Milestones-9: November 30, 09

Winston Churchill

A colorful and interesting personality. I have heard (mostly from my father) and read a lot about him. I recall whatever I could remember now and record them, with a little brush-up from Wikipedia and other sources from the Net.

Two-term Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, who lead his country to victory in World War II. He occupied several other important positions in the British Govt like Home Secretary, Chancellor of the Exchequer and First Lord of the Admiralty. He was born on November 30, 1874 and he died on January 25, 1964 at the ripe old age of 90. He was a scion of a noble family with anscestors like the Duke of Marlborough and their ancestral home was the Blenheim Palace.

He was an imperialist through and through. My dad was an admirer of him. I heard many interesting things about him. Only later I read about him and had some of his famous books in my possession and read a few of them like Great Contemporaries, The River War, A History of the English Speaking Peoples and a few volumes of his Second World War series.

He vehemently opposed the appeasement policy of Asquith and I remember his famous quote: "An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, knowing that it will eat him last". That is what exactly Hitler would have done. You cannot compromise with evil. Your duty is to fight it.

Then his famous quotes about Dunkirk, where Britain escaped from near catastrophe. "Never in the history of mankind, so many owe to so few" and "You cannot win a war by evacuation."

When he assumed office of the Prime Minister during World War II, he promised his people: "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat"

The surprise of surprise was immediately after leading his country to victory in WW II, his party lost the election and Clement Attlee succeeded him as Prime Minister, but for which India's Independence might have been delayed. For, Churchill was not for granting independence to India.

However, after India's independence, accepting political realities and realizing the importance of India in Asia, he wanted to have India on their side. He praised Jawaharlal Nehru as the Light of Asia.

Towards the end of his life, probably there was an offer for lordship and he toyed with the idea of the title, "Lord London" but his son, Randolph Churchill, successfully dissuaded him.

Also I remember his visit to USA during World War II and some well-known anecdotes:

Referring to Hitler's threat that he would wring Great Britain like a chicken, Churchill said using Americanism: "Some chicken, some neck".

Churchill was staying as a guest of President Roosevelt in USA. Roosevelt once entered his room and was embarrassed to find Churchill naked/semi-naked (probably after a bath). Churchill made it easy for Roosevelt by joking that "Britain has nothing hide from the USA".

He was a prolific writer and his books were read avidly. It was said that his publishers paid him on per word basis. His books fetched him Nobel Prize for Literature.

A stutter in early youth. He overcame this handicap and became a famous orator. He had a great command over the English language and could sway people by his speech. Once in Parliament the opposition members levelled many charges and allegations against him to which his simple reply was: "All of them were "terminological inexactitudes". Nobody could immediately follow what that meant. Had he openly said "they were all lies", there would have been a great uproar.

If you surf the Net, you will find a lot of interesting anecdotes about him, in addition to his famous quotes.

For a detailed article on Churchill from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winston_Churchill

His speeches and podcasts from Historical Podcasts:
http://historicalpodcasts.googlepages.com/winstonchurchill

The Churchill Centre and Museum's Website:
http://www.winstonchurchill.org/

Grateful thanks to Historical Podcasts, Churchill Centre and Museum and Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Gandhiana-11:

The outstanding impression my mother has left on my memory is that of saintliness. She was deeply religious. She would not think of taking her meals without her daily prayers. Going to Haveli - the Vaishnava temple - was one of her daily duties. As far as my memory can go back, I do not remember her having ever missed the Chaturmas (Literally, a period of four months. A vow of fasting and semi-fasting during the four months of the rains. The period is a sort of long Lent). She would take the hardest vows and keep them without flinching. Illness was no excuse for relaxing them. I can recall her once falling ill when she was observing the Chandrayana vow (A sort of fast in which the daily quantity of food is increased or diminished according as the moon waxes or wanes), but the illness was not allowed to interrupt the observance. To keep two or three consecutive fasts was nothing to her. Living on one meal a day during Chaturmas was a habit with her. Not content with that she fasted every alternate day during one Chaturmas. During another Chaturmas she vowed not to have food without seeing the sun. We children on those days would stand, staring at the sky, waiting to announce the appearance of the sun to our mother. Everyone knows that at the height of the rainy season the sun often does not condescend to show his face. And I remember days when, at his sudden appearance, we would rush and announce it to her. She would run out to see with her own eyes, but by that time the fugitive sun would be gone, thus depriving her of her meal. "That does not matter," she would say cheerfully, "God did not want me to eat today." And then she wold return to her round of duties.

Excerpted from "My Experiments with Truth" - the Autobiography of Mahatma Gandhi.

Milestones-8: November 5

1. WILL DURANT
-------------------------
Will Durant, the great writer, historian and philosopher. was born on this day in 1885 in Massachusetts, USA and passed away on November 7, 1981 at the ripe old age of 96.

I am a great admirer of his books. I have read about Will Durant and his famous 11-volume 'The Story of Civilization'. I even had the opportunity to glance through them at the Madurai Kamaraj University Library during one of my visits about 20 years ago. As the books were in the Reference Section, I could not borrow them though I had six borrower's cards with me.

Then during a visit to Coimbatore, I saw his 'The Story of Philosophy' (paperback edition)with a platform seller and bought it at once at the unbelievably cheap price of Rs.60/- on August 15, 2000. Though I started reading it immediately, due to some reason or the other I could not continue; to crown it, I misplaced it somewhere. Then during June 2003, while I was searching for something, I found it! I was so happy and decided to complete the reading.

One would think a book about philosophy would make very difficult reading. Not this book! I thoroughly enjoyed reading the book. Only I could not just finish in two or three days like a novel. I had to savour every little passage, and as a result, I could complete its reading only on June 29, 2003. (Sometimes I have this habit of recording in the books I buy, the date and place of purchase and price so also when I completed their reading, I would record that date. That is how I am able to furnish all the dates mentioned above.

'The Story of Philosophy' is a great book; a wonderful book and a memorable one too. I still keep it on my desk with the idea of reading it again.

Then there was another book he wrote with his betterhalf, Ariel Durant, which I borrowed from the Madurai Kamaraj University Library and read avidly. It was about Literature, English and European. They had made a study of great writers and their works. Unfortunately, I do not remember the title of the book and also not able to locate it in the Net.

My dream is to read the 11-volume tome of his 'The Story of Civilization' and write about it in my blog, before I die. So help me God!

For a detailed article on Will Durant from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_Durant

For more info about Will Durant from Will Durant Foundation:
http://www.willdurant.com/home.html


2. J.B.S.HALDANE
-----------------------------
Renowned Biologist, J.B.S.Haldane, was born on this day in 1892 in Oxford, England, and passed away on December 1, 1964 at the age of 72 in Bhubaneshwar, India.

He is a pioneer geneticist. He had radical political views, admiring Marxism, supporting Stalin and joining the Communist Party. Finally, disillusioned he left the party. He spent his final years in India, passed away there.

For a detailed article on JBS Haldane:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._B._S._Haldane

Grateful thanks to Will Durant Foundation and Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Milestones-7: November 4

SHAKUNTALA DEVI
------------------------------

Calculating prodigy from Bangalore, India, Shakuntala Devi, was born on this day in 1939. Her feats got into the Guinness Book of Records. She has written several books on Puzzles and Numbers.

She lives in Bangalore, India and we wish her a Happy Birthday.

For a detailed article from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakuntala_Devi

Grateful thanks to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Milestones-6: November 3

1. AMARTYA SEN
-----------------------------
Nobel-prize winning Indian economist, Amartya Sen, was born on this day in 1933. He is an Economics Professor at Harvard University and a Fellow of the Trinity College, Cambridge. He has received more than 80 honorary doctorates. His books have been translated into 30 languages. He was awarded 'Bharat Ratna' (the highest civilian award in India) in 1999.

His famous books include 'The Argumentative Indian' and 'The Idea of Justice'.

Professor Sen, who is now 76, lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts and spends the winter in Shantiniketan, West Bengal, his birthplace. (He was named 'Amartya' by Rabindranath Tagore, which means 'immortal'. )

For more details, his autobiography in Nobel.org:
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economics/laureates/1998/sen-autobio.html

For a detailed article from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amartya_Sen

2. ANDRE MALRAUX
--------------------------------
French writer, adventurer and statesman was born on this day in 1901 and he died at the age of 75 on November 23, 1976.

For a detailed article from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andr%C3%A9_Malraux

For another detailed article:
http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/malraux.htm

3. BENVENUTO CELLINI
------------------------------------
Italian sculptor, painter and musician, Benvenuto Cellini, was born on this day in 1500 and he passed away at the age of 70 on February 13, 1571.

I have a copy of his famous autobiography, which I am sorry to say, I am yet to read. The full-text of his famous autobiography is available at Project Gutenberg:
http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext03/7clln10h.htm

For a detailed article on Cellini from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benvenuto_Cellini

Grateful thanks to Project Gutenberg, Nobel.org, www.kirjasto.sci.fi and Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Milestones-5: November 2

1. GEORGE BOOLE
---------------------------------

British mathematician and Father of Computer Science, George Boole, was born on November 2, 1815. Digital computer's logic is based on Boolean Algebra. He was a Professor of Mathematics at Queen's College, Cork, Ireland. He was a modest man devoted to intellectual pursuit and was well esteemed by his colleagues.

Boolean Algebra would have remained obscure but for Claude Shannon who took it for his master's thesis at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and showed to the world the application of Boolean Algebra to digital circuits.

His college honoured him by naming its Library and its Centre for Informatics Research after him. A crater on the moon is named after him.

He died of fever on December 8, 1864 at the age of 49.

For a detailed article from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Boole

2. MAHENDRALAL SARKAR
----------------------------------------------
Father of Indian Homeopathy and Founder of the Indian Association for Cultivation of Science(IACS), Mahendralal Sarkar, was born on November 2, 1833 in Paikpara, Bengal. He was also a social reformer.

He provided homeopathic treatment to Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa during his last days for his throat cancer. He became an admirer of his patient, though he did not accept him as an incarnation of God as a man of science. I have come across many references to him in the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna. Further, during homeopathy classes, I learnt more about him and his conversion from allopathy to homeopathy as a seeker of truth. He openly proclaimed at a meeting of the British Medical Association the superiority of Homeopathy.

It was at the IACS founded by Sarkar, C.V.Raman carried out his research which culminated in his winning the Nobel Prize for Physics. Raman was Honorary Secretary of IACS.

He passed away in Kolkatta on February 23, 1904 at the age of 70.

For a detailed article from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahendralal_Sarkar

3. JAMES THURBER
-----------------------------------
Popular American Writer and Cartoonist, James Thurber, died on this day in 1961 at the age of 66.

In my youth, I have enjoyed reading his famous book, 'Three Men in a Boat".

For a detailed article from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Thurber

4. SHAHRUKH KHAN
-------------------------------------
Famous Hindi film Hero, Shahrukh Khan, was born on this day in 1965 in New Delhi.

I have seen some of his films and thoroughly enjoyed them. He is natural actor, easily captivating the audience. I have seen his films, 'Dil To Pagal Hai', 'Kuch Kuch Hota Hai', 'Devdas' and 'Kal Ho Naa Ho'. He has also produced films like 'Asoka' and 'Chalte Chalte'. Before entering films, he was a popular TV actor. He has won the coveted Filmfare Award for Best Acting seven times and probably win some more.

He has a large number of fans not only in India but in other countries also.

For a detailed article from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shahrukh_Khan

Grateful thanks to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Milestones-4: November 1

EZRA POUND
------------------
American poet and critic, Ezra Pound passed away on this day in 1972 at the age of 87. He was considered to be the center of the Modernism movement and had great influence on poets like T.S.Eliot, Yeats and Joyce. His epic poem, 'The Cantos' is considered to be his major work.

During World War II, he openly opposed the involvement of America in the war and made radio broadcasts and wrote articles in support of Fascism. After the war, he was arrested and interned in a detention camp in Pisa. There he wrote the 'Pisan Cantos'. Then deported to USA, where he was tried for treason; however, as considered insane, he was put in a mental asylum and spent twelve years there. By the efforts of his fellow poets, especially Robert Frost, he was finally released and returned to Italy, where he finally passed away in Venice, Italy and is buried there.

Hugh Kenner published a book entitled, 'The Poetry of Ezra Pound' in 1951, which rekindled interest in the work of Pound.

For a detailed article on Pound from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ezra_Pound

For life and works of Ezra Pound from Modern American Poetry:
http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/m_r/pound/pound.htm

For readings of Ezra Pound's 'Cathay' with Full-text:
http://paintedricecakes.org/languagearts/poetry/cathay_pound.html

Grateful thanks to 'Modern American Poetry', 'Painted Rice Cakes' and Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Milestones-3: October 31, 2009

October 31. Today morning I looked up Wikipedia to know about the milestones of the day. Wikipedia had a lot to say about Oct 31. But I chose only the names known to me and thought I would reminisce about them.

1. SARDAR VALLABHAI PATEL
------------------------------------------------
First comes Sardar Vallabhai Patel, the Iron Man of India, who prevented India from going to pieces immediately after Independence. Unifying and Integrating India was his greatest achievement. Thinking of the India of today, I wish he were there. Selfish politicians have encouraged fissiparous tendencies for their own selfish interest. We don't know how long India will hold together. What is there to stop India going the USSR way?

The great Sardwar was born on this day in 1875 and passed away on December 15, 1950 at the age of 75. Like Gandhiji, he hailed from Gujarat.

For a detailed article from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vallabhbhai_Patel

For another article from PIB, the Govt of India's portal:
http://pib.nic.in/feature/feyr98/fe1098/f1510981.html


2. INDIRA GANDHI
---------------------------------
She was Prime Minister of India for 15 years, till she was assassinated on this day in 1984 at the age of 66.

Bold, strong-willed, she stood up to the male politicians and showed the world her capabilities. My grievance is she did not bother about ways and means, which has resulted in damaging the democracy carefully built up by people like her father, Jawaharlal Nehru and Vallabhai Patel. She paved the way for hereditary rule at the centre and in the states.

She visited India and her helicopter landed in our office campus. She also delivered a talk to the staff members of our organisation. This was the only occasion when I could see her in person.

For a detailed article on Indira Gandhi from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indira_Gandhi

For an article about her assassination from the New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/1119.html


3. SWAMI DAYANANDA SARASWATI
--------------------------------------------------------
One of the great spiritual leaders of India and founder of the Arya Samaj. According to Wikipedia, he was the first to give the call for Swarajya in 1876. He championed equal rights for women and supported educating women of India. He translated the scriptures from Sanskrit to Hindi so that the masses can read them.

According to Wikipedia, he was poisoned to death on this day in 1883 at the age of 59. It was Diwali. He magnanimously forgave the man who poisoned him and helped him to escape the wrath of the king.

For a detailed article from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swami_Dayananda_Saraswati

4. JOHN KEATS
-----------------------------
The famous English poet was born on this day in 1795 and passed away on February 23, 1821 at the young age of 25. He was one of the heroic figures of Romanticism along with Byron and Shelley. Tennyson and Wilfred Owen were influenced by his works.

I studied his poem, 'On his first looking into Chapman's Homer', as a prescribed text in college. Later I also read his 'To Autumn' and "Ode to a Nightingale'.

For reading a detailed article on Keats from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Keats

For reading his poems from Project Gutenberg:
http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext05/pkt1710h.htm
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/23684/23684-h/23684-h.htm

For a List of Poems by Keats from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Poems_by_John_Keats


5. CHIANG KAI-SHEK
-----------------------------------
One of the powerful leaders of Kuomintang and an associate of Sun Yat-sen, father of Nationalist China, was born on this day. He was the first and third Chairman of the Nationalist Govt of China. He fought a long-standing war with Mao's communists and retreated to Taiwan, which he ruled with an iron-hand.

He passed at Taipei, Taiwan, on April 5, 1975 at the age of 87.

For a detailed article from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiang_Kai-shek


6. SEMMANGUDI SRINIVASA IYER
-----------------------------------------------------
The great legendary Carnatic vocalist, Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer, passed away on this day in 2003 at the ripe age of 95. He received many honours and accolades like 'Padma Bhushan', 'Padma Vibhushan', 'Sangeetha Kalanidhi', 'Isai Perarignar' and 'Kalidas Samman'. He was considered as the grand-sire of Carnatic music.

For a detailed article from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semmangudi_Srinivasa_Iyer

For his interview which appeared in 'Frontline' of Oct.24-Nov.6, 1998:
http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/fl1522/15220650.htm

7. SACHIN DEV BURMAN
---------------------------------------
Popular Hindi Film Music director, singer and father of Rahul Dev Burman (equally famous as a composer of Bollywood) passed away on this day in 1975 at the age of 69.

I have enjoyed some of his beautiful songs from films like 'Tere Mere Sapne', 'Guide', 'Abhimaan', 'Aradhana', 'Sharmilee', 'Jewel Thief' and many more. Some of the films I have seen just for the sake of his songs.

He has won several national awards and the Filmfare award several times. He was awarded 'Padma Sri' in 1969.

For a detailed article from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SD_Burman


8. HARRY HOUDINI
-----------------------
Magic shows have a charm not only for children. Hungarian, Harry Houdini was the greatest magician the world has seen. He was a skeptic and did not believe in the supernatural.

It is said that he died when a student delivered several blows to his abdomen when he was reclining without allowing him to prepare himself for it. As a result of this, he died of peritonitis on this day in 1926.

For a detailed article from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Houdini

Grateful thanks to Project Gutenberg, PIB, Govt of India, 'Frontline' and Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
==========================================

Milestones-2: October 25

1. PABLO PICASSO:
--------------------------------
October 25 is the birthday of Pablo Picasso, the Spanish painter and sculptor; a giant of a creative genius in the world of art. He was born on October 25, 1881 in Malaga, Spain and passed away at the age of 91 on April 8, 1972 at Mougins, France.
To read a full article about Picasso from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pablo_Picasso

2. GEOFFREY CHAUCER:
-----------------------------------------
Geoffrey Chaucer, English poet and author of The Canterbury Tales passed away on October 25, 1400 at the age of 56.
To read a full article about Chaucer:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_Chaucer

To read Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and Other Poems in Project Gutenberg:
http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/2383/pg2383.html

3. EVANGELISTA TORRICELLI:
-----------------------------------------------
Torricelli, the Italian mathematician and physicist and inventor of mercurial barometer and Torricelli's Law, passed away on October 25, 1647 at the young age of 39.
To read more about him in Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evangelista_Torricelli

Grateful thanks to Project Gutenberg and Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
=====================================

Reminiscences-2: "Dr Deepak Chopra"

Today is October 22, the 63rd birthday of the renowned endocrinologist, popular speaker and author of many bestselling books, Dr.Deepak Chopra. I am a great admirer of Dr Deepak Chopra and like him, an enthusiast of alternative medicine.

First of all, let me convey my hearty greetings to Dr Deepak Chopra: HAPPY BIRTHDAY to your, Sir! May God grant you a long, happy and purposeful life!!

My introduction to Dr Deepak Chopra was through my friend, Professor S.Raghunathan, who was the Director of Computer Center, Alagappa University for a time. He told me about him and lent me his best-selling book, 'Quantum Healing'. It is a memorable and wonderful book, which I loved. I read the book through at one stretch and thereafter, started taking notes. Reading the book was all right, but taking notes proved to be very difficult. For it nearly amounted to copying the entire book! The book is studded with gems through and through , especially for people like me, who are deeply involved in Homeopathy. It helped me to gain a lot of insight into Homeopathy, though Dr Chopra himself has been an admirer of Ayurveda.

Later whenever I saw a secondhand bookshop, I would enquire whether they had any book by Dr Chopra. Thus I started my own collection of his books (Quantum Healing, Unconditional Life, Ageless Body and Timeless Mind and The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success and started reading them one by one. With every book, my admiration for him started growing.

Then thanks to YouTube, I started hearing his famous video interviews and talks: The 30-part video talk on Quantum Healing the 11-part Quantum Health; Jesus: Story of Enlightenment; His interviews with Richard Dawkins and Alan Steinfeld ; and many more (which I have embedded in my video page at Orkut for the benefit of my friends). Watching them was an enlightening experience.

He has written more than 45 books and has won many awards and accolades. His latest book is "Reinventing the Body, Resurrecting the Soul".

The Chopra Center for Wellbeing was opened at Carsbad, California, in 1996 by Drs.Deepak Chopra and David Simon to help people experience physical healing, emotional freedom, and higher states of consciousness. It offers a wide variety of programs, retreats, and teacher training programs that integrate the healing arts of the East with the best in modern Western medicine. Its goal is to guide people about healing principles that they can use to nurture their own health, restore balance, and create greater joy and fulfillment in their lives.

Chopra Centre's official site:
http://www.chopra.com/

Then there is THE CHOPRA FOUNDATION dedicated to improving health and well-being, cultivating spiritual knowledge, expanding consciousness, and promoting world peace. Its mission is to advance the cause of mind/body spiritual healing, education, and research through fundraising for selected projects.

Dr Deepak Chopra's official website:
http://deepakchopra.com/

In the above site, the most interesting feature his answers to our questions. Some regular features include: 'Ask Deepak', 'I am currently reading...', 'Daily Inspiration', 'Upcoming Events'.

For a detailed article on Dr Deepak Chopra from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepak_Chopra

Kindest regards to Dr Deepak Chopra and Grateful thanks to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Diwali Greetings!

HAPPY DIWALI TO ALL OF YOU!

With Love

Suri

Gandhiana-10:

Himself love-incarnate, Gandhiji has shown by his own example how to achieve victory over the forces of darkness and destruction, and convert even the so-called enemies into friends by power of love and by suffering in one's own person. Jesus' suffering had always drawn his deepest admiration, and he, too, walked the same thorny path for redeeming the humanity of its sins and sorrows.

Excerpt from the Preface by Anand T.Hingorani to the book "The Law of Love", a compilation from Gandhiji's writings. Published by Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Mumbai.

Gandhiana-9:

A very touching incident from Gandhiji's life (Reproduced from the Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, Vol.1):

When Gandhiji was 15, he had removed a bit of gold from his brother’s armlet to clear a small debt of the latter. He felt so mortified about his act that he decided to make a confession to his father. Parental forgiveness was granted to him in the form of silent tears. The incident left a lasting mark on his mind. In his own words, it was an object-lesson to him in the power of ahimsa.

The original not being available; his own report of it, as found in An Autobiography, is reproduced here:

"I wrote it on a slip of paper and handed it to him myself. In this note not only did I confess my guilt, but I asked adequate punishment for it, and closed with a request to him not to punish himself for my offence. I also pledged myself never to steal in future."

According to Mahatma Gandhi : The Early Phase, p. 212, one of the sentences in the confession was : “So, father, your son is now, in your eyes, no better than a common thief.”

Video Biographies-5:

Grateful thanks to Chuck Vogan and YouTube.

Milestones-1: "Senator Edward Kennedy dies of cancer"

1. The death of John F.Kennedy's last surviving brother signals the end of an era that held sway from the early 1960s. Edward Kennedy lived in the shadow of his more famous brothers in the formative years of his political life and carried on their legacy admirably over the next three decades. Championing the cause of health care, civil rights and world peace. Senator Kennedy won a place in the hearts of thousands of Americans and left an indelible mark on American politics. - Harisankar Kurup, Secunderabad.

2. John Kennedy, the liberal-minded President, and, later, his brother Robert, died young. The mantle fell on Ted Kennedy to carry their legacy forward. And what a signal contribution he went on to make to health care, civil rights and social justice! To cap it all, he used his political stature to get the first African-American U.S.President elected - in a fitting tribute to the Kennedy legacy. - R.Narayanan, Ghaziabad.

3. As a Senator for nearly half a century, Ted Kennedy's was the most prominent voice in the U.S. that spoke for the disadvantaged. He was the undisputed champion of equal rights for the working class. He was a man of peace. Besides opposing the Vietnam War, he played a crucial role in resolving the conflict in Northern Ireland by helping to bring about the Good Friday agreement. - Ramesh G.Jethwani, Bangalore.

From 'Letters to the Editor, The Hindu, August 29, 2009.
Grateful thanks to M/s.Harisankar Kurup, R.Narayanan, Ramesh G.Jethwani and The Hindu.

Video Songs-1: "OBAMA SONG OFFICIAL VIDEO - Michael Franti and Spearhead"

Grateful thanks to Michael Franti and Spearhead, 'Violinsand' and YouTube.

Video Biographies-4: "Mother Teresa"

A brief biography/profile of Mother Teresa from http://WatchMojo.com/ in their 'Women with Mojo Series'.

A detailed biography of Mother Teresa from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_Teresa

Grateful thanks to WatchMojo, YouTube and Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia.

Gandhiana-8: "Einstein on Gandhiji"

Grateful thanks to YouTube.

Gandhiana-7: "God is Truth, Life, Light, Love and the Supreme Good"

Grateful thanks to YouTube.

Gandhiana-6: "A Tribute to Mahatma Gandhi" by Satish Kumar

Resurgence editor and ecologist Satish Kumar emphasises the importance and relevance of Gandhi's message of non-violence.

Grateful thanks to Mr.Satish Kumar and YouTube.

Gandhiana-5: "His Triumph changed the World Forever"

Video Biographies-2: "Bill Gates"

This is a documentary from biography channel about Bill Gates biography.

For a detailed article on Bill Gates from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Gates

Grateful thanks to Bill Gates, YouTube and Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia.

Gandhiana-4: "Nehru on Gandhiji"

What was his great power over the mind and heart of man due to? Ages to come will judge and we are too near him to assess the many facets of his extraordinarily rich personality. But even we realize that the dominating passion of his life was TRUTH. That truth led him to proclaim without ceasing that good ends can never be attained by evil methods, that the end itself is distorted if the method pursued is bad. That truth led him to confess publicly whenever he thought he had made a mistake - Himalayan errors he called some of his own mistakes. That truth led him to fight evil and untruth wherever he found them regardless of the consequences. That truth made he service of the poor and the dispossessed the passion of his life, for where there is inequality and discrimination and suppression, there is injustice and evil and untruth. And thus he became the beloved of all those who have suffered from social and political evils, and the great representative of humanity as it should be. Because of that truth in him, wherever he sat became a temple and where he trod was hallowed ground. - Jawaharlal Nehru

Video Biographies-1: "Tony Robbins Biography"

Listening to the 5-part biography of Anthony Robbins was a wonderful and inspiring experience. It made me so happy and I found myself shouting, jumping and dancing like a child while listening. The whole day I was full of energy and enthusiasm and was doing things which I have been postponing for long. It had a tonic effect on me.

Incidentally, I am already an admirer of Tony Robbins having read some of his great books like 'Unlimited Power' and 'Notes from a Friend' and have actually benefited by them.

People listen to his talks and attend his workshops with great interest. This personal development guru, behaviorist and highly successful writer of many best-sellers, who has popularized NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming), is really a great and inspiring person.

I thought I should share this interesting video with others. Hence I am embedding this in my blog and hope whoever visits my blog, plays the video and listens to the presentation and benefit by it.

To learn more about Tony Robbins, a detailed article on him from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Robbins

I am grateful to Anthony Robbins, Biography.com, YouTube and Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia.

In the News-9: "Pop Icon Michael Jackson dies"

The King of Pop died of cardiac arrest, reports say, which is a great shock to all his fans throughout the world. Wikipedia reports that at the time of death, he was scheduled to 50 concerts from July 2009 to March 2010, tickets for all of them already sold out.

Like most celebrities, Jackson was also hounded by the media and some of his mad followers. One is reminded of Elvis Presley, who also rose to the height of fame and fortune and died an untimely death. Probably they both had problem in coming to terms with their name and fame.

In fact, there is another link between the two of them. Jackson was married to a daughter of Elvis Presley, Lisa Marie Presley, who was a singer and song-writer. But the marriage failed within two years. Jackson had to go through many difficulties like accusations of child molestation, drug addiction etc.

One could only feel sorry for both of them for they definitely had their unique talent. May their souls rest in peace!

For detailed Wikipedia article on Michael Jackson:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Jackson#2009:_Death

For detailed Wikipedia article on Elvis Presley:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elvis_Presley

Grateful thanks to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Honours and Awards-4: "Kalam Honoured!"

Dr A.P.J.Abdul Kalam has been awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws by Queen's University, Belfast, Northern Ireland for his distinguished public service. At the honouring ceremony, the University's Vice-Chancellor, Dr Peter Gregson described Dr.Kalam as an outstanding world statesman, scientist, educator and visionary who had inspired millions in India and around the world.

In his reply, Dr Kalam called for pooling global resources for common good. He said that in today's borderless world, countries could not afford to remain isolated as problems affecting one country had implications for others also.

Dr Kalam said that he had noticed anxiety among youth on how to deal with a world devastated by conflict. But he expressed the belief that youth could do it. He called for imaginative leadership to bring people together and build a peaceful world.

Source: "You can do it, Kalam tells youth" by Special Correspondent, The Hindu, June 12, 2009.

Grateful thanks to The Hindu, India's National Newspaper.

Reminiscences-1: "Rabindranath Tagore"

What Rabindranath Tagore, Joseph Broz Tito, Gary Cooper, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala and Eva Peron have in common? Well, they were all on born May 7; of course, the years are different. On this 7th day of May, I chose to reminisce about one of them, viz., Rabindranath Tagore.

