Math Yoga

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Math Yoga

Ancient Hindu sutras offer intriguing shortcut to solving complex

modern math problems

 

 

http://consciouschoice.com/2006/01/img/vedicmath1.jpg

Nikhil Reghunath (left), 11, and P.V.

Sarath Nath, 12, race through a set of practice problems in Vivek

Astunkar's

Vedic math course. Photo: John Myers

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A taste of Vedic math

 

The "Nikhilam" (by one more

than the one before) sutra

 

One fun technique derived from this sutra instantly gives squares to

any number ending with 5. So, to find the square of 75:

 

1) Simply put 25 on the "right-hand side" of your answer.

 

2) Take the number that precedes five (7, in this case) and add one,

giving you 8. (This is where "by one more than the one before" takes

flight.)

 

3) Next, multiply 8 by 7 to get 56. This is the "left-hand side" of

your answer.

 

4) Put the results together, 56 and 25, to form 5,625. Check it!

 

 

 

 

By John Myers

BOMBAY, INDIA - Math instructor Vivek Astunkar barely caps his pen

before 12-year-old Janhavi Shah calls out "one, three, two, one, six,

double zero!" She has, in mere seconds, correctly answered Astunkar's

whiteboard challenge — multiply 1,120 by 1,180.

 

Unlike Dustin Hoffman in the film "Rain Man," Janhavi cannot

instantly count toothpicks dropped to the floor. In fact, her nine

classmates — all normal, middle-class Indian youngsters — confirm her

results just seconds later.

 

They've used a shortcut from Vedic math, an alternative approach to

calculation that Indian ascetics may have devised more than 3,500

years ago. These yogic math techniques are mental exercises that can

waylay the fear of numbers, build confidence and enhance creativity,

says Astunkar.

 

Vedic math is largely unknown in India, let alone the West. But

that's changing. A local newspaper recently counted more than 40

Bombay schools using it. Astunkar, alone, has tutored thousands of

students, and also supplies newspapers with weekly Vedic problems.

And a few organizations such as Mathvedics, which has franchises in

California and Colorado, are pioneering the approach in America.

 

"School is just studies. This is fun," says Janhavi, who sits at the

end of a couch, sandwiched by peers, in Astunkar's small apartment,

four floors up in one of New Bombay's mid-rise buildings. It's Sunday

morning and the students are happy, even giggling, as they speed

through multiplication problems that would make the average adult

sweat.

 

Astunkar, an aeronautical engineer who left his software firm five

years ago to teach Vedic math, excels at making it fun. Using a small

whiteboard, he writes out problems for the kids to race through,

afterwards explaining the Vedic techniques in a flash of scribbling.

 

He says the methods, derived from devotional Sanskrit verses called

sutras, should not replace classic math practices. But, he adds, they

offer students fresh, and ultimately faster, ways to calculate.

 

A Hindu holy man, steeped deeply in Sanskrit and math scholarship,

marshaled Vedic math into the modern era. Followers of Bharati

Krishna Tirthaji believe he discovered 16 sutras in a long-lost

appendix to the Vedas, Hinduism's most sacred religious texts. Using

these verses, Tirthaji spent eight years (1911-18) reconstructing

formulas that span math's various realms, from basic arithmetic to

advanced calculus.

 

Indeed, Tirthaji enthusiasts claim the 16 sutras encompass all

possible mathematical knowledge. But they're left with precious

little guidance from their guru. He supposedly wrote one book for

each sutra and entrusted them to a disciple. Near the end of his

life, however, the works mysteriously disappeared. Tirthaji obliged

frantic devotees and rewrote the works from memory into one

compressed volume, published posthumously in 1965 under the title

Vedic Mathematics.

 

Average readers will find the book virtually impenetrable. The

sutras, simple phrases loaded with meaning, like "All from nine and

last from 10," and "By one more than the one before," are spelled out

but hardly illuminated. And the resulting math procedures are

recorded but left largely unexplained, notes Astunkar.

 

"I have read a little last night and not understood a word," says his

student Janhavi. (Her mother, a college professor of commerce, bought

a copy out of curiosity.)

 

But, for most Indians, the appeal of Vedic math has less to do with

its spiritual and cultural roots and more to do with the intense

competition facing students on college entrance exams, says Atul

Gupta, author of The Power of Vedic Maths.

 

Gupta's book skims over the underlying sutras, instead featuring more

than 1,000 practice problems with detailed explanations of the math

techniques themselves. In a workshop Gupta offered in November, all

but one of the students were preparing for technical examinations in

the spring.

 

Still, Gupta waxes poetically about the spiritual nature of Vedic

math. "The simplicity and the brilliance of the techniques will make

you feel humble," he says.

 

Of course, Vedic math is not without controversy. Many scholars say

it's neither "Vedic" nor "mathematics."

 

Joining 15 math and Sanskrit scholars, Madhav Deshpande, a Sanskrit

professor at the University of Michigan, argued as much in a signed

letter sent to India's national council on school curriculum.

Advocates hope to add Vedic math to the national curriculum, which

these critics characterize as arithmetic "tricks."

 

"I believe as a Sanskrit scholar that whatever its intrinsic merits

or lack thereof, the contents of `Vedic Mathematics' have no

historical connection with the Vedas," says Deshpande.

 

Regardless what Sanskrit scholars make of the Vedic connection, it is

full steam ahead for Astunkar, Gupta and other Vedic math teachers

who hope to spread the practice. The goal is not to get students

mired in Sanskrit, but to get them excited about math, says Astunkar.

 

Recalling a student who found a way to expand a method for squaring

numbers that end in 5 (see sidebar), Astunkar notes, "With Vedic

math, their hidden creativity just pops up."

 

Thanks to Vedic math, Chicago-based writer John Myers can instantly

convert any price in rupees to dollars, astounding both chaiwallas

and fellow travelers throughout India.

http://consciouschoice.com/2006/01/vedicmath.html