22 Dec 2021|Noida | Amity University, Noida ( Online )
Amity University organizes a Guest lecture on “Mathematics from Institution to Esoterica”
![]()
Amity Institute of Applied Sciences (AIAS), Amity University, organized a Guest Lecture on the topic “Mathematics from Institution to Esoterica” by Prof. Nita H. Shah, Head Department of Mathematics, Gujarat University, Ahmedabad, on the occasion of the 134th Birth Anniversary of the Great Mathematician, Srinivasa Ramanujan, celebrated as “National Mathematics Day”.
Dr. Mandeep Mittal, Head of Department, Department of Mathematics, Amity Institute of Applied Sciences, Advisors, Deans, Heads of Institutions of Science, Engineering & Technology domains along with the Faculty members, Ph.D. Scholars, Senior and Junior Research Fellows, Research Assistants & students attended the informative Guest Lecture.
Welcoming the Guest, Dr. Vandani Verma, Department of Mathematics, Amity Institute of Applied Sciences, said, “We are glad to conduct this session on the occasion of National Mathematics Day as it marks the 134th Birth Anniversary celebrations of the great Mathematician, Srinivasa Ramanujan and we are grateful to Prof. Shah for obliging us with her presence and sharing her deep insights and interesting facts on Mathematics.”
Highlighting the role of Mathematics, Prof. Nita H. Shah, Head Department of Mathematics, Gujarat University, Ahmedabad, said, “Mathematics plays a central role in academic life of a student and is both a fascinating subject worth exploring in its own right and indispensable to engineering and the sciences. There continues to be a vibrant debate whether Mathematics exists as a body of knowledge only within the human mind, a fabrication or invention of the human intellect without any extrinsic reality, or whether it exists as some abstract truth to be discovered.”
Explaining the difference between Science and mathematics, Prof. Shah stated, “The information gleaned from the process of science, namely knowledge, is intrinsically approximate, given the variable nature of the material character upon which this knowledge is based. Whereas, Mathematics is that rational order undergirding the very material world we experience, in fact the structure of reality itself, to which we are privy. However, there should never be any confusion between the facts, gleaned by science and the insights revealed by Mathematics. There can be no fundamental conflict between these two dimensions of our effort to understand reality.”
Speaking about the different aspects of Science, Prof. Shah explained that Science investigates a material universe but falters at the boundary of knowledge on matters of transcendence, of meaning, of being and of rationality itself. Science inherently relies upon a fundamental faith that the Universe is rational, for if there were no order, Science itself would be moot. The Scientist unknowingly testifies and depends upon an assumption that there must be some intrinsic order and logic to the Universe, evident in the symmetry and simplicity of its physical laws, as well as the complexity and beauty of the real world which those laws govern.
Defining Mathematics, Prof. Nita H. Shah, stated that Mathematics is, a human activity, application of a logical process to fundamental definitions, using inventive symbols and notations to articulate abstract ideas and prove deep and complex truths. “Mathematical expression resulting from a scientific exploration of the world has progressed from that of naive intuition to one which is highly complex and erudite. Mathematical ideas are not invented, only discovered, precisely at that moment in history when the human mind has matured to an intellectual sophistication capable of such discovery. Mathematics has always given us insight into the reality of things, even those which elude us empirically from imaginary numbers to black holes. Even when we lack the faculty to observe things, we can know their existence simply because they ought to exist, mathematically.” averred Prof. Shah.
Concluding the session, Prof. Shah mentioned that Mathematics has a two-fold nature: first, it is a logically intuitive instrument through which we are capable of discovering fundamental features of reality and secondly, one learns that nature possesses an order that one may aspire to comprehend, only through Mathematics.