The sum of tales - Mathematician storyteller visits India

Not many people care about the underlying mysteries of how numbers and patterns make the world tick.
But for some like Oxford professor Marcus du Sautoy, one of the foremost minds in the world on mathematics, numbers are a way to tell stories about life, the universe and everything else in between.
Du Sautoy was here recently to launch his book "Number Mysteries," in which he he tackles small mysteries of maths in everyday life building up to a larger story about some of the great unsolved problems. The event was organised by the British Council.
"The book picks five different areas through these small stories of maths, builds up the fact that we don't understand prime numbers, the geometry of our universe and what possibilities there could be solving equations. People love stories. And I think mathematics is full of good stories. Its language underlines the way the universe works," Sautoy says.

For du Sautoy though, the book is also like a manifesto for how school curriculum should be teaching the subject.
"There is another angle to the book in way is my manifesto for what I think our curriculum in schools should be about. I think the maths we teach in school is really boring and too technical. There are great things we could tell them that we are somehow missing out on," he says.

Expressing his disappointment on the flawed curriculum which "rather than drawing people to maths, ends up alienating them" the celebrated mathematician also stressed on the importance of connecting the dreaded subjects to different fields to make it more accessible.

"The stories I tell are about maths in music, maths in architecture, maths in playing games. We are missing connecting our mathematics curriculum with the rest of the curriculum in schools and just our lives in general," he says.
This, he says can be deadly, because it has taken the heart out of the subject.
"You may be good at it but if you don't understand why it works that way or how it can be adapted, then that is a shame.