63 - 125th Anniversary of the Birth of Sri Bharati Krsna Tirthaji

VEDIC MATHEMATICS NEWSLETTER

ISSUE No. 63

A warm welcome to our new subscribers.
Vedic Mathematics is becoming increasingly popular as more and more people are introduced to the beautifully unified and easy Vedic methods. The purpose of this Newsletter is to provide information about developments in education and research and books, articles, courses, talks etc., and also to bring together those working with Vedic Mathematics. If you are working with Vedic Mathematics - teaching it or doing research - please contact us and let us include you and some description of your work in the Newsletter. Perhaps you would like to submit an article for inclusion in a later issue or tell us about a course or talk you will be giving or have given.
If you are learning Vedic Maths, let us know how you are getting on and what you think of this system.


125TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE BIRTH OF SRI BHARATI KRSNA TIRTHAJI

14th March 2009 marks the 125th anniversary of the birth of Sri Bharati Krsna Tirthaji who is responsible for the revival of Vedic Mathematics in our current age.

Bharati Krsna reconstructed the system between 1911 and 1918 and astounded schoolchildren and professors alike with his demonstrations in India around the world. Though there has been a considerable time gap between the reconstruction and now, many people today are astounding their audiences in a similar way. Vedic Mathematics is spreading across the globe and children are beginning to discover the joy and fun in maths more than ever. The expansion of Vedic Mathematics is taking place around the world including South East Asia, the U.S.A. and South Africa. Bharati Krsna would be delighted with all this.

As a student Bharati Krsna excelled in all subjects, but his interests were more in helping humanity in the deepest sense. Eventually taking the holy title of Shankaracharya at Puri in 1921 he was able to devote all his time to raising consciousness, on individual, national and global levels. Details of his life and the recreation of Vedic Mathematics are available elsewhere and will not be repeated here. See: "Vedic Mathematics" - introduction by Srimati Manjula Trivedi; "Jagatguru Shankaracharya Shri Bharati Krishna Teertha" by Dr T. G. Pandye; http://www.vedicmathsindia.org/father_of_vedic_math.htm

The 100th anniversary of Bharati Krsna went largely unnoticed: there was a small conference in India and three books (Discover Vedic Mathematics, Vertically and Crosswise and Triples) were published to commemorate the event. But in the 25 years since then there has been a significant and growing interest in Vedic Mathematics around the world. Serious research is going on, and many teachers are seeing the advantages of the Vedic approach.

Also some people are setting themselves up as experts who have little depth of knowledge in Vedic Mathematics and are even offering franchises. This in itself proves the efficacy of the Vedic system and the need for something better than what is currently taught. But it is an unfortunate fact that many people teach the Vedic system as a collection of tricks, and this does not give it a good name in academic circles.

The truth is that Vedic Mathematics covers all of mathematics, pure and applied and that it is a much more unified and creative way of doing mathematics. Whereas Bharati Krsna sought to simplify mathematics through unifying it and giving us the fundamental principles by which the mind constructs and does mathematics, many today seek only to simplify through short cuts, and the Vedic system is far more than that.

We would like to see Vedic Mathematics being adopted as a complete syllabus and maths being taught as a creative subject in which students are encouraged to innovate. And maths teachers whose purpose is to implant in the children's minds, as Bharati Krsna puts it "a positive feeling of exuberant love and enjoyment thereof".

For what he has done for mathematics Bharati Krsna deserves to be ranked with the greatest mathematicians of all time: Archimedes, Gauss, and Isaac Newton. Today we have still not fully fathomed the significance and depth of his contribution to mathematics. As well as offering a more integrated view of mathematics Bharati Krsna's Vedic Mathematics has generated whole new areas of research.

We owe a great debt to Bharati Krsna, saint and genius, for reconstructing this beautiful Vedic system of mathematics which "can turn mathematics for the children . . . to the exhilaratingly pleasant and even funny and delightful character it really bears".

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NEWS

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RESEARCH INTO THE VEDIC SUTRAS

Stewart Dickson, Visualization Research Programmer, Illinois Simulator Laboratory at Urbana, Illinois, USA intends to express the Vedic mathematics Sutras "as a series of physical objects on which the captions will employ a graphical technique to convey the motion of operation in manipulating numbers in arithmetic. If this is successful, then I intend to continue these techniques toward higher concepts like slope and curvature to describe algebraic surfaces".

This will lead to the creation of "a series of tactile objects which will attempt to describe themselves in a form which is more understandable to people with visual impairments and to people who have certain cognitive learning disabilities in which the sense of touch is vital to their learning process. I will attempt to adapt sign language gestures of Vedic principles into tactile gestures which will guide the reader toward the proper mental functions for understanding the mathematical object."

"Our proposal at the moment is for a programme of research into ways to more effectively communicate mathematics to people who, for physiological reasons normally have more trouble learning it. We hope that, since our aim is general enough, the objects we will produce will also be useful to children of "normal" learning ability."

VEDIC MATH FOR CHILDREN IN SOUTH EAST ASIA, THROUGH MATH MONKEY KNOWLEDGE CENTERS

Through the set up of the first Math Monkey Knowledge Center in Malaysia, Vedic Math is making its presence felt in South East Asia in April, 2008.

Our knowledge centers, teaches Vedic Methods to children from age 7 upwards, starting from the application of all from 9 and last from 10 in subtraction and addition and subtraction by mere observation and moving up to multiplication (incl.Nihkilam and Vertically Crosswise) and division ( incl. divisibility and on the flag division)

During demonstration processes to parents for the past year, even though a larger group were impressed by the simplicity and beautiful methods of Vedic Math, there remains a fraction that holds the concern that such method could create confusion in a student who is learning conventional math taught in school.