My first introduction was to his novel, The Wreck. It was an abridged version meant for pre-university-level students. Somehow a copy came into my possession and loved it. Later I also saw a Tamil movie, based on that novel. I learn that the novel has been filmed into other languages like Hindi also. Much later, I borrowed a copy of Tagore’s “Gora” from the local library. I was fascinated by the novel. Later when I saw it displayed on a platform for sale, I jumped at the chance. So I possessed a copy of it also and could read it again. I remember to have underlined the lines most appealed to me. The journal in which I had jotted down has disappeared. Most of the quotes have disappeared from my memory. I remember at least one quote to the effect: "He who does not fight evil is also a wrong-dower; for it is he who is the cause of all evil in the world."

In my office, a few famous lines from Tagore’s Gitanjali and displayed prominently at the entrance, which I liked very much. They are:

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls; Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action--
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

Beautiful lines.

On browsing I find, Project Gutenberg has many books of Tagore (full text). I am glad to furnish for the benefit of my visitors; they are as follows:

Tagore, Rabindranath, 1861-1941
http://www.gutenberg.org/browse/authors/t#a942

* Wikipedia
* Chitra, a play in one act (English)
* Creative Unity (English)
* The Crescent Moon (English) (as Translator)
* The Cycle of Spring (English)
* Fruit-Gathering (English)
* The Fugitive (English)
* The Gardener (English)
* Gitanjali (English)
* Glimpses of Bengal - Selected from the Letters of Sir Rabindranath Tagore (English)
* The Home and the World (English)
* The Hungry Stones and Other Stories (English)
* The King of the Dark Chamber (English)
* My Reminiscences (English)
* The Post Office (English)
* Sadhana : the realisation of life (English)
* Sadhana, the Realisation of Life (English)
* Songs of Kabir (English) (as Translator)
* Stray Birds (English)

In our Literary Study Circle at Karaikudi (which is defunct now), at one meeting Tagore’s short story, Post Office, was discussed. Prof.Palani Raghuladasan who initiated the discussion. I could feel how much the short story has touched him. It is a beautiful story. Full text of Post Office is available in Project Gutenberg and I invited readers to take a look at it.

Grateful thanks to Project Gutenberg and Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Role Models-1: "Young Saviour: Student buys Orphanage"

A student who visited a run-down African orphanage was so moved by the children's plight that she raised 30,000 Pound Sterling to buy it. Amy Lambert, 24, set about gathering funds after witnessing the horrors at the decrepit Kichijo Orphanage in Tanzania. she spent eight weeks volunteering there last summer, when cared for 150 boys and girls, many of whom had lost one or both parents to AIDS and HIV. Lambert found children who were starving, dangerously dehydrated and sleeping in dirty beds. The undergraduate at Bath Spa University raised more than 30,000 Pounds Sterling in just seven months. Her offer to buy the orphanage was accepted earlier this year.

Courtesy: The New Sunday Express, Tiruchy, April 26, 2009 ("Vignettes")

Grateful thanks to The New Sunday Express.

TED Talk-1: "How I am trying to change the World" by Bill Gates

Honours and Awards-3: "Postal Stamps of Darwin"

To commemorate the 200th birth anniversary of Charles Darwin, the propounder the Theory of Evolution, Britain has released a set of Ten Postal Stamps.

Darwin also appears on the Bank of Britain's £10 note.

Courtesy: AFP and The Hindu, Madurai, Feb.13, 2009.

Detailed Wikipedia articles on "CHARLES DARWIN" and "THE COMPLETE WORKS OF CHARLES DARWIN ONLINE":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Darwin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Complete_Works_of_Charles_Darwin_Online

Works of Charles Darwin at Project Gutenberg: http://www.gutenberg.org/browse/authors/d#a485

Grateful thanks to AFP, The Hindu, Project Gutenberg and Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Gandhiana-3: "Gandhiji's Speech at a Prayer Meeting"

GANDHIJI'S SPEECH AT A PRAYER MEETING IN NEW DELHI ON July 7, 1947, a month before Independence:

BROTHERS AND SISTERS,

Last evening I told you why it was that the prospect of freedom that is about to be ours did not fill me with joy. Today I wish to tell you how you can turn a bad thing into a good thing. What has happened has happened. Nothing is to be gained by brooding over it or blaming others. In legal terms it will be only a few days before freedom comes into effect. All the parties have arrived at an agreement and they cannot go back upon their word. Only God an undo what man has decided to do.

The easiest way would be for the Congress and the League to come to an understanding without the intervention or the help of the Viceroy. In this the League would have to take the first step. I do not in the least imply by this that the decision about Pakistan should be
undone. It should be taken as final, no more open to discussion now. But if ten representatives of either party sit together in a mud hut and resolve that they will not leave the hut till they have arrived at an understanding, then I can say that the decision they arrive at will be a thousand times better than the present Bill which is before the British Parliament and which envisages the setting up of two Dominions. If all the Hindus and Muslims who come to see me or write to me do not deceive me, then it is clear that no one is happy with the division of India. They all accept it against their will.

There is also another method, perhaps as difficult. The army is going to be divided—the army which so far had one single purpose— whatever that purpose might have been. This division of the army certainly fills the heart of every patriot with fear and misgivings. Why are two armies being created? Are they to defend the country against foreign aggression or are they to fight against each other and prove to the world that we are good only for fighting and killing each other? I have deliberately painted before you this frightful picture so that you may be warned. The way to escape this is, at any rate in my
view, attractive. Will the Hindu masses and all those who have taken part in the struggle for freedom pass the test today? Will they rise up and say that they have no need for an army or at least take a pledge that this army will not be used against their Muslim brethren whether they be living in India or Pakistan. By saying this they will turn their thirty-year-old weakness into strength. Maybe the method I suggest will be considered foolish. However, I must say that God has the power to turn foolishness into wisdom as He has done so many times in history. Those who have set out on the dangerous course of dividing the army should pay heed to what I say.

[From Hindi]
Prarthana Pravachan–I, pp. 227–8

Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, Vol.96.

Honours and Awards-2: "Dr Mani Lal Bhaumik"

Quoting IANS, SiliconIndia.com informs of a Rare Honour for Indian American Scientist, Dr.Mani Bhaumik. He has been chosen as the Sole Patron for the International year of Astronomy 2009. This year is being observed by UNESCO and The International Astronomical Association as the International Year of Astronomy to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Galileo's astronomical telescope.

Dr Bhaumik is a world-renowned physicist, best-selling author and inventor of excimer laser which is used for eyesight correction. This method popularly known as Lasik Surgery has helped more than fifteen million people world over. He is a multi-millionaire and philanthropist, with hundreds of patents.

More on Dr Bhaumik:

Detailed article on Dr.Mani Bhaumik from Wikipedia (with his photo):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mani_Lal_Bhaumik

"Mani Lal Bhaumik: HELPING THE KIDS STAY AFLOAT"

http://www.prideofindia.net/mani.html

"Code Name Success" from Indian Life & Style, A Lifestyle Magazine for the Indian American Community (with many color photographs):

http://www.indianlifeandstyle.com/ILS-Sept-Oct05/looking%20glass.htm

Grateful thanks to IANS, SiliconIndia.com, PrideofIndia.net, indianlifeandstyle.com and Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

How To-7: "How to Be a Good Parent"

How to Be a Good Parent

from wikiHow - The How to Manual That You Can Edit

Being a parent is one of the most fulfilling experiences a person can have. There is a natural instinct that seems to come to a new parent, but there are bits of advice that can help when you are challenged in the growing up years. The most important thing however, that any parent can give their child, is a sense of being loved. More at www.goodparentclub.com

Steps

1. Express love and affection.
   
• A gentle cuddle, a little encouragement, appreciation, approval or even a smile can go a long way to boost the confidence and well-being of your children. Sadly, many children seek this kind of acceptance from their peers (who are wholly unqualified).
  
• Tell them you love them every day
  
• Give lots of hugs and some kisses
  
• Love them unconditionally; don't force them to be who you think they should be in order to earn your love.
  
2. Listen to them.
   
• Express interest in your children and involve yourself in his and her activities.
  
• Create an atmosphere in which they can come to you with a problem however large or small.
  
3. Help them feel safe
   
• Respect their privacy as you would want them to respect yours; for example, if you teach your child that your room is out of boundaries to them, respect the same with their room. Allow them to feel that once they enter their room they can know that no one will look through their drawers, or read their diary.
  
• Instill in them, a sense of belonging by displaying individual and family portraits on the walls of the house.
  
• Don't argue with your spouse in front of the children. If they are sleeping, argue quietly. Modern divorce rates have children feeling insecure and fearful when they hear parents bickering. In addition, children will learn to argue with each other the same way they hear their parents argue with each other. Show them that when people disagree, they can discuss their differences peacefully.
  
• Avoid favoritism. Surveys have shown that most parents have favorites, but most children believe they are the favorite. If your children are quarrelling, don't choose sides.
  
• Give up your vices: gambling, alcohol and drugs can jeopardize your child's financial security. Smoking almost always introduces health hazards to your child's environment. Second-hand smoke has been linked to several respiratory ailments in children. It could also contribute to the early death of a parent. Alcohol and drugs might also introduce health hazards or violence to your child's environment.
  
4. Provide order.
   
• Set boundaries such as bedtimes and curfews, so they learn that they have limitations. By doing so, they actually get a sense of being loved and cared about by their parents. They might rebel at those boundaries, but inwardly enjoy knowing that concerned parents love them.
  
• Encourage responsibility by insisting they clean their room and make their bed every morning. Even the youngest of children can learn to tidy their room and put their toys away in the box at the end of the day. As your child grows, give them more responsibility.
  
• Teach them what is right and wrong. If you are religious, take them to the religious institute that you follow.
  
• Don't routinely do things for your children that they can learn to do for themselves.
  
• Model moderation and responsibility when it comes to drinking. Explain that they will have to wait until they are old enough to enjoy a drink with friends and talk about the importance of designated drivers. Failure to discuss these issues early sometimes contributes to sneaking and dangerous experimentation.
  
5. Praise your children
   
• Avoid comparing your children to others, especially siblings. Each child is individual and unique. Celebrate their differences and instill in each child the desire to pursue their interests and dreams.
  
• Teach your children that it is okay for them to be different and they do not have to follow the crowd. Teach them right from wrong when then are young, and they will always be able to make their own decisions, instead of listening to others.
  
• Remember that your child is not an extension of yourself. Your child is an individual under your care, not a chance for you to relive your life through them.
  
6. Avoid criticism by focusing on the behavior.
   
• When your child acts out in a harmful and spiteful manner, tell him or her that such behavior is unacceptable and suggest alternatives. Avoid statements such as: "You're bad." "Go away!" etc.
  
• Be assertive yet kind when pointing out what they have done wrong. Be stern, but not cross, when you tell them what you expect.
  
• Avoid public humiliation. If they misbehave in public, take them aside, and scold them privately.
  
• Model the behavior and character you hope your children will adopt and live by the rules you set. Show them by example in addition to verbal explanations. Children have a tendency to become what they see and hear unless they make a conscious and concerted effort to break the mold.
  
7. Be consistent.
   
• Enforce rules that apply to every person leading a happy and productive life.
  
• Enforce the same rules all the time, and resist your child's attempts to manipulate you into making exceptions.
  
• Control your temper.
  
• Communicate clearly. Children should be very familiar with the consequences of their actions. If you give them a punishment, be sure they understand the reason and the fault
  
• Life is a great teacher. Don't be too quick to rescue your child from the results of their own actions if the consequences are not overly severe.
  
8. Spend time with each child individually
   
• Set aside a day to go to a park, theme parks, museum or library depending on their interests.
  
• Attend school functions. Do homework with them. Visit their teacher at open house. Even if it means taking some time away from work. Remember that children grow fast, and soon will be on their own. The time you have now with them, should bypass the time you have at work.
  
9. Be a Role Model - Young kids are like sponges. As parents we are our children's first role model. Pay attention to what you say or do around them and think about what kind of example you are making.
   
• Want to teach kids about charity? Get involved and take your kids with you to a soup kitchen or homeless shelter and help serve up meals.
  
• Teach kids about chores by setting a schedule and having them help you out. Don't tell your child to do something, but ask for their help.
  
• Want your kids to listen to you? Show them you can listen to them.
  
• If you want your son or daughter to learn to share, set a good example and share your things with them.
  
10. Allow them to experience life for themselves - But don't just lose total control. Don't make decisions for them all the time, they must learn how to live so that they are ready when they are adults.

Tips

• If you're trying to quit a habit, look into groups that can help you overcome it. Always get support, and have someone you can talk to when you begin to get a craving for your habit. Remember that you're not only helping yourself, but you're helping your child as well.
  
• Reflect on your own childhood frequently. Identify the mistakes your parents made, and make and effort to avoid them. Every generation of parents gets to make a whole set of new mistakes.
  
• Encourage introspection by sharing with your children your own self-evaluations.

Warnings

• Do not be afraid to be a parent. Do your best, be their friend, but never let them forget you are their parent.
  
• Parenting does not stop when a child grows up. Being a good parent remains a life-long role.
  
• Do not strictly follow the parental behavioral stereotypes of your culture, race, ethnic group, family, or other defining factor. For example, it is a commonly seen stereotype that Asian parents will force their children to achieve impeccable grades and take math and music classes, etc. These stereotypes are WRONG! Each child is individual and each parent loves their child. Please do not believe that there is only one way to raise a child.

Related wikiHows

• How to Be a Good Father
  
• How to Be a Good Mother
  
• How to Be a Good Stepfather
  
• How to Be a Supporting and Loving Stepparent
  
• How to Handle Your Child's Temper Tantrum
  
• How to Include Spanking in Child Discipline
  
• How to Put a Two Year Old to Sleep
  
• How to Teach Manners to a Toddler
  
• How to Become a Good Muslim Girl
  
• How to Succeed As a New Stay at Home Mom

Sources and Citations

• How can I be a good parent? by the Family Doctor dot org editorial staff
  
• Being a good parent by George Leary
  
• More4kids Parenting and FamilyAdditional tips shared with permission from More4kids.info.

Article provided by wikiHow, a wiki how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Be a Good Parent. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.

How To-6: "How to Be a Trendsetter"

How to Be a Trendsetter

from wikiHow - The How to Manual That You Can Edit

Do you want to be an inspiration to others? Do you want people to look up to you? Here’s how to be a trendsetter!

Steps

1. Be popular. People will generally follow the trends set by a popular person.
   
• Start by being more "seen"; make people notice you and stop treating you like you weren't even there. Talk louder if necessary, make jokes, learn how to be the center of attention- and love it.
  
• Make friends- preferably among the popular. But if you can't stand the popular kids at your school, don't worry; you can be friends with anybody you want.
  
