On browsing through the mails I received sometimes back, I came across an email similar to the Ontario Lottery Corporation scam email; however, this time purporting to be from Microsoft.
It said, “Please Read Attached Letter…” with the following image attachment labeled “MGS Awarded You 810,000.00 USD”.
MGS Awarded You 810,000.00 USD
If you receive an email with an attachment similar to the above DO NOT RESPOND.
I read this article titled ” The Great Indian Nuclear Maya” by Saraswati Kavula, a Filmmaker-Activist and Farmer. She is also the Joint Convener, National Alliance of People’s Movements, Andhra Pradesh Chapter. A version of this article was published in Telugu Daily “Andhra Jyothi” -on 25th March 2012.
Like the philosophers say, we, the people of India, are surrounded by “Maya” – an illusion: and that illusion today is Democracy. Under this illusion we think, we the people are the ones who decide who “rules” us, we think innocently too that ‘we the people” are the decision makers, king makers. In our sad state of minds, we think that this great country has a democracy – that is “by the people, for the people, of the people’ – meaning the people are supreme. However, the Indian voter is supreme only till such time; he trudges to the electoral booth and makes his thumb print. In many a places, even that is a mere illusion, for the ones who have the ‘muscle power” will decide who wins – voting themselves to power. Then there is this greater illusion that is created…
In Euclidean geometry, the Pythagoras’ theorem (or Pythagorean theorem) is a relation among the three sides of a right triangle (or right-angled triangle). In terms of areas, it states:
In a right-angled triangle, the square of the hypotenuse (the side opposite the right angle) is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides.
Click image to view an animated geometric proof of the Pythagoras theorem. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Pythagoras’ theorem can be written as an equation relating the lengths of the sides a, b and c:
where c represents the length of the hypotenuse, and a and b represent the lengths of the other two sides.
If the length of both a and b is known, then c can be calculated as follows:
If the length of hypotenuse c and any one side (a or b) are known, then the length of the other side can be calculated with the following equations:
or
.
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The Pythagorean theorem is named after the Greek mathematician Pythagoras of Samos, an Ionian Greek philosopher, mathematician, and founder of the religious movement called Pythagoreanism whose central tenet was that numbers constitute the true nature of things.
Pythagoras is credited with the discovery and proof of the theorem. But it is often argued that the knowledge of the theorem predates him. Some claim that Babylonian mathematicians understood the equation, but there is not much of evidence for this claim.
Bothaināyaṉār
Today, while surfing the internet I read a post in Facebook in Tamil and I was impressed by the following Tamil quatrain:
ஓடும் நீளம் தனை ஒரே எட்டுக்
கூறு ஆக்கி கூறிலே ஒன்றைத்
தள்ளி குன்றத்தில் பாதியாய்ச் சேர்த்தால்
வருவது கர்ணம் தானே.
Translation:
Divide the running length into eight equal parts. Discard one of the divided parts and add half the height. Isn’t the result the hypotenuse?
And here is another example:
a = 4 b = 3 So, c = (4 – 4/8) + (3/2) = 5
The article says that the author of this quatrain was a sage, mathematician, and poet named Bothaināyaṉār, and that the advantage of this Bothaināyaṉār‘s theorem over Pythagorean theorem is that the calculations can be easily done without calculating the square root.
By the way, this quatrain failed to produce the answer if a is less than b, for example if a = 3 and b = 4.
Next I tried the following:
Try #1:a = 12, b = 6
Modern mathematics: sqr((12 x 12) + ( 6 x 6)) = 13.416407864998738178455042012388
In most cases, the results obtained using Bothaināyaṉār‘s method was not accurate even to the first decimal place. So, I think I’ll better stick to the Pythagorean theorem.
Today, I spent a good amount of my valuable time on the net to learn about this person named Bothaināyaṉār, but was not able to gather any information about him. I doubt whether this person ever existed.
It’s funny that the Tamil word “Bothai” means inebriation and the word “nāyaṉār” translates to lord, master, or devotee. So, is someone playing a prank using the name Bothaināyaṉār (Devotee of Inebriation)?
The Tamil community and I would be glad if anyone out there could give any relevant and useful information on this subject. Your comments are welcome.
Impressions 