mayer@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (Mayer Goldberg) (03/20/90)
I recently came across the subject of Vedic mathematics. It deals with mathematical knowledge and insight which was extracted from the Vedas. The book I am working with is "Vedic Mathematics" published by Motilal Banarsidass, India. I was able to "decipher" and provide rigorous proofs for some of the algorithms in it. I am stuck however with other algorithms. The style of the book is very different from what is acceptable in modern math texts in English (with regards to rigour, clarity and organization), so I have to do a lot of deciphering. What I was able to extract from the book was a nice bag of tricks, which suggest deep insight into our number system. Some of the algorithms for performing various computations are shorter in fact then what is commonly used. They are definitely more compact, in the sense that less is written down, and the gist of the computation is performed mentally, and the elegance of the algorithms consists of breaking the problem into chunks which can in fact be dealt with easily in one's head, for example, addition of two digit numbers, etc. I would like to know whether anyone is interested in this topic. If there are sufficiently many, I would be glad to post particular algorithms (for performing very basic computations); If not, we could correspond via email. Mayer Goldberg mayer@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu