Vedic Mathematics
I taught five weeks class on Vedic Mathematics in the Hindu
Heritage Class here at Albany, New York during 1996 and 1997. The children who attended my
class were either middle school or high school students. I was
following the book that is written buy Shri Sankaracharya of Puri.
It was challenging to learn and to teach. But it was lots of fun for me.
"Lilavati" by Bhaskara is another good book to learn.
Caveat:
At the outset, I want to emphasize that (from what I have learned) the
sutras/mnemonics do not teach any high-level mathematics (It may be a
case that people in ancient period were knowledgeable in mathematics
and its application to astronomy and other computations). These sutras
teach one to compute certain arithmetical operations quickly. The
point that I like the best (when I was teaching in a Hindu Heritage
class at Albany, NY as well as for my own enjoyment) is that it allows
one to look at the same computations under different points of view
and even get a better understanding of those elementary computations.
Scholars acknowledge that Hindu Science was highly developed at AD 600
particularly in Astronomy [Knuth Vol. 2 Page 197]. Discovery of place
value notation (decimal number system) has been attributed to India.
However, some of the claims of Vedic Mathematics book (such as the
discovery balanced ternary notation during vedic period) have been
refuted by Scholars [K. S. Shukla Mathematics Education, Vol.5, No.3,
1989, pp. 129-133 quoted in Knuth Vol.2 Page 208]. It is imperative
that participants be made aware of this. Otherwise, we will be doing a
disservice to Mathematics as well as Science in Vedic period.
Interested reader may also want to read an article on
Noretta Koertge Department of History and Philosophy of Science ... Prof. Koertge is a professor in the
department of history and philosophy of science in Indiana University. (I have
no connections with this professor - I found this article through a web
search.)
My lectures can be found here.
Lectures in Power Point Slides
Lecture 1 in power point
Lecture 2 in power point
Lecture 3 in power point
Lecture 4 in power point
Lectures in PDF format
Lecture 1 in pdf
Lecture 2 in pdf
Lecture 3 in pdf
Lecture 4 in pdf
Lectures in Post Script
You may not be able to see them in ghost
view. But they print ok.
Lecture 1 in post script
Lecture 2 in post script
Lecture 3 in post script
Lecture 4 in post script
I can be contacted at
Moorthy