• Have a strong, inspiring personality. This is one step people often forget when trying to become popular; you have to be confident, know how to stand up for yourself, voice your opinions and be influential- at least among a small group of people, for example your friends. Just make sure your opinions matter and your presence is sought after.
  
• Be charismatic. Know how to speak to make people like to listen to you: appear interested in the conversation, keep a charming smile on your face, be enthusiastic, tell a joke every now and then.
  
• Become a role model. Keep in mind, however, that a role model isn't always the goody-two-shoes parents and teachers want their kids to become; take a look at Massie Block (the main character of the The Clique novel by Lisi Harrison)- she's a mean, bitchy and arrogant girl, yet a lot of kids want to be like her. Of course, this doesn't mean you must automatically be mean and conceited- it just means you should find your own way of being a role model, by discovering and enhancing your own best qualities. In the case of the typical goody-two-shoes, these qualities are kindness, correctitude and love of learning new things; in Massie's case, they are leadership skills, good looks and sophistication. Which would be yours?
  
2. Be smart. Usually, when people see you as smart (witty smart, not nerdy smart), they will be more interested in hearing what you have to say. Make a lot of witty remarks and come up with interesting ideas. Voice your opinions as often as you can.
   
3. Be original and creative. In order to have people to want to be like you, they must have a clear definition of you in mind; in other words, to remember you and your personal style.
   
• Have an interesting and complex personality. Try to incorporate as many -good- character traits and qualities in yourself. Be curious, flexible and eager to improve yourself.
  
• Have various tastes. Enlarge your horizons in matters of music, films, sports, fashion and whatever other fields you're interested in; discover new interests as well. Get a new hobby.
  
• Spice up your appearance. Tired of looking like the average Joe/plain Jane? Develop a signature style: find a scent that's distinctively "yours", develop a fetish for a certain color, find the designs that look best on you and look for them every time you go shopping, whatever. Just find a look you can call "yours"- special, unique and very distinctive. If you feel like you need to change something about your appearance, try getting a new haircut or dyeing your hair- it's noticeable and makes you feel better about yourself.
  
4. Know what people already like. In every school, there are already some trends which have been set before. What do kids at your school generally like? What's specific to them? Notice their behavior as a group and put down everything they have in common. There are some sayings they use often, a clothing style they like more; some interests they all have and sports they all practice.
   
5. Be confident and act cool. When you like yourself, you'll make other people like you too. Same with your interests; if you really care about what you like, you'll make others like those things more; while if you don't, you'll leave the impression that you are boring and you give up easily. Start talking about your own hobbies and interests like they're the most interesting things anyone can do. Put passion in what you do and try to involve others in your hobbies too. If you really care about what you like, you'll make others like those things more; while if you don't, you'll leave the impression that you are boring and you give up easily.
   
6. Be well-informed about everything. People generally like to have somebody who knows all the latest news; they usually go to that person to ask them what the latest trends are. Everything that's new gives people something to talk about.
   
• This also includes gossip; keep on track with everything that happens in other people's lives. Make them trust you, so they will tell you more of their secrets, therefore giving you something to gossip about.
  
• Find some interesting websites about the latest trends, the coolest places to hang out etc. Check them out periodically to see what's new.
  
• Buy some tabloids to keep up with everything that happens in the celebrities' lives.
  
7. Let others know what you do on a regular basis. Talk about yourself-and do it confidently; let people know you better. Making a profile on Myspace also helps. When planning to hang out with some friends after school, invite other people too- or at least let them know about it.

Warnings

• Don't go out of your way to make people like something they actually don't and never will. This will make you seem desperate and pathetic.
  
• If you are successful in becoming a trendsetter, you may have the not-so-pleasant surprise of being around loads of wannabes who will copy every single thing you do. It can get annoying.

Related wikiHows

• How to Dress Fashionably
  
• How to Start a Fad
  
• How to Start a Trend
  
• How to Be a Fashion Icon

Article provided by wikiHow, a wiki how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Be a Trendsetter. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.

How To-5: "How to Be Your Own Hero"

How to Be Your Own Hero

from wikiHow - The How to Manual That You Can Edit

Be your own hero. Trust that voice within, the good one, not the one that tells you to give up and go to the pub. Improve those problematic areas in your life by becoming your 'hero'.

Steps

1. Choose your Hero: first you must choose a personal hero; real, fictional, dead or alive. What are the qualities you look up to in this person? If you don't have one, you can create one based on the qualities you most admire in people or would love to possess. Such as being confident, strong, assertive or authoritative.
   
2. Emulate your hero: to begin with simply consider the qualities of this hero and act some out in private. Get into their mindset by assuming their posture, using their expressions and striding in the same strong manner.
   
3. Re-enact the past: consider some situations at work you think should have gone better. This may have been during a meeting or presentation, whilst on the phone or just chatting with your boss during lunch. Next play out these scenes as your hero. How would they have acted in the same situations? What would they have said or done?
   
4. Try it for real: now you have to take on some of these characteristics. It may feel strange as you are not used to behaving this way.
   
5. See how it feels to use these qualities in reality. Ask yourself whether you were just acting as your hero or if you were uncovering hidden attributes to your own personality. You will probably discover that you are not just pretending to be your hero – but that you are, in fact, your own hero.

Related wikiHows

• How to Find an Idol
  
• How to Choose a Role Model
  
• How to Be a Good Role Model
  
• How to Be a Teenage Role Model

Sources and Citations

• Video: How To Be Your Own Hero

Article provided by wikiHow, a wiki how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Be Your Own Hero. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.

How To-4: "How to Be a Good Role Model"

How to Be a Good Role Model

from wikiHow - The How to Manual That You Can Edit

You would be surprised if you found out how many people look up to you. Think about how many people in your own life that have inspired you to get to where you are today. By being a good role model, you can help others to achieve success in their own lives.

Steps

1. Be aware of your actions. Realize that somebody is watching you most of the time. Whether you are working diligently or picking your nose, chances are somebody noticed.
   
2. Identify your bad habits and problems that you have. This could be everything from getting drunk on purpose or not getting enough sleep. To know if it is a bad habit or not, ask yourself the following questions:
   
• Does it hurt others around me?
  
• Is it detrimental to my health?
  
• Are the results of my actions good or bad?
  
• What are the long term effects?
  
• If I stopped doing it, would I become a better person?
  
3. Once you figure out your bad habits and problems, fix them. Try doing little punishments to yourself whenever you do the bad habit and reward yourself for not doing it. You may not be able to stop doing it all at once. Try decreasing it little by little until you stop. Then, make sure you don't start again.
   
4. Show off your good qualities. Chances are, people will see everything good that you do too. Make an effort to go out of your way if you think that you can help someone.
   
5. Be an inspiration. Whether you're a parent, teacher, coach, athlete, artist, or anything else, do what you do best. People you have never met and never will meet are watching you perform. It is up to you to meet their expectations and show them the right way through example.

Tips

• Talk and become friends with the people who look up to you. Chances are, many of your friends do look up to you, whether you realize it or not.
  
• If you are a parent, put your family first.
  
• Older siblings, set a good example. Your younger siblings are imitating you most of the time.
  
• Remember, no one is perfect. Just do your best.
  
• If you are student, use the character traits that you learned about in school. Such as: empathy, honesty, attentive listening etc.

Warnings

• If you are a bad role model, it will hurt those around you. Turn your life around, and you will be turning around more than one life.

Related wikiHows

• How to Be a Teenage Role Model
  
• How to Choose a Role Model
  
• How to Be a Good Person
  
• How to Upgrade Your Life As a Teenager
  
• How to Be a Cute and Nice Girl

Article provided by wikiHow, a wiki how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Be a Good Role Model. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.

How To-8: "How to Help Your Teen Resist Negative Peer Pressure"

How to Help Your Teen Resist Negative Peer Pressure

from wikiHow - The How to Manual That You Can Edit

Peer pressure is a part of every teenagers life. Negative peer pressure can be one of the most difficult parts of growing up for some teens. The best ways to help your teen resist negative peer pressure is to teach them how to be confident with who they are and to help them become self-aware. Here are some pointers that you can use to help you accomplish this.

Steps

1. Spend as much quality time as you can with your teen. Try to tap into your teens interests, even if they are different from yours. Be in attendance at their games, school plays or activities. By doing this, you are giving your teen clear signs that you love and care about them.
   
2. Practice good communication skills. By showing your teenager that you are listening, you will also keep them talking to you. Your teen needs to feel that you as a parent are approachable and open-minded otherwise, they will not share what is going on in their lives.
   
3. Be respectful of your teen. Encourage your teen to think about the effects of the decisions they make, this will teach them to solve problems. The ability to solve problems is one of the good characteristics of good self-esteem.
   
4. Cultivate your teenager's self-awareness. Prompting your teenagers self-awareness will help your teen build confidence on having their own opinions. By getting your teen to reflect on something, your teen will start to think about how they feel and be more comfortable having an opinion. When you encourage your teen to talk about their feelings, you raise more self-confidence and your teen is in a better situation to ward off negative peer pressure.
   
5. Set some boundaries. Positive discipline and setting limits gives teens a sense of security. Keep your rules fair and consistent. Try to keep your rules to a minimum by focusing on the major areas of concern and continue to revisit and negotiate the consequences and rules as your teen gets older.
   
6. Inspire accountability in your teen. It is extremely important that you allow your teen to learn from their mistakes and learn to take the full responsibility for his or her actions. If your teen gets into trouble, they will never learn the natural consequences for their behaviour.
   
7. Give encouragement whenever possible. Offer your teen encouragement if you notice them struggling with something. Encouraging your teen in a positive way will definitely give them a boost and help them feel good about themselves when they are trying to achieve.
   
8. Praise your teen when appropriate. When your teen is working hard and has accomplished a certain goal, be sure to offer them praise when they deserve it but don't overpraise.
   
9. Nurture your teen's competencies. Your teen needs opportunities for success. The earlier you nurture your teens hobbies and interests, the more opportunities your teen will have for success. Once your teen succeeds, it brings a good feeling about themselves. If your teen doesn't show any interest in hobbies or activities, help your teen find their niche and nurture that interest. the more interests your teen has, the less likely your teen will get bored and get into trouble.
   
10. Inspire trust. Telling your teen you trust them is very powerful. When your teen feels trusted, they feel more independent and less need to rebel.
    
11. Use humor. Teens value a sense of humor in their parents. Appropriate humor can often resolve difficult situations.
    
12. Take time for yourself as well. When you refuel yourself, you will be in a better state of mind to be a parent and be a much better role-model. Your teen copies behaviours they see, so being good role models goes a very long way in helping your teen resist negative peer pressure.

Related wikiHows

• How to Say No to Negative Peer Pressure
  
• How to Stand Up to Peer Pressure
  
• How to Avoid Peer Pressure As a Teen Christian

Article provided by wikiHow, a wiki how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Help Your Teen Resist Negative Peer Pressure. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.

====================How To-3: "How to Choose a Role Model"

How to Choose a Role Model

from wikiHow - The How to Manual That You Can Edit

Role models are important. They help us become the person we want to be and inspire us to make a difference. Choosing wisely means that you are influenced correctly and will help you be the best person you can be.

Steps

1. Choose someone who has a lot of confidence in themselves and their abilities. A good role model would be someone who knows who they are. You don't want someone who is down and who will bring you down. You want someone who won't pretend to be someone they are not, and won't be fake just to suit other people.
   
2. Consider someone who thinks it is alright to be unique; even if that means accepting some ridicule. They should make you feel good about being yourself, they shouldn't make you compare yourself to them and wish you were pretty.
   
3. Think about someone who interacts well with others', and someone who is kind and can communicate well with people.
   
4. Look for someone who is living life the way you would like to. If you want to be a famous author, your role model could be someone who has been successful at writing. If you have always wanted to be a nurse, your role model could be someone at your local hospital who is dedicated to their job and someone who you look up to for their achievements.
   
5. Find someone who doesn't always take credit for what they do. Like a teacher or nurse. Not a celebrity or athlete because most of them tend to be conceited.
   
6. Choose a role model who may have done something you find admirable, such as raised a lot of money for charity, saved lots of lives, helped people in need or discovered the cure for a disease.

Tips

• Keep in mind that having a role model does not mean you become exactly like that person, remember to retain your individuality.
  
• A role model should be someone who you want to be like, and someone you admire.
  
• You shouldn't change yourself to be like your role model; be like them, but put your own individuality into the things they do.
  
• "Believe in yourself, fulfil your potential, be your own Role Model". [1]
  
• Your role model doesn't have to be a real person, or someone who is alive. Maybe you consider Anne Frank to be your role model, or a character from a book. That's okay, but bear in mind that instead of being able to directly ask your role model for help, then you'll have to think, "What would he/she do in your position?"

Warnings

• Some poorly chosen role models may take advantage of their position.
  
• they also can direct you to a wrong place where you dont want to be.

Related wikiHows

• How to Be Yourself Around Someone You Admire or Like
  
• How to Imitate a Person That You Admire
  
• How to Be a Teenage Role Model
  
• How to Be a Good Role Model
  
• How to Be a Leader
  
• How to Be Persuasive
  
• How to Appreciate Benazir Bhutto

Article provided by wikiHow, a wiki how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Choose a Role Model. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.

====================Honours and Awards: "Bharat Ratna to Bhimsen Joshi"

Noted Hindustani classical vocalist, Pandit Bhimsen Joshi (87) was presented with Bharat Ratna, country's highest civilian award, at his residence in Pune on February 10, 2009.

The award, announced after a gap of seven years, was last given to melody queen, Lata Mangeshkar and shenai maestro, Ustad Bismillah Khan.

The vocalist, whose name was announced for the award on November 5 last, had requested that on account of his frail health he may be allowed to receive the award at his residence and that the presentation may be a low-key affair.

Accordingly, in deference to the wishes of Bhimsen and his family, the award was presented at his residence.

Bhimsen is the sixth person from the field of art and culture to get Bharat Ratna after Satyajit Ray, M.S.Subbulakshmi, Pandit Ravi Shankar, Lata Mangeshkar and Ustad Bismillah Khan. - PTI

Courtesy: PTI and The Hindu, Madurai, February 11, 2009.

