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“Why do you read Shakespeare? And you don’t learn plumbing and electrical work because they are useful in daily life, do you?” responds Harvard University professor L. Mahadevan when he’s asked about the relevance of mathematics in daily life.
He strongly disagrees with suggestions that mathematics is the toughest subject to learn for students or that the concepts are hard to grasp as teachers do not make the subject interesting.
For Mahadevan, making math come alive is a passion and he’s won numerous awards for his dedication. He was in Chennai on Monday to receive the 2009 Distinguished Alumnus Award from IIT-Madras. Mahadevan was back at his alma mater nearly 24 years after he graduated.
Topics: Applied Mathematics
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