The mention of numbers, or mathematics, has the potential to send cold shivers down the spine of many people. The people in question would most probably be the ones who, at least once in their lives, would have claimed, not without a sense of vengeance (and with the memories of all those melancholy evenings spent with the maths test paper that had drawn a blank!), they are right-brained, drawing on the conception that, in contradistinction to the left-brainers, they are the creative kind, and thus, less inclined to make sense of numbers. But, are numbers scary and so uninteresting to even enthuse the ones who do not make a living crunching numbers? Kochi-based software scientist Thomas George answers both questions with an emphatic no.
The thrust of Thomas George’s new book, ‘Akkangalude Charithram’, is definitely not to make numbers look glamourous. The idea he set out with was to trace the history of the decimal number system, which he says is ‘India’s biggest contribution to science,’ and has, consequently, unveiled the beauty hidden within its recesses. “We hardly give any thought to how numbers work, even though we use it everyday. The decimal number system is pretty ingenious,” says George.
He digs into history to explain why the decimal system prevailed. “Roman numerals could not handle big numbers and the other number systems could not be used without the help of a trained mathematician,” he said. The path-breaking aspect of the decimal number system, which George qualifies with the term, ‘tremendous’, was the idea of place value. The ability to write numbers in a sequential order, with each number to the left signifying a place that is a multiple of ten from the one that precedes it, was an innovation that is the contribution of this land. “This idea is nothing new and mathematicians know about it. The famous French mathematician Georges Ifrah had sufficiently illustrated the idea,” adds George, who had spent three years compiling the work in its present form and had warded off temptations to publish it as a research book. “My attempt, with ‘Akkangalude Charithram’ was to explain these unknown aspects of numbers to a wider public in a lucid language,” the author says. The book was released last week. It has been brought out by Kerala Sasthra Sahitya Parishad.