Tired of maths? You may get rid of it!!!!!!

I saw this new report on "Tired of maths? You may get rid of it" which is really unfortunate! Well, I do understand that many people find maths boring or has difficulty in maths! It has more to do with the way maths is taught in schools etc.... After all, maths help in improving the analytical skills of students! As such, even if you don't continue in maths, when you appear for competitive exams, you definitely have to give a paper on maths and at least Class X maths is necessary. Well..., those who want to go in Sports and Glamourous World, they may not need any maths! But that does not mean they should not be taught maths! After all, the present system of maths upto Class X is not bad! This proposal should be objected!

A drink with Shamir(S) of RSA!

RSA has been one of the most widely used and secure Cryptosystem for interent security, e-commerce and what not! However it is quite interesting to know that prime numbers whose notion was quite abstract can be quite useful. For the unitiated, RSA stands for Rivest, Shamir(the guy on the left in the photo) and Adleman, named after the inventors of the secure system. RSA is secure(as of now) since the factorisation of large numbers is a difficult problem. The factorisation of 193 digit number RSA-640

3107418240490043721350750035888567930037346022842727545720161948823
2064405180815045563468296717232867824379162728380334154710731085019
19548529007337724822783525742386454014691736602477652346609

took 5 months on 80 2.2 GHz Opteron CPUs! It was factored by F. Bahr, M. Boehm, J. Franke and T. Kleinjung of the German Federal Agency for Information Technology Security (BSI). The factors are

163473364580925384844313388386509085984178367003309
2312181110852389333100104508151212118167511579

and

190087128166482211312685157393541397547189678996851
5493666638539088027103802104498957191261465571

which are both primes. Even though we know much larger primes, its really difficult to factor large numbers and which is making your internet banking, credit cards and sensitive passwords safe! I was lucky to meet and know Adi Shamir, one of the inventors, at a conference at Le Meridian, New Delhi in Feb, 2004. The person on the right is Professor R Balasubramanian(Balu) who is the present director of IMSc and a famous Number Theorist and I was quite lucky to have studied under him and know him well!

Gauss in Love!

Not many people know of passionate and poetic side of Carl Friedrich Gauss, one of the greatest mathematicians of all times. The following is an exerpt from Gauss' Letter of 12 July, 1804 in which he asks for the hand of Johanna Osthoff, his first wife:

....My true friend, receive favorably the fact that I pour out my heart, in writing, before you, about an important matter, regarding which I have found no proper opportunity to mention up to the present.

Finally, let me say it from the fullness of my heart, that I have a heart for your silent angelic virtues, an eye for the noble features which make your face a true mirror of these virtues. You, dear modest soul, are so far removed from all vanity that you yourself do not realize you own value; you don't know how richly and kindly heaven has endowed you. But my heart knows your worth -- O! more than it can bear with repose. For a long time it has belonged to you. You won't repel it? Can you give me yours? Dear, can you grasp the proffered hand, do it gladly? My happiness hangs on the answer to this question. Indeed, at present I can't offer you riches or splendor. Still, dear, I can not have erred as to your beautiful soul -- you are certainly as indifferent to riches and splendor as I am. But I have more than I need for myself alone, enough for two young people to start a carefree, agreeable life, not thinking at all of my prospects for the future. The best that I can offer you is a true heart full of the warmest love for you.
Ask yourself, beloved friend, whether this heart completely satisfies you, whether you can reply just as sincerely to its feelings, whether you can contentedly make the journey of life hand in hand with me, and decide soon.

I have placed before you, darling, the desires of my heart in artless, but candid words. I could have done it in entirely different words. I could make for you a portrait of your charms, which you, although it would be nothing more than the truth, would have received as flattery; with burning colors I could make for you a picture of my love -- to be sure, there I would be allowed only the expression of my feeling -- a portrait of the bliss or disconsolation which await me ever after you have accepted or rejected my desires. But I didn't want to do that. At least, don't mistake the pureness of my unselfish love. I don't want to bribe your decision. In the sincerest concern of your life you must not allow any unusual considerations to influence you. You are not to bring a sacrifice to my happiness. Your own happiness alone must guide your decision. Yes, dearest, so warmly do I even love you, that only possession of you can make me happy, if you are of the same feeling.

Dearest, I have exposed to you the inner part of my heart: passionately and in suspense am I waiting for your answer. With all my heart,

Yours,
C. F. Gauss

Johanna let C F Gauss squirm for three months before saying yes!

Taken from pages 63 and 64 of G. Waldo Dunnington's biography Carl Friedrich Gauss: Titan of Science, reprinted by MAA. You can also read more here!

Even though the above letter has nothing to do with Mathematics, this reminded me of G H Hardy who wrote in A Mathematician's Apology (London 1941):

The mathematician's patterns, like the painter's or the poet's must be beautiful; the ideas, like the colours or the words must fit together in a harmonious way. Beauty is the first test: there is no permanent place in this world for ugly mathematics.

Coming up soon!

I had been quite preoccuppied with some random thoughts and completion of few workings and papers! Many people have been asking me if I stopped blogging! My answer is no and I hope to put up a new post by 27th March! Watch out for this space....