Detailed Wikipedia articles on "BHARAT RATNA" and "BHIMSEN JOSHI":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bharat_Ratna

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhimsen_Joshi

Grateful thanks to PTI, The Hindu and Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

===========================Achievers-5: "Padma Awards"

The Govt of India named distinguished personalities - 133 personalities from various fields -for the Padma awards on the occasion of the 60th Indian Republic Day, January 26, 2009. Some of the prominent names are:

Padma Vibhushan Awards

Mr.Sunderlal Bahuguna, Environmentalist

Mr.G.Madhavan Nair, Chairman, Indian Space Research Organisation

Dr.Anil Kakodkar, Chairman, Atomic Energy Commission

Sister Nirmala, Missionary

Padma Bhushan Awards

Mr.Shekar Gupta, The Indian Express

Mr.C.K.Prahalad, Michigan University

Mr.D.Jayakanthan, Tamil Writer

Ms I.J.Ahluwalia, Chairperson, Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER)

Mr C S Seshadri, Director, Chennai Mathematical Institute

Mr.Ramachandra Guha, Historian

Ms Sarojini Varadappan, President, WIA

Mr Abhinav Bindra, Olympic Medalist

Mr.Sam Pitroda, Chairman, National Knowledge Commission

Lt Gen Satish Nambiar, Director, USII

Padma Shri Awards

Ms Aishwarya Rai, Bollywood Actress

Mr.Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Captain, Indian Cricket Team

Mr Harbhajan Singh, Spin Bowler, Indian Cricket Team

Mr Pankaj Advani, Billiards Champion

Ms Aruna Sairam, Singer, Carnatic Music

==================================Newsletters of Interest-2: "Gandhi Journal"

"Gandhi Journal" is a free email newsletter from the Complete Site on Mahatma Gandhi, www.mkgandhi.org. Every month they publish articles by eminent Gandhians and scholars on relevance of Gandhian Philosophy and related issues. Thoughts of Mahatma Gandhi are also find a place in it.

For example, the January 2009 issue of the journal contains the following articles:

1. "Gandhi and Christianity" by Ambassador(Retd) Alan Nazareth

2. "A Gandhian Approach to International Security" by Ambassador(Retd) Alan Nazareth

3. "Mahatma Gandhi and his Contemporary Artists" by Bhaswati Bandyopadhyay

This is a newsletter for people who would like to know more and more about Gandhiji in small doses.

For subscribing to this eJournal, just click:

http://www.mkgandhi.org/g_journal/journals.htm

The Testament of Jawaharlal Nehru

"I have received so much love and affection from the Indian people that nothing that I can do can repay even a small fraction of it, and indeed there can be no repayment of so precious a thing as affection. Many have been admired, some have been revered, but the affection of all classes of the Indian people has come to me in such abundant measure that I have been overwhelmed by it. I can only express the hope that in the remaining years I may live, I shall not be unworthy of my people and their affection.

To my innumerable comrades and colleagues, I owe an even deeper debt of gratitude. We have been joint partners in great undertakings and have shared the triumphs and sorrows which inevitably accompany them.

I wish to declare with all earnestness that I do not want religious ceremonies performed for me after my death. I do not believe in any such ceremonies and to submit to them, even as a matter of form, would be hypocrisy and an attempt to delude ourselves and others.

When I die, I should like my body to be cremated. If I die in a foreign country, my body should be cremated there and my ashed sent to Allahabad. A small handful of these ashes should be thrown into the Ganga and the major portion of them disposed of in the manner indicated below. No part of these ashes should be retained or preserved.

My desire to have a handful of my ashes thrown into the Ganga at Allahabad has no religious significance, so far as am concerned. I have no religious sentiment in the matter. I have been attached to the Ganga and the Jumna rivers in Allahabad ever since my childhood and, as I have grown older, this attachment has also grown. I have watched their varying moods as the seasons changed, and have often thought of the history and myth and tradition and song and story that have become attached to them through the long ages and become part of their flowing waters.

The Ganga, especially, is the river of India, beloved of her people, round which are intertwined her racial memories, her hopes and fears, her songs of triumph, her victories and her defeats. She has been a symbol of India's age-long culture and civilization, ever changing, ever-flowing, and yet ever the same Ganga. She reminds me of the snow-covered peaks and the deep valleys of the Himalayas, which I have loved so much, and of the rich and vast plains below, where my life and work have been cast. Smiling and dancing in the morning sunlight, and dark and gloomy and full of mystery as the evening shadows fall, a narrow, slow and graceful stream in winter, and a vast roaring thing during the monsoon, broad-bosomed almost as the sea, and with something of the sea's power to destroy, the Ganga has been to me a symbol and a memory of the past of India, running into the present, and flowing on to the great ocean of the future. And though I have discarded much of past tradition and custom, and am anxious that India should rid herself of all shackles that bind and constrain her and divide her people, and suppress vast numbers of them, and prevent the free development of the body and the spirit; though I seek all this, yet I do not wish to cut myself off from the past completely. I am proud of that great inheritance that has been, and is, ours, and I am conscious that I too, like all of us, am, a link in that unbroken chain which goes back to the dawn of history in the immemorial past of India. That chain I would not break, for I treasure it and seek inspiration from it. And as witness of this desire of mine and as my last homage to India's cultural inheritance, I am making this request that a handful of my ashes be thrown into the Ganga at Allahabad to be carried to the great ocean that washes India's shore.

The major portion of my ashes should, however, be disposed of otherwise. I want these to be carried high up into the air in an aeroplane and scattered from that height over the fields where the peasants of India toil, so that they might mingle with the dust and soil of India and become an indistinguishable part of India."

Gandhiji's Talisman

"I will give you a talisman. Whenever you are in doubt, or when the self becomes too much with you, apply the following test. Recall the face of the poorest and the weakest man whom you may have seen, and ask yourself if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him. Will he gain anything by it? Will it restore him to a control over his own life and destiny? In other words, will it lead to swaraj for the hungry and spiritually starving millions?

Then you will find your doubts and yourself melting away."

-M.K.Gandhi

August 1947

From The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, Vol.96

Newsletters of Interest-1: "Biography and Memoir"

The Boston Public Library and NextReads jointly bring out many email newsletters of interest regularly on monthly/bimonthly basis. The genre which is directly relevant to this blog is their newsletter, "Biography and Memoir". For example, the January 2009 issue of this monthly email newsletter contains information on 11 interesting books with photos of cover page, a brief write-up on each book and other relevant details like Publisher, Publication date, ISBN number. In some cases, 'Table of Contents' and/or 'First Chapter' are also available.

If you are interested, you can click and subscribe for this free email newsletter:

http://www.bpl.org/

All the best!

Websites to Watch-1: "Omnibiography.com"

Omnibiography.com is the largest directory of biographies on the Web. It contains over 110,000 biographies online, information on important people from antiquity to present time, with search facility - by name, by country, by region.

Those love biography, who derive inspiration from reading about great lives could give this website a try.

www.omnibiography.com.

In the News-8: "Sahitya Akademi Awards for 21 Literateurs"

Seven Novelists, six poets, five short story writers and three critics have been chosen for the National Sahitya Akademi awards for this year. The coveted award carries a cash prize of Rs.50,000/- and an engraved copper plaque, will be given away on February 17, 2009.

The awardees are: K.A.Appan (a well-known critic for his collection of essays in Malayalam), Govind Mishra (for his Hindi novel, 'Kohre Mein Kaid Rang'), Rita Choudhury (Assamese novelist), Vidya Sagar Narzary (Bodo), Srinivas B.Vaidya (Kannada), Ashok Kamat (Konkani), Shyam Manohar (Marathi), Mitetr Sain Meet (Punjabi), Sarat Kumar Mukhopadhyay (Bengali), Champa Sharma (Dogri), A.O.Memchoubi (Manipuri), Pramod Kumar Mohanty (Oriya), Om Prakash Pande(Sanskrit), Jayant Parmer(Urdu), Suman Shah(Gujarati), Shri 'Kirat' (Nepali), Dinesh Panchal(Rajasthani), Badal Hemba(Santhali), Melaanmai Ponnusamy (Tamil), Nabi Aatash(Kashmiri), Hiro Shewkani(Sindhi).

Awards for Telugu and Maithili to be announced.

Source: The Hindu, Madurai (Date not available).

Grateful thanks to The Hindu.

In the News-7: "Oldest Man dies"

George Francis, 112, of the U.S. who lived through both world wars, man's first walk on the moon and the election of Obama as President, has died.

Courtesy: The Hindu, Madurai, December 30, 2008 (Newscape).

Detailed Wikipedia article on "OLDEST PEOPLE":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oldest_man

Grateful thanks to The Hindu and Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

In the News-6: "Honouring Darwin"

A stamp on naturalist Charles Darwin issued by the Britain's Royal Mail to celebrate British achievements will go on sale in the New Year.

Courtesy: The Hindu, Madurai, December 30, 2008 (Newscape).

Detailed Wikipedia article on "CHARLES DARWIN":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_darwin

Grateful thanks to The Hindu and Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Achievers-4: "Person of the Year"

U.S.President-elect Barack Obama has been named 'Person of the Year' for 2008 by TIME magazine.

Courtesy: The Hindu, Madurai, December 18, 2008.

Detailed Wikipedia article on "PERSON OF THE YEAR":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Person_of_the_year

Grateful thanks to The Hindu and Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Inspiring Lives-42: "Always Remembered"

Children's Day is the birthday of Jawaharlal Nehru. He loved children and wished that they shone like the twinkling stars of the sky and rose to lofty heights. He wanted to eliminate the curse of poverty, ignorance, unemployment and disease. He did not want to rest till his last breath. Though he is not with us today, he cannot be forgotten by any child in the world.

- M.Senthil Manikandan, IV-A, Velammal Residential School, Ladanenthal, Sivagangai district.

Courtesy: Young World, Supplement to The Hindu, November 18, 2008.

Grateful thanks to Master M.Senthil Manikandan and The Hindu.

In the News-5: "Show on Darwin"

London's Natural History Museum has opened an exhibition on the life of British naturalist, Charles Darwin, the father of the theory of evolution.

Courtesy: The Hindu, Madurai, November 15, 2008 ("Newscape")

Detailed Wikipedia article on "British Natural History Museum":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Natural_History_Museum

Detailed Wikipedia article on "Charles Darwin":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_darwin

Grateful thanks to The Hindu and Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Inspiring Lives-41: Jawaharlal Nehru

November 14 is a special day for the children of India. It is the birthday of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India, who loved children and found happiness in the midst of children. It is observed in India as Children's day. The Bible says that man was created in the image of God. So he is closer to God than other living things. Children are even more close to God because of their innocence, easy laughter and other lovable qualities. All great souls love children and become children in their midst. They are more happy in their company.

My dad was a great admirer of Nehruji and my introduction to Nehruji, like so many other great and wonderful things in life, was through my dad. He would tell me about the greatness of Nehruji and narrate many an interesting anecdote from his life. He also admired Nehruji's speeches and writings, which led me later to get "The Discovery of India", "Glimpses from World History" and a compilation of his speeches, published by the Publications Division of the Govt of India.

In my pre-university class English textbook, there was an inspiring article, "Coming of Gandhiji" by Nehruji. Then I came across Nehruji's speech mourning the death of Gandhiji. How much he loved 'Bapu' and how much saddened was he by the assassination of Gandhiji!

During 1964, on a holiday, I was in a cinema theatre watching the matinee show. Suddenly the screening was interrupted and a handwritten slide informing the 'sad and sudden demise of our beloved Prime Minister Nehruji' was put on. We were all stunned. That evening there was a silent procession as a mark of respect to the departed soul in which I took part. I was a eleventh standard student then. I made a scrap book and started pasting Nehruji's pictures and news items related to him in it.

Much has been said about time; great healer, subtle thief and so on. It erases many of our fond thoughts from our memory. I am unable to remember what happened to that scrap book. So also to the books. I remember to have given 'Nehru's Speeches' to friends who were practising shorthand and about the other two, I don't remember anything. Probably some relative or friend borrowed them from me and then conveniently forgotten to return.

Another beautiful book to disappear was, "As America remembers Jawaharlal Nehru", a beautiful pictorial publication from the USIS, New Delhi. However, I still remember a touching quote by Nehruji on himself:

"If anybody chose to think of me, then I should like them to say, this was a man who loved India and its people and they, in turn, gave him of their love most abundantly and extravagantly."

Then there was Nehruji's favourite lines from a poem of Robert Frost, in his own handwriting, which was found near his death-bed:

"The woods are lovely dark and deep

But I have promises to keep

And miles to go before I sleep

And miles to go before I sleep"

(Only Nehruji has written the author's name as "Richard Frost").

Nehruji did not believe in organized religion but was a great admirer of Lord Buddha. I remember to have seen a photograph of him meditating in a Buddhist monastery. He was proud of cultural and literary heritage of India. He was a great statesmen, a towering intellect, an inspiring speaker, a beautiful writer, a dreamer, an idealist and a noble soul.

I only wish parents and teachers make a special effort to create an interest in today's children of Nehruji and turn them to reading Nehruji's life and works; better than indulging in useless, negative and often harmful pursuits.

My grateful thanks to dad for helping me develop a love and reverence for Nehruji and inspiring an interest in his works.

==============================Alfred Nobel

For more than 100 years now, the Nobel Prize has been awarded to outstanding achievements. It is regarded as the most prestigious award in the world. The man behind the prize is Alfred Nobel. He was born on October 21, 1833 in Stockholm, Sweden. (October 21 also happens to be my own birthday.) He was a chemist and armaments manufacturer. He invented the dynamite.

His father was Immanuel Nobel and mother, Andriette Nobel. He was their third son. His father was also an inventor; he invented the modern plywood.

Though he founded Nobel Prize in 1895 and award of the prize started in 1901. The prize honoured outstanding achievers in the area of Chemistry, Physics, Medicine and Literature. It is said that as the inventor of dynamite which was used in war to kill people, he felt guilty and instituted the Nobel Peace Prize.

He died on December 10, 1896 at the age of 63.

Detailed Wikipedia article on "ALFRED NOBEL":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Nobel

"ALFRED NOBEL - THE MAN BEHIND THE NOBEL PRIZE" from NobelPrize.org:

http://nobelprize.org/alfred_nobel/

Grateful thanks to NobelPrize.org and Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

============================George Marshall

George Marshall, American Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense and Chief of Staff of the Army, was born on December 31, 1880. He is also the author of the famous 'Marshall Plan' for the rehabilitation of the ravaged European countries after the Second World War. Marshall Plan won him the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1953.

I came to know of him through reading Robert E.Sherwood's beautiful three-volume book 'Roosevelt and Hopkins' and Harry Truman's 'Memoirs'.

He was born in a middle-class family in Uniontown, Pennsylvania. He graduated from the Virginia Military Institute and served the army, where he rose from First Lieutenant to Chief of Staff of Army. He was also a distant relative of American Chief Justice John Marshall.

He was the recipient of many national and international honours, besides the Nobel Peace Prize.

He passed away on October 16, 1959 at the age of 78.

Detailed Wikipedia article on 'GEORGE MARSHALL":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Marshall

George Marshall Foundation:

http://www.marshallfoundation.org/

Grateful thanks to Marshall Foundation and Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

===========================David Ben-Gurion

David Ben-Gurion, the first Prime Minister of Israel, was born on October 16, 1886. He was also one of the pillars and founders of Israel. I learnt about him from my dad, from whom I learnt about the birth of Israel, the Arab-Israeli conflict, Ben-Gurion and Golda Meir.

