The following podcast is of Dr. Homer White’s presentation on Monday, March 5th. This was the 5th Faculty Forum presentation this academic year at Georgetown College.Â
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For those of you who are enjoying the poetry attempts, here is the Faculty Forum description in an alternative way…This is Homer’s masterpiece!
It’s pleasing to unravel
Recondite Sanskrit math,
Though colleagues seldom travel
This quantitative path.
They heard me speak salaciously
In Spring 2004
Of Shiva and fair Parvati –
His “hilly†paramour. (1)
We dwelt also on saying wise
And Sandhi rules complex,
Yet not a few were scandalized
By so much Sanskrit sex!
“We speak with erudition
In what we’re trained up on!
The guy’s a mathematician –
Where have his manners gone?â€
To save my reputation
And practice discipline
I name my dissertation:
“Ideas of Mathematical Proof in Classical India: A reading of the Aryabhatiyabhashya of Nilakantha Somayajin.â€
I hasten to assure you
That my prereqs are easy;
If numbers aren’t your purview
You need not get all queasy.
Triangles and trapezia,
And slicing up a square:
It really can’t be easier –
And we’ll review, I swear!
If you must go on thinking still
That math is really dreadful,
I’ll sugar-coat this bitter pill
By offering a headful
Of Vedic ritual mystery,
Astrology and gods,
And hints of Yogic Alchemy
From th’old Upanishads.
(1)    In the humanities they write enviably learned footnotes. Mathematicians want to get in on this practice whenever possible, so here goes. “Parvati” — derived from “parvata” (“knotted”, hence “mountain”) — means “related to a mountain”, but also ”hilly.” In keeping with the former sense, Parvati is so-called because she is the daughter of the mountain-god Himalaya. However, she is also, according to classical Indian conventions of female beauty, always depicted in a way that suggests — to the male academic mind perhaps — the latter meaning.
Homer S. White
Associate Professor of Mathematics
Director, Academic Honors Program
Georgetown College
http://www.georgetownprofessor.net/podblog/wp-content/uploads/homer_white.mp3