016 • vol. 30 , no. 2 • www. indiacurrents.com
May 2016 | West Coast Edition | www.indiacurrents.com | 1
2 | INDIA CURRENTS | West Coast Edition | May 2016
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An Infinite Series of Beautiful Patterns
You’ve probably heard this story, but it bears repeating: In 1918, when Cambridge mathematician G. H.
Hardy visited his protégé, Srinivasa Ra-manujan, in India, they boarded cab num-ber 1729. Habitually given to looking for distinguishing patterns in numbers, Hardy felt compelled to remark to Ramanujan that he found 1,729 rather dull. Promptly disagreeing, Ramanujan responded with the number’s exceptional characteristics: 1,729 is the smallest number that can be written as the sum of two cubes in two different ways (123 + 13 and 103 + 93).
When New Yorker reporter Charles Bethea asked Emory mathematics profes-sor Ken Ono what was unique about the number 73—which represented the record number of wins that the Golden State Warriors were poised to notch for the 2016 NBA season—Ono’s response was equally inspired. “I like the number,” he told Bethea. “It is the sixth emirp.” Emirp is prime spelt backwards and emirps, Ono explained, are prime numbers that are also primes when written backwards. So 73 as well as 37 are prime numbers.
The creativity behind discovering patterns in numbers and equations was brought up at a panel discussion at Stan-ford on the making of the film, The Man Who Knew Infinity, based on Ramanujan’s life. Ono was a panelist at the event and he used the word “artistry” to describe Ramanujan’s work. Others on the panel—Princeton professor of mathematics Man-jul Bhargava and the director of the film, Matthew Brown—seemed completely at ease with this idea of Ramanujan’s work being an expressive art form.
Indeed, when Ramanujan’s process of discovery is examined and compared to other great artists, so many parallels can be found.
Leonardo da Vinci, the artist who gave us The Last Supper and Mona Lisa, was known to be obsessively driven to observe, record, analyze and sketch. His art form was decidedly scientific in its approach. His paintings are breathtaking observa-tions of nature and the puissant energy of movement and stillness.
So also Beethoven, Bach, and Indian artist and mandolin maestro U. Srinivas. These musicians explicated the purpose
and vitality of sound through a rigorous investigative process.
Ramanajun’s three legendary note-books contain between 3,000 to 4,000 mathematical discoveries. He had in abun-dance what is essential for any artist: keen insight, and a talent for persistence.
Ramanujan was engrossed in the explo-rations of equations just as an artist would. To the exclusion of things and people around him. In a 1987 BBC documentary on Ramanujan, his wife Janakiammal says, “All I can tell you is that day and night he worked on sums. He didn’t do anything else. He wasn’t interested in anything else. Just sums. He wouldn’t stop work even to eat. We had to make rice balls for him and place them in the palm of his hand. Isn’t that extraordinary?”
There’s a particular and startling beau-ty in finding patterns, whether in num-bers, words, behavior, music or in natural formations around us. And to questions about that beauty, Hungarian mathemati-cian Paul Erdos is famously known to have said, “it is like asking why is Beethoven’s
‘Ninth Symphony’ beautiful? If you don’t see why, someone can’t tell you.”
Perhaps the point is not to question whether Ramanujan was an artist or a sci-entist. For it is only in the intersection of the two that extraordinary works of genius are produced. Without analytical bearing, poetry is a mere collection of words set to meter. Without recognizing the exquisite skill it takes and the knowledge it exposes, math is a mere tedious process of proofs and calculations.
A work of art must radiate an uncom-mon perception. A work of science must uncover hidden truths. And each requires a particular skill and rare imagination. Ramanujan’s equations and theories ad-vanced our knowledge of how we relate to the world around us. He drew exceptional patterns with ordinary numbers and gave infinite color to our world. He was an uncommon artist in the pursuit of truth.
Jaya Padmanabhan, Editor
4 | INDIA CURRENTS | West Coast Edition | May 2016
INDIA CURRENTSPERSPECTIVES West Coast Edition
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May 2016 • vol 30 • no 2
3 | EDITORIALAn Infinite Series of Beautiful PatternsBy Jaya Padmanabhan
8 | WORDS AND THINGSOn Writing the AcknowledgmentsBy Ragini Tharoor Srinivasan
14 | VIEWPOINTGuns and GrassBy Sandhya Acharya
24 | OPINIONAre You Really Saving Those Seats?By Veenu Puri-Vermani
40 | ANALYSISA Misplaced Sense of PrideBy Atanu Dey
50 | PERSPECTIVECan We Get a Dog, Pleeease?By Rajee Padmanabhan
100 | ON INGLISHSo Suave with ShampooBy Kalpana Mohan
102 | THE LAST WORDDreaming of DelawareBy Sarita Sarvate
LIFESTYLE
72 | Cultural Calendar82 | Spiritual Calendar
29 | RELATIONSHIP DIVA Five Tips to Attract a WomanBy Jasbina Ahluwalia
48 | BOOKSA Review of When Breath Becomes AirBy Rajesh C. Oza
54 | YOUTHProm Couture Desi StyleBy Sandhya Iyer
70 | MUSICTake Five, TalibanBy Priya Das
90 | HEALTHY LIFEWhole Food Plant Based LifestyleBy Pushkala Raju
96 | RECIPESTemple FoodsBy Malar Gandhi
98 | DEAR DOCTOR Reacting Strongly to Professional CriticismBy Alzak Amlani
DEPARTMENTS6 | Letters to the Editor32 | Popular Articles
WHAT’S CURRENT
30 | Ask a Lawyer31 | Visa Dates
Any minority community that lacks government repre-sentation is in danger of being misrepresented.
By Roshn Marwah(with contributions from Ajay Jain Bhutoria
and Vijay Rajvaidya)
16 | The Ethnic Equation
Reviews of Fan and Kapoor & Sons
By Aniruddh Chawda
28 | Education
Does History Matter?By Vamsee Juluri
37 | Films
52 | TravelTel Aviv’s Bauhaus Buildings
By Kalpana Sunder
May 2016 | West Coast Edition | www.indiacurrents.com | 5
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