Math - if you have got a good teacher , you will love it

Yesterday (Dec 30,2009 ) , I went to pay a visit to my friend (@Alapuzha) to show a set of slides which i developed and named sarcastically as "Financial Accounting in an Hour". After discussing the slides and associated MS Excel files , we together went to his erstwhile math tutor ( during Pre-degree days).

His teacher's name is Pushpan. He works as a middle level officer in the Education department of Kerala. Eventhough he is well into his forties , he is a well built chap and a single hair has not been "greyed" ( i do not know whether it is because of dyeing! ) . I was expecting a Giraffe-Necked lean math teacher and he definitely did not fit into that stereotype.


I narrated about my experience in dabbling with Math over the years in my professional career. (Yes , i have used math extensively in my programming career ). The Discussion drifted to
Vectors as some of my "war stories" were from Computer Graphics Programming.

He explained about Dot Product , Cross Product , Position vector using a device (an All purpose Mathematics board ! ) he designed to demonstrate mathematics related stuff. I got dumbfounded when he explained Vector addition. For the first time , i saw Parellogram law through my eyes.

Then discussion drifted to 3D ( he was speaking from an Engineering drawing perspective ) and issue of co-ordinate system handedness came to the fore. My friend got bored and said what is there in this , it is just a convention. it does not matter much.

I told him .."i know .... you just multiply with COS(180)" ( actually it is COS(180*PI/180))


Pushpan (with a laugh ) told this ..."It is a complicated way to say multiply with -1 to change from one co-ordinate system to another"

To put things in perspective , i explained about how the convention of using left handed system in Microsoft's Direct3D API made the life of many programmers miserable. For those who had a sizeable investment in OpenGL , it was a pain in the ass everywhere. (May be microsoft gained a vast customer base for Direct3D [ in it initial days ..at least..D3D later offered compelling features vis a vis OPenGL ] because of deviating from a de-facto standard at that time... )

using a Sheet of paper , Pushpan ( Math teacher ) explained co-ordinate system convention. He also explained cross product and the "screw story" which every math book tells.

The board he devised has got potential to teach about Vectors , Complex numbers , Circles , Conic sections , Integration (!) you name it. He explained lot of concepts in just half an hour.

He also narrated some of the nice things which he has encountered when he presented this to audience in schools and colleges.

If some one is interested in contacting him for presentations in school and colleges , pls. shoot a mail to me @ praseedp@yahoo.com. He is really a remarkable teacher and a meeting with this guru made a day really memorable for me.

He has done most of his demonstration in and around Alapuzha. I think , we should make him cross to Eranakulam and other districts. He sells that board for around Rs. 900.