After running the program for a year, we are able to roughly categorize our students as follows:-

1. Students who show renewed interests in the subject. This group of students have a good foundation in math but do not possess the interest to excel, seeing the subject as dry and tedious. Through the knowledge of the Vedic Math (weaved into our game based program), their interest in the subject is cultivated. Improvement in school tests is shown mainly in the group of students.

2. Students (and their parent) who look at Vedic Math purely from an academic point of view. This group of students already excel in math and studies Vedic math purely to further enhance their speed in the subject. The use of Vedic Math as a powerful checking tool in school works well with this group of students.

3. Students who do not fare well in the subject and is unable to grasp basic methods. These group of students materializes parents fear of students getting confuse between Vedic and conventional methods. To maintain the effectiveness of our program, extra lessons have to be given to these group and both methods have to be demonstrated.

Our first batch of students (who has completed a 9 month program and 3 assessment tests with us) will be graduating in our Graduating Ceremony on March 14th this year. Students are assessed after each 11 weekly lessons through a short assessment consisting 20 - 25 questions. In conformity of local practice, accuracy is given more emphasis than speed as parents are usually more concerned of the total score than the time taken to complete each assessment. The assessment has to be completed within 20-30 minutes, and students must achieve a score not less than 75%.

A more uniformed and pure Vedic Math test is being planned for students of all centers, in consultation with Professor Ken Williams, where similar emphasis will be given to speed and accuracy.

Development of Math Monkey Knowledge Centers

There are currently four Math Monkey Knowledge Centers in Malaysia, with another 2 in the process of being set up. We expect to have 8 - 10 centers by the end of 2009.

Elsewhere, the main Math Monkey Knowledge Center in Hong Kong will be set up by May 2009, and in Brunei and Singapore by October 2009. Anyone interested in other territories may enquire through or

VEDIC MATHS COMPETITION HELD IN PUNE (INDIA)

A Maharshtra (India) state level Vedic mathematics competition on Vedic mathematics:

Ideal Play Abacus India Pvt.Ltd., a company with more than 6 educational innovative products is making a serious effort to popularise an age old technique of Vedic mathematics. We believe that, teaching and practicing Vedic mathematics is not just creating number awareness among youths but it also taking us back to many millennia of India's mathematical heritage.
A first ever Vedic mathematics or speed arithmetic competition was held in Pune, a city in Maharshtra state, around 100 miles from Mumbai. Total 143 students appeared for exam. Some students came from remote rural region from maharshtra.
A competition was conducted in 3 levels according to a complexity of the content.
A Vedic math's course is designed in 6 levels. Each course runs for 3 months, a course material was provided by the company. At the end of the each course, assessment was taken and marks are provided along with the certificate.

We observed the following advantages of such competition:
· Student's involvement created a wave of motivation among other children and youth to learn Vedic mathematics
· It was an indirect assessment of teachers which helped them to do their self evaluation.
· Learning and teaching strategies could be modified according to future requirement which will help in Quality management of a company.
· More such competitions should be organized on national level that will give recognition to subject and motivate other teachers.
· Children realized that Vedic Mathematics is really a very powerful tool for mental mathematics and saves calculation time.
· It was also observed that practicing Vedic Math's methods in given time constraint, gives innovative approach to implement Vedic sutras in the form of algorithm like a computer programmer. For Example A procedure of Flag method of division can be evaluated in steps and a practitioner of this method ,simply follow the 'loop' or set of steps repeatedly to solve problems.

Finally, it was a very brave and conscious effort of creating mathematics and number friendly environment. In future we are expecting more number of students. Vedic methods can combine with school curriculum to give better results. An age old heritage will get preserved, and creates a possibility to open a new research approach.

SQUARING NUMBERS THAT END IN 4

You probably know the simple way to square numbers that end in 5. This is from Debvrat Varshney:

Now, as it is a square of the number ending with 4, obviously, the product would end with the number 6 i.e. the units place would be occupied by 6. This fact we have to keep in mind. Therefore, we are concerned about the digits except for 4 in the original number (the number to be squared) and the remaining digits in the final product.
Hence, the process helps to find out the digits (except for 6) in the product, and after finding out those digits, we have to remember to place 6 in the end, on our own.

Now, please observe the following pattern

(14)^2 = 196 = [1 X 20 - (1+0)]6

(24)^2 = 576 = [2 X 30 - (2+1)]6

(34)^2 = 1156 = [3 X 40 - (3+2)]6

(44)^2 = 1936 = [4 X 50 - (4+3)]6

(54)^2 = 2916 = [5 X 60 - (5+4)]6
.

.
and so on

This method is applicable to any number ending with the digit 4.

So, for a number of the form (10a + 4)

(10a + 4)^2 = { a X 10(a+1) - [a+(a-1)] }...then put '6' in the units place

I completely understand that this method looks a bit confusing at first glance, but, if someone is thorough with it, and has a clear picture of it in the mind, then he would be able to calculate the square of such numbers , mentally, in less than 5 seconds.

MULTIPLYING BY 15

I am Sumit Sharma, B.E. Final year student (I.T.M.,Bhilwara), sending an interesting method of multiplication with 15.

For multiplying any digit with 15, we have to add half of that value in itself..

Example:-

84 * 15 => 84
+ 42
126,0
Note:- Always take integer value for addition. So if 85 * 15 then add 85+42.
0 obtain by multiplying last digit.

So 84 * 15 = 1260

59426846963597 * 15 = 59426846963597
+29713423481798
89140270445395,5

So Solution is 891402704453955.

I hope that you like it.

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Editor: Kenneth Williams

Visit the Vedic Mathematics web site at: http://www.vedicmaths.org

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14th March 2009

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