| Maths Club, Payyannur College, P.O.Edat, Kannur. Ph: 0497- 2805121 www.geocities.com/ pnrcmaths/mathsclub |
Payyannur College, Kannur may not be a well-acclaimed institution and its Maths Club, run almost entirely by students, may not be very resource-rich either. Yet, this Club has taken steps towards popularization of mathematics that is as noteworthy as, or even better than, efforts taken by the well-known and the highly-visible.
The Club has brought out a CD containing the lives and works of more than 200 mathematicians who shaped the discipline over the ages from the earliest times to AD 2000. Titiled Charita, the CD contains information that can be accessed in a number of ways including timeline, search or historical period.
The write-ups have varying lengths of text and plenty of photographs. A chronology of mathematical milestones is another feature of the CD.
The top honour in Mathematics is called the Fields Medal and a section is devoted to it and its winners. Other wares in the CD, that has been packed using Flash, include few programmes, an assortment of miscellaneous articles, glossary of maths terms etc.
About 1½ years ago, the Club had delighted lovers of maths with a CD containing maths freeware programs. Most of these programs may be available on the Net. But then the effort of bringing them all together in the easily accessible medium of a CD with a Flash interface is like trying to simplify the complexity and tedium of a laborious search.
Simplifying complexity: isn’t that a dharma of mathematics?
Courtesy:
T.Ramachandran, The Hindu, May 2, 2006
Contributed by: Administrator
