Cultural Foundations Of Mathematics Vol X Part 4

by C.K. Raju

Genres: Cultural, History

477 pages, Paperback

First published May 30, 2005

About the author

C. K. Raju holds a masters in mathematics from Mumbai, followed by a PhD from the Indian Statistical Institute. He taught mathematics for several years at Pune University before moving on to help build India's first parallel supercomputer, Param. After a fellowship at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, and the National Institute of Science, Technology and Development Studies, he resumed university teaching, and is currently a Distinguished Professor. He has proposed many radical new ideas related to time, quantum mechanics, quantum computing and the history and philosophy of mathematics, and calculus. He has written critically acclaimed books on physics (Time: Towards a Consistent Theory, Kluwer, 1994), history and philosophy of mathematics (Cultural Foundations of Mathematics, Pearson Longman, 2007), on time at the interface of science, religion and ethics (The Eleven Pictures of Time, Sage, 2003), and on the history of science (Is Science Western in Origin?, Multiversity and Citizens International, Penang, 2009). For a full list of his books, see http://ckraju.net. He straddles various fields, and was an editor of the Journal of Indian Council of Philosophical Research and curently advices other scholarly journals. He has also built computer software for industrial and educational use. Volume 5 of his collected papers contains his scholarly articles on mathematics and religion. In his "5-day course on calculus", he has demonstrated that mathematics can be made very easy by eliminating the post-Crusade theology in it. Watch out for more of his forthcoming books, especially "Euclid and Jesus".

Reviews

[Anshul Tripathi · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author unknowingly summarised this book in his famous article on 𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑪𝒐𝒏𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒔𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 ; 𝑻𝒐 𝒅𝒆𝒄𝒐𝒍𝒐𝒏𝒊𝒔𝒆 𝑴𝒂𝒕𝒉𝒔 , 𝑺𝒕𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒖𝒑 𝒕𝒐 𝒊𝒕𝒔 𝑭𝒂𝒍𝒔𝒆 𝑯𝒊𝒔𝒕𝒐𝒓𝒚 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝑩𝒂𝒅 𝑷𝒉𝒊𝒍𝒐𝒔𝒐𝒑𝒉𝒚 as
"Decolonised maths rejects the redundant metaphysics of formal math as inferior knowledge. It reverts to a commonsense practical philosophy of mathematics as a technique of approximate calculation for practical purposes...It also leads to a better science, the simplest example being a better theory of gravitation arising from correcting Newton’s wrong metaphysical presumptions about calculus.
In short, maths can be decolonised. The simple way to do it is to have the courage to stand up to its false Western history and bad Western philosophy and focus solely on its practical value."