Wednesday, August 15, 2007

c k raju: Royal Society President in the Dock

aug 14th, 2007

this is the man who has done the most to pursue the trail of the indian discovery of infinite series in kerala, which later magically appeared as part of the work of newton and liebniz. (dead white males automatically qualify as the originators of all the invention in the world).

he was following the trail through the jesuits of cochin and then the vatican library, but was brought to a dead stop as the vatican refused to cooperate. he conjectures that the material was sought after by the christists so they could navigate the open ocean with the sine tables and trigonometric calculation of location.

the recent press release by george joseph is not all that new; it has been in his own book, 'the crest of the peacock' for some time. but it's good some noise is being made about this now.

http://www.physorg.com/news106238636.html

http://www.ind ianscience.org/essays/31-%20E--Infinitesimal%20Calculus.PDF


http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Projects/ Pearce/Chapters/Ch9_4.html


anyway, sad tale of his work being stolen by another white guy. i don't know much more about this, just got this mail from raju; but i'd believe him rather than some white brit.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: C. K. Raju

Please see the attached press release. [see below -- ED]

Also attached is a supporting mail from the Secretary of the Society for
Scientific Values, giving his contact details. [not included -- ED]

For any further queries, please contact the undersigned at 093xxxxxxx [removed personal information -- ED]

C. K.  Raju



================================
C. K. Raju, Ph.D.
Distinguished Professor & Director (Academic) xxxxxxx
&
Editorial Fellow, Centre for Studies in Civilizations
-------------------------------------

-------------------------------------
Find all the time in the world at
http://www.11PicsOfTime.com

and an infinity of infinitesimals at
http://IndianCalculus.info
===================

Press Release 
 

Royal Society President in dock 
 

Three experts appointed by the Delhi-based Society for Scientific Values (SSV) have found valid the complaint of Dr. C. K. Raju against Sir Michael Atiyah,  President of the Royal Society, Edinburgh, and former President of the Royal Society, London.  Atiyah, a winner of two prestigious awards—the Fields Medal and the Abel prize—was  accused by Raju of copying his work without acknowledgment. Raju, a well-known scientist, played a key role in building India's first supercomputer, Param.

In two lectures given on 21 and 24 October 2005, Atiyah had suggested a new mathematics for physics, very similar to that proposed earlier by Raju in a 1994 book Time: Towards a Consistent Theory, and developed further in a 2004 article in the journal Foundations of Physics. Like Raju, Atiyah suggested that this might explain quantum mechanics. Raju's son  doing a PhD in physics at Harvard heard one of Atiyah's lectures; noticing the similarity, he promptly mailed Atiyah about Raju's prior work. However, in a subsequent article published prominently in the Notices of the American Mathematical Society in June 2006, with Atiyah's consent, two mathematics professors of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln again gave full credit to Atiyah for this potentially revolutionary change in physics, which could also significantly impact the future technology of quantum computing. After Raju protested the repeated failure to acknowledge his work, a letter in the Notices in April 2007 mentioned Raju's two earlier books and article, and encouraged people to read them.  

Dissatisfied with this belated acknowledgment,  Raju pointed out that because of the delay in acknowledging his work, this idea had now come to be known as "Atiyah's hypothesis", and that there was neither apology nor explanation for the repeated failure to acknowledge his work, nor even any attempt  to correct the improper language of "Atiyah's hypothesis". He  complained to the SSV, and now three experts have found in his favour. 

Based on the finding of the experts, at its 65th Executive Council meeting, held on 21 July,  the Society for Scientific Values decided to write to Atiyah for  his views before taking a final position.


1 comment:

truti said...

Dr. CK Raju is a mathematician well past his prime. Unfortunately he is now acting little better than a crank. Raju has nothing to do with the study of these manuscripts. Check out Dr. SG Rajeev's home page at the U.of Rochester here http://tinyurl.com/2xmou8. There's an article on Malayalam as well on his homepage here http://tinyurl.com/yvud56. There's no doubt that the work of the Kerala school on infinite series predates Newton and Leibniz considerably. The evidence is too voluminous to ignore. There are a number of scholars in Kerala in recent times who have studied this subject in some detail. We must now try to learn more about the context in which these studies happened. We don't need a crank like Dr. Raju reducing this to a farce.