Ganitham Moorthanishthitham

Recently, my good friend and roomie Mr. Bhat aced the examination commonly referred to as the GRE (short for Gradually Ruining Engineers).

Mr. Bhat scored 800/800 in the Quantitative Section of this exam For the ignorant, ‘quantitative’ is just a fancy term for ‘mathematics’.

Mathematics (also known as math, maths, ganith, That Subject) has always been a pain in my rear end. Ever since I was an innocent (hah!) waif, the Scourge of Mathematics has persecuted and tormented me and generally Made Life a Wee Bit Uncomfortable.

Let’s face it: I am Matho-phobic.

I don’t blame the noble science of Mathematics one bit. That purest of pure sciences constantly churns out theorems, corollaries and tangents, regardless of whether the intended recipient possesses the brain power of Einstein (like your good self) or an amoeba (like me).

It’s just that I AM DUMB.

My family tree does little by way of supporting my dumbness. In his heyday, my grandfather was known to belt out fraction multiplication tables in three different languages. So I cannot blame genetics for my Mathophobia.

Nor can I blame the Education System of our Fair Land. If all the Mathematics teachers I have had were laid out end-to-end (not that I suppose anyone can do that), the line would reach halfway to Brazil (some of my Math teachers were quite tall).

My school tried its level best, bless its dusty old soul, to impart some rudimentary math skills in me. Things started off quite well, actually. There I was, five years old, learning that 2 ice creams and 2 ice creams made 4 ice creams , unless you happen to eat one of the ice creams, in which case you would end up with caries, not to mention turn the whole addition thing on its head.

I was a happy chappie back then, content with the fact that Math consisted of numbers and ice cream. Though the concept of negative numbers weakened my constitution a bit, I nevertheless was able to Adapt.

Then, round about Standard VI, algebra happened.

I am a man of principles. And one of my founding principles is that English alphabets need to be restricted to the pages of English literature and not try to infiltrate into the domain of Mathematics.

So, imagine my horror when my brand-new, state-of-the-art Standard VI math textbook contained more alphabets than my equally state-of-the-art English Grammar textbook.

And it wasn’t just any set of alphabets. More often than not, ‘x’, ‘y’, ‘z’ and their kin would plonk their variable posterior onto the page of algebra. I concluded that the English language followed a system of employment, and alphabets that found little use in English eventually wound up in algebra.

Almost in parallel with this unknown variable thingie, along came another algebraic assassin: the Word Problem.

Imagine what effect the following Word Problem would have had on my young mind:

“A is twice as old as B was when C was half the combined age of D and his pet donkey. If the donkey is now 200 years old, how old would A’s son, conceived through an illegitimate affair with F, be today?”

The funny part was that the solution to most Word Problems would begin with the statement “Let ‘x’ be the current age of A”. I generalized this statement and included it in the solution of all Word Problems, regardless of whether the current age of A or his bank balance were in question.

Speaking of A, I always felt that C got a raw deal, especially when it came to feats of athleticism between A, C and the omnipresent B. Somehow, C was destined to be the slow-poke, the guy who couldn’t increase his speed at a rate suitable to keep pace with the superhuman A or the agile B.

Another type of Word Problem concerned Trains. I could never fathom why it was so damn critical to calculate the time at which a train would leave a station, when there was a perfectly simple way of determining the same – a railway time table (available at a bookstore near you). And don’t get me started on Relative Speed Theory.

Next in line was Geometry, filled with circles, secants and sleepless nights. Hardly a night would pass when I did not freely curse the Ancient Greeks for letting a chappie like Pythagoras roam free. One thing with Pythagoras though. If ever you were stuck during a Geometry paper, he would come to your rescue. Considering the fact that he had theorized a gazillion theorems, chances are that if you are at a loss to explain how you arrived at a particular solution, you can always quote Pythagoras as reference.

Example: O is the centre of a circle through which a tangent passing through the midpoint M of a secant L intersects the father-in-law of the alticentre of a triangle ABC. If angle Z measures 23 degrees, prove that quadrilateral JKLM is a rhomboid.

Solution:

Given: (underlining is mandatory while writing Given. Its like a law or something)



T.P.T: (acronym for To Prove That): Quadrilateral JKLM is a rhomboid.

Formulae:

1. E = mc2 (this works 60% of the time)
2. Appolonius Principle (who would argue with a guy with a name like that?)
3. Pythagoras’ Theorem. (As long as you write the magic P name, no one can question you)

Solution:

Assuming that the earth is a perfect sphere, it can be seen from Fig 1.1 (draw deadly-looking figure containing several alphabets, preferable in English) that JKLM is a quadrilateral.

Hence, by applying Pythagoras’ Theorem, we see that quadrilateral JKLM is a rhomboid.

Hence proved.

If Pythagoras didn’t work, the theory of reversals was sure to click. It basically involves assuming something, proving that your assumption was false, hence implying that you are a jackass and cannot possibly prove whatever is to be proved, meaning that it would be in the Greater Good of Society if the answer was just assumed to be true.

Believe you me, this works.

At this stage, I had decided that after Geometry, Things Couldn’t Possibly get Any Worse.

They Did.

In Standard X, I was introduced to a fascinating piece of drivel named Trigonometry. It didn’t help that I was taught Trigonometry (‘Trig’ , as its close friends like to call it) by a lady who refused to say “sec C”, preferring rather to say “secant of C” or even “one upon cos C”.

Junior college was full of pretty girls. It was also full of derivatives, integration and the Midpoint Theorem.

Fellow blogger Kadu and I attended private Math tuitions conducted by Prof. Ashok whose motto was Ganitham Moorthanishtiham. To this day, I have not deciphered the meaning of this cryptic statement. I think I will have it etched on my tombstone, several centuries from today.

Prof. Ashok had a lot of patience. While Kadu would ace his perplexing posse of problems, I barely managed to sign my name right. Prof. Ashok, however, did not lose hope. He merely informed me, on more than one occasion, that, in his opinion, it would be better if I opened a mutton shop in Chedda Nagar (a neighborhood near my home). His HLTUP (High Level Typical Ultimate Problems) brought chills down the spines of even seasoned veterans like Kadu. Prof. Ashok utilized the services of his father, lovingly referred to as Thatha, in supervising exams. What with Thatha reminding us, “One hour more please” and Prof Ashok’s HLTUP requesting me to calculate the sine of the derivative of the Cauchy Integral, life was interesting.
Is there any doubt left in your mind as to why I am mathophobic?

There’s hope yet! Mathophobia can be cured! After years of searching, I have found the perfect way to ease the suffering and pain experienced by mathophobians the world over (at last count, there were three of us, not including Bonzo the trained chimpanzee.)

The miracle cure for mathophobia is simple, yet elegant. It is small enough to fit into your pocket, yet powerful enough to calculate the square root of 34.

Its name is three words long: pocket calculator.

Derivatives and integrals can jolly well fend for themselves.