He was born in Poland and his father was a lawyer. He lost his mother at an young age. He studied at the University of Warsaw, where he became a political activist. He was jailed twice and then moved to Palestine in 1906. He moved to Turkey in 1912 and studied law at the Istanbul University. After studying law he moved to Palestine again and was expelled from Palestine in 1915 and came to the US and settled in New York City. He married Paula Munweis and they had three children.

Besides being the first Prime Minister of Israel, he had also served Israel as its Minister for Defense and Minister for Transportation during different periods.

He passed away on December 1, 1973 at the age of 87.

In commemoration of his services to Israel, the international airport at Tel Aviv and the university of the Negev have been named after him.

Detailed Wikipedia article on "DAVID BEN-GURION":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Ben-Gurion

David Ben-Gurion Knesset Website:

http://www.knesset.gov.il/mk/eng/mk_eng.asp?mk_individual_id_t=684

Grateful thanks to Knesset Ben-Gurion Website and Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

============================Guenter Grass

Guenter Grass, German novelist, playwright and poet, was born on October 16, 1927 at Danzig, Poland. His father Willy Grass was a German and his mother Helene Grass was of Polish origin. He had his schooling in Danzig. He has been living in Germany since 1945.

'The Tin Drum' is his most famous novel. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1999.

Around 1970, I had the opportunity to learn German in my office premises. As a bachelor who had not much to do, I availed the opportunity and studied German. I studied up to the Second level of the Elementary course; for a time, my colleagues and myself used to converse in our half-baked German and I earnestly tried to master the language and got a lot of books. It was during this period that I was on the lookout for books by great German authors like Heinrich Boll, Herman Hesse, Thomas Mann and Gunter Grass. I picked up copies of English translations of 'Siddhartha', 'Steppenwolf' and 'The Tin Drum' from second-hand platform booksellers at Trichy, which I used to visit mainly for buying books and seeing Hindi movies. I also read a booklet of short-short German stories in the original.

Though I can't say I liked the novels, I had the patience to read them till the finish. They were different, that is all I can say about them.

Detailed Wikipedia article on "Gunter Grass":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunter_Grass

Biographical Notes on "GUNTER GRASS" from NobelPrize.org:

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1999/bio-bibl.html

Grateful thanks to NoblePrize.org and Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

============================Eugene O'Neill

Eugene O'Neill, American playwright, was born on October 16, 1886 at New York City, USA. His plays are often compared to that of Chekhov, Strindberg and Ibsen. His turbulent life was filled with depression, disease and alcoholism. He married thrice and all of them were failures. From the first marriage he had one child and from the second, two children. His only daughter, Oona, married the famous English actor, Charlie Chaplin. Both his sons committed suicide.

He died in Boston on November 27, 1953 at the age of 65.

Some of his famous plays are:

The Emperor Jones

The Iceman Cometh

A Moon for the Misbegotten

The Hairy Ape

He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1936.

Detailed Wikipedia article on "EUGENE O'NEILL":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_O%27Neill

Works of Eugene O'Neill from public domain in Canada:

http://wikilivres.info/wiki/Eugene_O%27Neill

Autobiography of Eugene O'Neill from Nobelprize.org:

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1936/oneill-autobio.html

Works of Eugene O'Neill from Project Gutenberg Australia:

http://gutenberg.net.au/plusfifty-n-z.html#letterO

Grateful thanks to WikiLivres, NobelPrize.org, Project Gutenberg Australia and Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

=============================Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde, playwright, poet, novelist and short-story writer, was born on October 16, 1854 in Dublin, Ireland.

His father Sir William Wilde was a successful physician and mother, Jane Wilde, was a popular writer. He was their second son. He did his schooling in Portora Royal School and studied classics in Trinity College, Dublin.

He married Constance Lloyd in 1884 and they had two sons.

'The Importance of being Earnest" and "Lady Windermere's Fan" were his famous plays and his only novel, "The Picture of Dorian Gray" is read even today.

He was a celebrity and well-known wit during the Victorian era till his downfall following imprisonment on charges of homosexuality. After two years of hard labour, he was released. He left Britain never to return.

He died of cerebral meningitis at the age of 46 on November 30, 1900. His mortal remains are buried in Paris.

His letters and manuscripts are kept in William Andrews Clark Memorial Library.

Detailed Wikipedia article on "OSCAR WILDE":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_Wilde

Works of Oscar Wilde from Project Gutenberg:
http://www.gutenberg.org/browse/authors/w#a111

Works of Oscar Wilde in audio format from LibriVox:
http://librivox.org/newcatalog/search.php?title=&author=Oscar+Wilde&action=Search

Selected Poems of Oscar Wilde from PoetryX.com:
http://poetry.poetryx.com/poets/131/

Fairy Tales of Oscar Wilde from ArtPassions.net:
http://wilde.artpassions.net/

Essays and Lectures of Oscar Wilde:
http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext97/sandl10.txt

The Happy Prince and Other Tales by Oscar Wilde:
http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext97/hpaot10h.htm

Grateful thanks to Project Gutenberg, LibriVox, PoetryX.com, ArtPassions.net and Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

=============================Mario Puzo

Maria Puzo, the Italian American writer, was born on October 14. His most popular novel, "The Godfather" made him world-famous. This novel was later adopted into a most successful movie. Like many great people, he also rose from humble origins to the highest acclaim as a novelist. His other novels are: The Dark Arena, The Fortunate Pilgrim and Fools Die.

The Godfather was made into a super-hit movie and I saw it either in a cinema theatre at Madurai/Trichy or in TV. If I remember right, there were two sequels also, which also I saw. I saw "Dharmatma" also, which is the Hindi remake of the same theme; Feroze Khan produced and directed the film, besides playing the lead role with two heroines viz., Hema Malini and Rekha.

Mario Puzo passed away on July 2, 1999 at age of 78 at Bay Shore, New York, USA.

Detailed Wikipedia article on "MARIO PUZO":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mario_Puzo

Mario Puzo interviewed by Larry King of CNN:

http://www.newyorktimesbestsellerlist.org/archives/category/authors/mario-puzo

Grateful thanks to Larry King of CNN and Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

==========================Akbar the Great

October 15 is the birthday of Jalaluddin Muhammad Akbar, popularly known as Akbar the Great. He is the greatest of Mughal emperors. He was a many-sided personality and with many talents: artist, artisan, blacksmith, carpenter, general, inventor, animal trainer and much more. Akbar's courage, strength and other great leadership qualities are extolled in various historical literature. He was a great patron of arts and literature. Many great constructions, which stand even today, were carried out during his reign like Fatehpur Sikri. He encouraged religious dialogue between Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus and Christians. He passed away at the age of 63.

Detailed Wikipedia article on "AKBAR THE GREAT":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akbar_the_great

Grateful thanks to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

==============================Lermontov

Lermontov, the Russian poet and writer, was born on October 15, 1814. He is often compared to Shelley. His poems influenced many other Russian writers, including Boris Pasternak. Next to Pushkin, he is considered to be the greatest Russian poet. There are many similarities between him and Pushkin. They grew up in identical atmosphere, an intellectual atmosphere. Like Pushkin, he wrote poems with passion and like Pushkin, he also died in an unfortunate duel. Thus, two of the greatest poets of Russia died in a duel. It is believed both the duels were tsarist conspiracy. Lermontov died on July 27, 1841.

His novel, 'A Hero of Our Time', is considered to be autobiographical in many respects.

His important novel, 'A Hero of Our Time' in English translation is available in Project Gutenberg.

Wikipedia articles on "LERMONTOV" and "A HERO OF OUR TIME": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lermontov

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Hero_of_Our_Time

Full-text of the novel, "A Hero of Our Time" from Project Gutenberg: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/913/913-h/913-h.htm

Full-text of poems of Lermontov from Friends and Partners.org:

http://www.friends-partners.org/friends/literature/19century/lermontov3.html(opt,mozilla,pc,english,,new)

Grateful thanks to Friends and Partners.org, Project Gutenberg and Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

***********************

==============================Nietzsche

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, the great German philosopher, was born on October 15, 1844 in Rocken, near Leipzig. He was a classical philologist before turning to philosophy. He was appointed to head the Classical Philology department at the University of Basel at the young of age of 24. His health had been a problem from youth. Mental illness played havoc with his life and he had to be taken care by his mother and sister.

His most famous book, "Thus Spoke Zarathusthra" was written during the period 1883-1885. An English translation of the book by Thomas Common is available in Project Gutenberg. Some of the other important works of Nietzsche are: Daybreak, Beyond Good and Evil, The Will to Power and Anti-Christ.

Various reasons are attributed for his mental illness including syphilis and brain cancer. Finally, it killed him at the age of 55.

Detailed Wikipedia article on Nietsche:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Nietzsche

Full-text of "THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTHRA" by Nietzsche translated into English by Thomas Common from Project Gutenberg:

http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext99/spzar10.txt

Friedrich Nietsche Society Website:

http://www.fns.org.uk/

The Mole (Official Blog of the Friedrich Nietzsche Society):

http://friedrichnietzschesociety.wordpress.com/

Grateful thanks to Friedrich Nietzsche Society, Thomas Common, Project Gutenberg and Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

=====================John Kenneth Galbraith

John Kenneth Galbraith was born on October 15, 1908 at Iona Station, Ontario, Canada. He was an economist, writer and diplomat. As Ambassador of the US to India, he helped to bring India and USA closer. The then Prime Minister of India, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru had a high regard for him. He was a liberal and loved by many in India and USA. His books on economics, generally considered a dry subject, were best-sellers.

I am an admirer of Galbraith and had the pleasure of reading his memoir, "A Life in our Times", which I have borrowed from the Madurai-Kamaraj University Library. It is a great book. His two other books, "Ambassador's Journal" and "A China Passage", I picked up from a secondhand bookshop at Trichy and read them. I also possessed copy of his "The Affluent Society". It is one of his very famous books and a bestseller.

Galbraith wit and humour are very famous. He was close to many Presidents and other Heads of State. He received many honours nationally and internationally.

He died on April 29, 2006 at the ripe old age of 97.

Detailed Wikipedia article on JKB:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galbraith,_John_Kenneth

Grateful thanks to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

==============================C.P.Snow

C.P.Snow, the British physicist and novelist, was born on October 15, 1905. I had the pleasure of reading his novels in the "Strangers and Brothers" series as well as "The Search". However, my favourite is the non-fiction, "Variety of Men" and his article "On Magnanimity". From the Variety of Men, I read about the fascinating article on Srinivasa Ramanujan and G.H.Hardy. 'On Magnanimity' is a wonderful article about Newton and his teacher, Professor Barrow. Professor Barrow felt his student, Isacc Newton, was better qualified than himself to occupy the Lucasian Chair. So he stepped down from professorship on the condition that Newton be appointed in his place. It was accepted and Newton occupied the Lucasian Chair.

I also read with joy his play, "The Masters". All these made me a great fan of C.P.Snow, who was knighted and became Lord Snow.

He married the novelist, Pamela Hansford Johnson.

He occupied many prestigious public offices with grace and was a great success. He died at the age of 75 on July 1, 1980.

Detailed Wikipedia article on "C.P.Snow":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._P._Snow

Grateful thanks to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

=========================Sai Baba of Shirdi

The Sai Baba of Shirdi, the great Indian holyman, was born on September 28, 1835. He is regarded as an incarnation; incarnation of Shiva, Dattatreya and Kabir. His devotees include Hindus and Muslims. His philosophy is Advaita and he preached a life of love, forgiveness, helping others, chairty, contentment, inner peace and devotion to God and guru. He taught to his followers religious harmony. He attained 'maha samaadhi' on October 15, 1918. So this is his 90th memorial day(Shri Sai Baba Punyatithi). Shri Sai Baba Sansthan Trust is celebrating Shri Sai Baba Punyatithi Mahotsav today.

Detailed article from Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shirdi_Sai_Baba

Homepage of Shri Sai Baba Sansthan:

http://www.shrisaibabasansthan.org/

A Website dedicated to Shri Sai Baba:

http://www.saibaba.com/

Shri Sai Baba Punyatithi Mahotsav 2008:

http://www.shrisaibabasansthan.org/main_English/saibaba/picturegallery/90th_punyatithi2008/index.htm

Grateful thanks to Shri Sai Baba Sansthan and Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

===================================Virgil

October 15 is the birthday of Virgil, the classical Roman poet. His all-time great epic, "Aeneid" is read with great interest even today and it is in the curriculum of many an university.

He was born on October 15, 70 BC and passed away on September 21, 19 BC.

Detailed Wikipedia articles on "VIRGIL" and "AENEID":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgil

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeneid

For complete texts of some of the works of Virgil from Project Gutenberg:

The Aeneid (English translation):

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/228/228-h/228-h.htm

The Bucolics and Eclogues(English translation):

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/230/230-h/230-h.htm

The Georgics(English translation):

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/232/232-h/232-h.htm

Grateful thanks to Project Gutenberg and Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

======================Dr A P J Abdul Kalam

October 15 is the birthday of Dr.APJ Abdul Kalam. He has adorned many top positions including the Presidentship of India and has won many laurels like Bharat Ratna. Above all, he has won the hearts of majority of Indians, especially the younger generation. He is one of the best popular Presidents of India. From humble origins, he rose to the highest position of the country. He is an inspiration to the younger generations.

His books "Wings of Fire" and "Ignited Minds" are still popular and sows hopes in the minds of the young.

We feel happy to wish him a Happy Birthday - May God bless him with a long and healthy life and may he continue to inspire the younger generation!

Detailed Wikipedia article on Dr.A.P.J.Abdul Kalam:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdul_Kalam

Dr.Kalam's Website: http://www.abdulkalam.com/kalam/index.jsp

He loves children and likes to interact with them. If you want to write to Dr.Kalam:

Dr.APJ Abdul Kalam,
No 10, Rajaji marg,
New Delhi -110011.
Phone: 011 23793601
Email : apj@abdulkalam.com

Grateful thanks to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

=================Achievers-3: "P.G.Wodehouse"

A great master of the English prose and humour and a prolific writer. Acknowledged and admired by other great writers, he lived for more than 93 years. He was writing almost till his end. He wrote about nearly 80 books, comprising short stories and novels.

Personally I have been a Wodehouse aficionado. Many a time he saved me from cares, depression and misery. My friends and myself, we used to imitate his delightful style in our letters. In our office, we sort of had a Wodehouse Club and when one of us got an Wodehouse, after reading. we would pass it on to others. We found joy in sharing his books and his jokes.

