Letters: Make maths more relevant

This refers to the editorial "Why maths matters" (August 17). First, only six "millennium problems" remain, since Grigori Perelman has solved Poincare's Conjecture. Apart from Subhash Khot, there was D R Kaprekar who found the Kaprekar constant (6174), Kaprekar numbers, Harshad numbers and Devlali numbers. But how do we get more maths genii? By ensuring that the subject is structured and taught in a manner that makes it fun instead of an anathema.

Today, the syllabus is overloaded with unnecessary maths that can be left to higher levels for those who want to pursue it. Further, the real maths that is needed by everyone - numbers, logic, probability and statistics - is ignored while calculus, trigonometry and co-ordinate geometry, which is needed only by those who wish to become engineers and the like, is taught to everyone. How many of us have ever had the necessity to calculate the sum of the internal angles of a regular polygon, or sines and cosines, or differentiate or integrate after school or college? Let the syllabus be altered to engender interest and curiosity. The maths genii will automatically follow.

T R Ramaswami Mumbai

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