Date:12/12/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/12/12/stories/2008121259880500.htm

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Governor participates in trigonometry workshop

Special Correspondent

CHENNAI: Age does not matter and it is the urge to learn things that will take the students to greater heights, said Surjit Singh Barnala here on Thursday.

Participating in a workshop on trigonometry for school and college students, the Governor appealed to the students to expand their knowledge.

They should limit their focus on reading text books and in preparing for school examinations.

Mathematics and its applications were predominantly important from time immemorial.

The known history of mathematics was supposed to be beyond six thousand years. The growth and development of mathematics denoted the history of human civilisation, he said.

Growth of any country ripened on the soil of mathematics.

The discipline of mathematical sciences played a major role in increasing the potential of other disciplines.

Science of mathematics had grown and had spread its wings in diverse fields such as engineering, astronomy, physics, communication and bio-chemistry, he said.

Credit for putting India on the world map of modern mathematics goes to Srinivasa Ramanujan. His work on “Theory of numbers,” was introduced to the world by a famous British mathematician, he added.

M. Sarathi, a class IX student, and his sister M. Swathi, a class VII student, solved several trigonometry problems on the occasion.

The Governor had also announced a prize of Rs. 10,000 for the two who conducted the workshop.