Some of his memorable and lovable characters are: Jeeves, Lord Ickenham, Sir Galahad Threepwood, Bingo Little, Pongo Twistleton and the potty Lord Emsworth. Of his novels, my favourite is, "A Damsel in Distress"; of his short story collections, "The Man Upstairs". "The Man with Two Left Feet" and the Jeeves series.

His name came under a cloud when he unwittingly allowed himself to be used by the Nazis for their propaganda during World War. But that cloud did pass away and he was knighted by the Queen herself. When I was going through old paper clippings searching for material for my blog, I came across a piece, "The Unknown Wodehouse" by S.Ramachander in the Literary Review of The Hindu, April 3, 2005. I would like a share with you a brief excerpt from it:

"Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse (Plum) is a colossus amongst literary geniuses of the recent century... it is not that he is other-worldly or unworldly so much as that he is a-worldly, a born neutral."

Project Gutenberg has rendered yeoman service to Wodehouse fans by providing full text of many of his books and they deserve our gratitude and congratulations. The list with links:

The Adventures of Sally (English)
The Clicking of Cuthbert (English)
The Coming of Bill (English)
A Damsel in Distress (English)
Death at the ExcelsiorAnd Other Stories (English)
The Gem Collector (English)
The Girl on the Boat (English)
The Gold Bat (English)
The Head of Kay's (English)
Indiscretions of Archie (English)
The Intrusion of Jimmy (English)
Jill the Reckless (English)
The Little Nugget (English)
The Little Warrior (English)
Love Among the Chickens (English)
Love Among the Chickens (English)
Love Among the ChickensA Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm (English)
A Man of Means (English)
The Man Upstairs and Other Stories (English)
The Man with Two Left Feet And Other Stories (English)
Mike (English)
Mike and Psmith (English)
My Man Jeeves (English)
Not George Washington — an Autobiographical Novel (English)
Piccadilly Jim (English)
The Politeness of Princesand Other School Stories (English)
The Pothunters (English)
A Prefect's Uncle (English)
The Prince and Betty (English)
Psmith in the City (English)
Psmith in the City (English)
Psmith, Journalist (English)
Right Ho, Jeeves (English)
Right Ho, Jeeves (English)
Something New (English)
The Swoop! or How Clarence Saved England A Tale of the Great Invasion (English)
Tales of St. Austin's (English)
Three Men and a Maid (English)
Uneasy Money (English)
The White Feather (English)
William Tell Told Again (English)
A Wodehouse MiscellanyArticles & Stories (English)

Detailed Wikipedia article on "P.G.WODEHOUSE": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P.G.Wodehouse

List of Books by P. G. Wodehouse:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_books_by_P._G._Wodehouse

List of Short Stories by P.G.Wodehouse: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_short_stories_by_P._G._Wodehouse

Grateful thanks to the inimitable Project Gutenberg and Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

=======================Gandhi Jayanthi 2008

Gandhi Jayanthi (Gandhiji's birthday) is being celebrated today not only in India but all over the world. The world is slowly realizing the relevance of Gandhiji and the magnitude of his greatness. However, the younger generation, who are the makers of tomorrow's history, don't seem much aware of his life and greatness. It is a sad fact.

Today in commemoration of Gandhi Jayanthi, I pay tribute to the Mahatma by reading his writings and also by posting a few passages from him.

* "I am but a poor struggling soul yearning to be wholly good - wholly truthful and wholly non-violent in thought, word and deed, but ever failing to reach the ideal which I know to be true. It is a painful climb, but the pain of it is a positive pleasure to me. Each step upward makes me feel stronger and fit for the next."

* "To see the universal and all-pervading spirit of Truth face to face, one must be able to love the meanest of creation as oneself. And a man who aspires after that cannot afford to keep out of any field of life. That is why my devotion of Truth has drawn me into the field of politics; and I can say without the slightest hesitation, and yet in all humility, that those who say that religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion means."

* "The instruments for the quest of Truth are as simple as they are difficult. They may appear quite impossible to an arrogant person, and quite possible to an innocent child. The seeker after Truth should be humbler than the dust. The world crushes the dust under its feet, but the seeker after Truth should be so humble himself that even the dust could crush him. Only then, and not till then, will he have a glimpse of Truth."

* "Experience has taught me that silence is a part of the spiritual discipline of a votary of truth. Proneness to exaggerate, to suppress or modify the truth, wittingly or unwittingly, is a natural weakness of man, and silence is necessary in order to surmount it. A man of few words will rarely be thoughtless in his speech; he will measure every word."

* "What a great thing it would be if we in our busy lives could retire into ourselves each day for at least a couple of hours and prepare our minds to listen to the Voice of the Great Silence."

* "Silence is a great help to a seeker after Truth life myself. In the attitude of silence, the soul finds the path in a clearer light, and what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clearness. Our life is a long and arduous quest after Truth, and the soul requires inward restfulness to attain its full height."

Courtesy: "TRUTH IS GOD" (Selection from the Writings of Mahatma Gandhi), Published by Navajeevan Press, Ahmedabad-380014. Grateful thanks to the Navajeevan Press.

==========================Today's Parents are Poor Role Models for Kids

Parents are usually considered to be a child's first teachers and role models. But, a study has some dampening news for today's generation of adults - you are responsible for your kid's lack of basic moral values.

Researchers at the Children's Society in Britain have carried out the study and found that children are not acquiring basic moral values nowadays because today's parents are actually poor role models.

According to the society, the rise of the celebrity culture and weakening family bonds are undermining traditional moral values among young people.

But it has also blamed adults for failing to engage with children and being too eager to criticise their behaviour rather than just intervening and helping them to navigate the challenges of modern life.

According to Bob Reitemeier, the chief executive of the society, adults need to take more responsibility for the young people around them. "We reap what we sow when it comes to teaching children values. Every adult plays a vital role, which we should nurture as much as we can.

Unfortunately, it is easier to criticise children than to invest in them, and it is the children most in need of positive role models who are becoming disconnected from their communities and wider society." - PTI

Excerpt from The Times of India, Chennai, July 1, 2008.

Grateful thanks to PTI and The Times of India.

======================Achievers-2: My Svensson

Seventeen-year-old My Svensson claimed the Swedish text messaging championship by writing a 141-character SMS in 61 seconds.

Courtesy: The Hindu, Madurai, August 18, 2008 (“Newscape”)
Grateful thanks to The Hindu.

====================Achievers-1: "Michael Phelps creates all-time Olympic Record"

US swimming great Michael Phelps won his eighth gold medal of the Olympics at Beijing to eclipse the 36-year-old record of compatriot Mark Spitz. Further, he holds 7 world records in swimming.

Courtesy: The Hindu, Madurai, August 18, 2008 and Wikipedia.

Wikipedia article on Michael Phelps:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Phelps

Grateful thanks to The Hindu and Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Inspiring Lives-24: "Alexandr Solzhenitsyn"

Solzhenitzyn is dead!
By Vladimir Radyuhin

Nobel prize-winning Russian author and thinker, Alexander Solzhenitsyn died on Sunday (August 3, 2008), ending a bitter and illustrious life journey that reflected Russia’s tumultuous history through the 20th century.

Aged 89, Solzhenitsyn died of heart arrest close to midnight at his home on the outskirts of Moscow. His family said he worked till the last minute and died a happy man.

Courtesy: The Hindu, Madurai, August 5, 2008.

For the full article from The Hindu.com:
http://www.hindu.com/2008/08/05/stories/2008080551292000.htm

For the BBC News article:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7540038.stm

For the CNN.com article:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/08/03/solzhenitsyn.dead/

Wikipedia article on “Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn”:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksandr_Solzhenitsyn

For the New York Times article:
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/arts/AP-Obit-Solzhenistyn.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

Grateful thanks to Vladimir Radyuhin, The Hindu, BBC News, CNN.com, New York Times and Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Inspiring Lives-23: "Superman School Boy!"

Sydney: A 14-year-old Australian boy who dived 20 m from a bridge into an icy river to save a 70-year-old woman after he spotted a pile of clothes and read a suicide note has been hailed as a hero. Corey Warburton leapt from Grafton Bridge into the Clarence river when he spied the woman floating face down.

Warburton managed to keep the woman afloat for more than 20 minutes while he swam 80 m to the river bank.

Original Source: DPA
Excerpt from “The Hindu, Madurai, July 24, 2008”
Grateful thanks to DPA and The Hindu.

In the News-4: "Gandhi Award for Mandela"

South African leader Nelson Mandela was conferred the Mahatma Gandhi International Award for Reconciliation and Peace-2008.

Courtesy: The Hindu, Madurai, July 24, 2008.
Detailed article on Nelson Mandela from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson_Mandela

Grateful thanks to The Hindu and Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Inspiring Lives-22: Sir Isaac Newton (1642 - 1727)

From `A Short Account of the History of Mathematics' (4th edition, 1908) by W. W. Rouse Ball.

The mathematicians considered in the last chapter commenced the creation of those processes which distinguish modern mathematics. The extraordinary abilities of Newton enabled him within a few years to perfect the more elementary of those processes, and to distinctly advance every branch of mathematical science then studied, as well as to create some new subjects. Newton was the contemporary and friend of Wallis, Huygens, and others of those mentioned in the last chapter, but though most of his mathematical work was done between the years 1665 and 1686, the bulk of it was not printed - at any rate in book-form - till some years later.

I propose to discuss the works of Newton more fully than those of other mathematicians, partly because of the intrinsic importance of his discoveries, and partly because this book is mainly intended for English readers, and the development of mathematics in Great Britain was for a century entirely in the hands of the Newtonian school.
Isaac Newton was born in Lincolnshire, near Grantham, on December 25, 1642, and died at Kensington, London, on March 20, 1727. He was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, and lived there from 1661 till 1696, during which time he produced the bulk of his work in mathematics; in 1696 he was appointed to a valuable Government office, and moved to London, where he resided till his death.

His father, who had died shortly before Newton was born, was a yeoman farmer, and it was intended that Newton should carry on the paternal farm. He was sent to school at Grantham, where his learning and mechanical proficiency excited some attention. In 1656 he returned home to learn the business of a farmer, but spent most of his time solving problems, making experiments, or devising mechanical models; his mother noticing this, sensibly resolved to find some more congenial occupation for him, and his uncle, having been himself educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, recommended that he should be sent there.

In 1661 Newton accordingly entered as a student at Cambridge, where for the first time he found himself among surroundings which were likely to develop his powers. He seems, however, to have had but little interest for general society or for any pursuits save science and mathematics. Luckily he kept a diary, and we can thus form a fair idea of the course of education of the most advanced students at an English university at that time. He had not read any mathematics before coming into residence, but was acquainted with Sanderson's Logic, which was then frequently read as preliminary to mathematics. At the beginning of his first October term he happened to stroll down to Stourbridge Fair, and there picked up a book on astrology, but could not understand it on account of the geometry and trigonometry. He therefore bought a Euclid, and was surprised to find how obvious the propositions seemed. He thereupon read Oughtred's Clavis and Descartes's Géométrie, the latter of which he managed to master by himself, though with some difficulty. The interest he felt in the subject led him to take up mathematics rather than chemistry as a serious study. His subsequent mathematical reading as an undergraduate was founded on Kepler's Optics, the works of Vieta, van Schooten's Miscellanies, Descartes's Géométrie, and Wallis's Arithmetica Infinitorum: he also attended Barrow's lectures. At a later time, on reading Euclid more carefully, he formed a high opinion of it as an instrument of education, and he used to express his regret that he had not applied himself to geometry before proceeding to algebraic analysis.

There is a manuscript of his, dated May 28, 1665, written in the same year as that in which he took is B.A. degree, which is the earliest documentary proof of his invention of fluxions. It was about the same time that he discovered the binomial theorem.

On account of the plague the College was sent down during parts of the year 1665 and 1666, and for several months at this time Newton lived at home. This period was crowded with brilliant discoveries. He thought out the fundamental principles of his theory of gravitation, namely, that every particle of matter attracts every other particle, and he suspected that the attraction varied as the product of their masses and inversely as the square of the distance between them. He also worked out the fluxional calculus tolerably completely: this in a manuscript dated November 13, 1665, he used fluxions to find the tangent and the radius of curvature at any point on a curve, and in October 1666 he applied them to several problems in the theory of equations. Newton communicated these results to his friends and pupils from and after 1669, but they were not published in print till many years later. It was also whilst staying at home at this time that he devised some instruments for grinding lenses to particular forms other than spherical, and perhaps he decomposed solar light into different colours.

Leaving out details and taking round numbers only, his reasoning at this time on the theory of gravitation seems to have been as follows. He suspected that the force which retained the moon in its orbit about the earth was the same as terrestial gravity, and to verify this hypothesis he proceeded thus. He knew that, if a stone were allowed to fall near the surface of the earth, the attraction of the earth (that is, the weight of the stone) caused it to move through 16 feet in one second. The moon's orbit relative to the earth is nearly a circle; and as a rough approximation, taking it to be so, he knew the distance of the moon, and therefore the length of its path; he also knew that time the moon took to go once round it, namely, a month.

Hence he could easily find its velocity at any point such as M. He could therefore find the distance MT through which it would move in the next second if it were not pulled by the earth's attraction. At the end of that second it was however at M', and therefore the earth E must have pulled it through the distance TM' in one second (assuming the direction of the earth's pull to be constant). Now he and several physicists of the time had conjectured from Kepler's third law that the attraction of the earth on a body would be found to decrease as the body was removed farther away from the earth inversely as the square of the distance from the centre of the earth; if this were the actual law, and if gravity were the sole force which retained the moon in its orbit, then TM' should be to 16 feet inversely as the square of the distance of the moon from the centre of the earth to the square of the radius of the earth. In 1679, when he repeated the investigation, TM' was found to have the value which was required by the hypothesis, and the verification was complete; but in 1666 his estimate of the distance of the moon was inaccurate, and when he made the calculation he found that TM' was about one-eighth less than it ought to have been on his hypothesis.

This discrepancy does not seem to have shaken his faith in the belief that gravity extended as far as the moon and varied inversely as the square of the distance; but from Whiston's notes of a conversation with Newton, it would seem that Newton inferred that some other force - probably Descartes's vortices - acted on the moon as well as gravity. This statement is confirmed by Pemberton's account of the investigation. It seems, moreover, that Newton already believed firmly in the principle of universal gravitation, that is, that every particle of matter attracts every other particle, and suspected that the attraction varied as the product of their masses and inversely as the square of the distance between them; but it is certain that he did not then know what the attraction of a spherical mass on any external point would be, and did not think it likely that a particle would be attracted by the earth as if the latter were concentrated into a single particle at its centre.

On his return to Cambridge in 1667 Newton was elected to a fellowship at his college, and permanently took up his residence there. In the early part of 1669, or perhaps in 1668, he revised Barrow's lectures for him. The end of the fourteenth lecture is known to have been written by Newton, but how much of the rest is due to his suggestions cannot now be determined. As soon as this was finished he was asked by Barrow and Collins to edit and add notes to a translation of Kinckhuysen's Algebra; he consented to do this, but on condition that his name should not appear in the matter. In 1670 he also began a systematic exposition of his analysis by infinite series, the object of which was to express the ordinate of a curve in an infinite algebraical series every term of which can be integrated by Wallis's rule; his results on this subject had been communicated to Barrow, Collins, and others in 1669. This was never finished: the fragment was published in 1711, but the substance of it had been printed as an appendix to the Optics in 1704. These works were only the fruit of Newton's leisure, most of his time during these two years being given up to optical researches.

In October 1669, Barrow resigned the Lucasian chair in favour of Newton. During his tenure of the professorship, it was Newton's practice to lecture publicly once a week, for from half-an-hour to an hour at a time, in one term of each year, probably dictating his lectures as rapidly as they could be taken down; and in the week following the lecture to devote four hours to appointments which he gave to students who wished to come to his rooms to discuss the results of the previous lecture. He never repeated a course, which usually consisted of nine or ten lectures, and generally the lectures of one course began from the point at which the preceding course had ended. The manuscripts of his lectures for seventeen out of the first eighteen years of his tenure are extant.

When first appointed Newton chose optics for the subject of his lectures and researches, and before the end of 1669 he had worked out the details of his discovery of the decomposition of a ray of white light into rays of different colours by means of a prism. The complete explanation of the theory of the rainbow followed from this discovery. These discoveries formed the subject-matter of the lectures which he delivered as Lucasian professor in the years 1669, 1670 and 1671. The chief new results were embodied in a paper communicated to the Royal Society in February, 1672, and subsequently published in the Philosophical Transactions. The manuscript of his original lectures was printed in 1729 under the title Lectiones Opticae. This work is divided into two books, the first of which contains four sections and the second five. The first section of the first book deals with the decomposition of solar light by a prism in consequence of the unequal refrangibility of the rays that compose it, and a description of his experiments is added. The second section contains an account of the method which Newton invented for determining the coefficients of refraction of different bodies. This is done by making a ray pass through a prism of the material so that the deviation is a minimum; and he proves that, if the angle of the prism be i and the deviation of the ray be , the refractive index will be sin ½ (i + ) cosec ½ i. The third section is on refractions at plane surfaces; he here shews that if a ray pass through a prism with minimum deviation, the angle of incidence is equal to the angle of emergence; most of this section is devoted to geometrical solutions of different problems. The fourth section contains a discussion of refractions at curved surfaces. The second book treats of his theory of colours and of the rainbow.

By a curious chapter of accidents Newton failed to correct the chromatic aberration of two colours by means of a couple of prisms. He therefore abandoned the hope of making a refracting telescope which should be achromatic, and instead designed a reflecting telescope, probably on the modal of a small one which he had made in 1668. The form he used is that still known by his name; the idea of it was naturally suggested by Gregory's telescope. In 1672 he invented a reflecting microscope, and some years later he invented the sextant which was rediscovered by J. Hadley in 1731.

His professorial lectures from 1673 to 1683 were on algebra and the theory of equations, and are described below; but much of his time during these years was occupied with other investigations, and I may remark that throughout his life Newton must have devoted at least as much attention to chemistry and theology as to mathematics, though his conclusions are not of sufficient interest to require mention here. His theory of colours and his deductions from his optical experiments were at first attacked with considerable vehemence. The correspondence which this entailed on Newton occupied nearly all his leisure in the years 1672 to 1675, and proved extremely distasteful to him. Writing on December 9, 1675, he says, ``I was so persecuted with discussions arising out of my theory of light, that I blamed my own imprudence for parting with so substantial a blessing as my quiet to run after a shadow.'' Again, on November 18, 1676, he observes, ``I see I have made myself a slave to philosophy; but if I get rid of Mr. Linus's business, I will resolutely bid adieu to it eternally, excepting what I do for my private satisfaction, or leave to come out after me; for I see a man must either resolve to put out nothing new, or to become a slave to defend it.'' The unreasonable dislike to have his conclusions doubted or to be involved in any correspondence about them was a prominent trait in Newton's character.

Newton was deeply interested in the question as to how the effects of light were really produced, and by the end of 1675 he had worked out the corpuscular or emission theory, and had shewn how it would account for all the various phenomena of geometrical optics, such as reflexion, refraction, colours, diffraction, etc. To do this, however, he was obliged to add a somewhat artificial rider, that his corpuscules had alternating fits of easy reflexion and easy refraction communicated to them by an ether which filled space. The theory is now known to be untenable, but it should be noted that Newton enunciated it as a hypothesis from which certain results would follow: it would seem that he believed that wave theory to be intrinsically more probable, but it was the difficulty of explaining diffraction on that theory that led him to suggest another hypothesis.

Newton's corpuscular theory was expounded in memoirs communicated to the Royal Society in December 1675, which are substantially reproduced in his Optics, published in 1704. In the latter work he dealt in detail with his theory of fits of easy reflexion and transmission, and the colours of thin plates, to which he added an explanation of the colours of thick plates [bk. II, part 4] and observations on the inflexion of light [bk. III].

Two letters written by Newton in the year 1676 are sufficiently interesting to justify an allusion to them. Leibnitz, who had been in London in 1673, had communicated some results to the Royal Society which he had supposed to be new, but which it was pointed out to him had been previously proved by Mouton. This led to a correspondence with Oldenburg, the secretary of the Society. In 1674 Leibnitz wrote saying that he possessed ``general analytical methods depending on infinite series.'' Oldenburg, in reply, told him that Newton and Gregory had used such series in their work. In answer to a request for information, Newton wrote on June 13, 1676, giving a brief account of his method, but adding the expansions of a binomial (that is, the binomial theorem) and of ; from the latter of which he deduced that of sin x: this seems to be the earliest known instance of a reversion of series. He also inserted an expression for the rectification of an elliptic arc in an infinite series.

Leibnitz wrote on August 27 asking for fuller details; and Newton in a long but interesting replay, dated October 34, 1676, and sent through Oldenburg, gives an account of the way in which he had been led to some of his results.

In this letter Newton begins by saying that altogether he had used three methods for expansion in series. His first was arrived at from the study of the method of interpolation by which Wallis had found expressions for the area of a circle and a hyperbola. Thus, by considering the series of expressions , , ,..., he deduced by interpolations the law which connects the successive coefficients in the expansions of , ,...; and then by analogy obtained the expression for the general term in the expansion of a binomial, that is, the binomial theorem. He says that he proceeded to test this by forming the square of the expansion of , which reduced to 1 - x²; and he proceeded in a similar way with other expansions. He next tested the theorem in the case of by extracting the square root of 1 - x², more arithmetico. He also used the series to determine the areas of the circle and the hyperbola in infinite series, and he found that the results were the same as those he had arrived at by other means.

Having established this result, he then discarded the method of interpolation in series, and employed his binomial theorem to express (when possible) the ordinate of a curve in an infinite series in ascending powers of the abscissa, and thus by Wallis's method he obtained expressions in infinite series for the areas and arcs of curves in the manner described in the appendix to his Optics and in his De Analysi per Equationes Numero Terminorum Infinitas. He states that he had employed this second method before the plague in 1665-66, and goes on to say that he was then obliged to leave Cambridge, and subsequently (presumably on his return to Cambridge) he ceased to pursue these ideas, as he found that Nicholas Mercator had employed some of them in his Logarithmo-technica, published in 1668; and he supposed that the remainder had been or would be found out before he himself was likely to publish his discoveries.

Newton next explains that he had also a third method, of which (he says) he had about 1669 sent an account to Barrow and Collins, illustrated by applications to areas, rectification, cubature, etc. This was the method of fluxions; but Newton gives no description of it here, though he adds some illustrations of its use. The first illustration is on the quadrature of the curve represented by the equation

which he says can be effected as a sum of (m + 1)/n terms if (m + 1)/n be a positive integer, and which he thinks cannot otherwise be effected except by an infinite series. [This is not so, the integration is possible if p + (m + 1)/n be an integer.] He also gives a list of other forms which are immediately integrable, of which the chief are

, , , , ; where m is a positive integer and n is any number whatever. Lastly, he points out that the area of any curve can be easily determined approximately by the method of interpolation described below in discussing his Methodus Differentialis.

At the end of his letter Newton alludes to the solution of the ``inverse problem of tangents,'' a subject on which Leibnitz had asked for information. He gives formulae for reversing any series, but says that besides these formulae he has two methods for solving such questions, which for the present he will not describe except by an anagram which, being read, is as follows, ``Una methodus consistit in extractione fluentis quantitatis ex aequatione simul involvente fluxionem ejus: altera tantum in assumptione seriei pro quantitate qualibet incognita ex qua caetera commode derivari possunt, et in collatione terminorum homologorum aequationis resultantis, as eruendos terminos assumptae seriei.''

He implies in this letter that he is worried by the questions he is asked and the controversies raised about every new matter which he produces, which shew his rashness in publishing ``quod umbram captando eatenus perdideram quietem meam, rem prorsus substantialem.''

Leibnitz, in his answer, dated June 21, 1677, explains his method of drawing tangents to curves, which he says proceeds ``not by fluxions of lines, but by the differences of numbers''; and he introduces his notation of dx and dy for the infinitesimal differences between the co-ordinates of two consecutive points on a curve. He also gives a solution of the problem to find a curve whose subtangent is constant, which shews that he could integrate.

In 1679 Hooke, at the request of the Royal Society, wrote to Newton expressing a hope that he would make further communications to the Society, and informing him of various facts then recently discovered. Newton replied saying that he had abandoned the study of philosophy, but he added that the earth's diurnal motion might be proved by the experiment of observing the deviation from the perpendicular of a stone dropped from a height to the ground - an experiment which was subsequently made by the Society and succeeded. Hooke in his letter mentioned Picard's geodetical researches; in these Picard used a value of the radius of the earth which is substantially correct. This led Newton to repeat, with Picard's data, his calculations of 1666 on the lunar orbit, and he thus verified his supposition that gravity extended as far as the moon and varied inversely as the square of the distance. He then proceeded to consider the general theory of motion of a particle under a centripetal force, that is, one directed to a fixed point, and showed that the vector would sweep over equal areas in equal times. He also proved that, if a particle describe an ellipse under a centripetal force to a focus, the law must be that of the inverse square of the distance from the focus, and conversely, that the orbit of a particle projected under the influence of such a force would be a conic (or, it may be, he thought only an ellipse). Obeying his rule to publish nothing that could land hum in a scientific controversy these results were locked up in his notebooks, and it was only a specific question addressed to him five years later that led to their publication.

The Universal Arithmetic, which is on algebra, theory of equations, and miscellaneous problems, contains the substance of Newton's lectures during the years 1673 to 1683. His manuscript of it is still extant; Whiston extracted a somewhat reluctant permission from Newton to print it, and it was published in 1707. Amongst several new theorems on various points in algebra and the theory of equations Newton here enunciates the following important results. He explains that the equation whose roots are the solution of a given problem will have as many roots as there are different possible cases; and he considers how it happens that the equation to which a problem leads may contain roots which do not satisfy the original question. He extends Descartes's rule of signs to give limits to the number of imaginary roots. He uses the principle of continuity to explain how two real and unequal roots may become imaginary in passing through equality, and illustrates this by geometrical considerations; thence he shews that imaginary roots must occur in pairs. Newton also here gives rules to find a superior limit to the positive roots of a numerical equation, and to determine the approximate values of the numerical roots. He further enunciates the theorem known by his name for finding the sum of the nth powers of the roots of an equation, and laid the foundation of the theory of symmetrical functions of the roots of an equation.

The most interesting theorem contained in the work is his attempt to find a rule (analogous to that of Descartes for real roots) by which the number of imaginary roots of an equation can be determined. He knew that the result which he obtained was not universally true, but he gave no proof and did not explain what were the exceptions to the rule. His theorem is as follows. Suppose the equation to be of the nth degree arranged in descending powers of x (the coefficient of being positive), and suppose the

n + 1 fractions

to be formed and written below the corresponding terms of the equation, then, if the square of any term when multiplied by the corresponding fraction be greater than the product of the terms on each side of it, put a plus sign above it: otherwise put a minus sign above it, and put a plus sign above the first and last terms. Now consider any two consecutive terms in the original equation, and the two symbols written above them. Then we may have any one of the four following cases: () the terms of the same sign and the symbols of the same sign; () the terms of the same sign and the symbols of opposite signs; () the terms of opposite signs and the symbols of the same sign; () the terms of opposite signs and the symbols of opposite signs. Then it has been shewn that the number of negative roots will not exceed the number of cases (), and the number of positive roots will not exceed the number of cases (); and therefore the number of imaginary roots is not less than the number of cases () and (). In other words the number of changes of signs in the row of symbols written above the equation is an inferior limit to the number of imaginary roots. Newton, however, asserted that ``you may almost know how many roots are impossible'' by counting the changes of sign in the series of symbols formed as above. That is to say, he thought that in general the actual number of positive, negative and imaginary roots could be got by the rule and not merely superior or inferior limits to these numbers. But though he knew that the rule was not universal he could not find (or at any rate did not state) what were the exceptions to it: this problem was subsequently discussed by Campbell, Maclaurin, Euler, and other writers; at last in 1865 Sylvester succeeded in proving the general result.

In August, 1684, Halley came to Cambridge in order to consult Newton about the law of gravitation. Hooke, Huygens, Halley, and Wren had all conjectured that the force of the attraction of the sun or earth on an external particle varied inversely as the square of the distance. These writers seem independently to have shewn that, if Kepler's conclusions were rigorously true, as to which they were not quite certain, the law of attraction must be that of the inverse square. Probably their argument was as follows. If v be the velocity of a planet, r the radius of its orbit taken as a circle, and T its periodic time, v = 2r/T. But, if f be the acceleration to the centre of the circle, we have f = 4²r/T² Now, by Kepler's third law, T² varies as r³; hence f varies inversely as r². They could not, however, deduce from the law the orbits of the planets. Halley explained that their investigations were stopped by their inability to solve this problem, and asked Newton if he could find out what the orbit of a planet would be if the law of attraction were that of the inverse square. Newton immediately replied that it was an ellipse, and promised to send or write out afresh the demonstration of it which he had found in 1679. This was sent in November, 1684.

Instigated by Halley, Newton now returned to the problem of gravitation; and before the autumn of 1684, he had worked out the substance of propositions 1--19, 21, 30, 32--35 in the first book of the Principia. These together with notes on the laws of motion and various lemmas, were read for his lectures in the Michaelmas Term, 1684.

In November Halley received Newton's promised communication, which probably consisted of the substance of propositions 1, 11 and either proposition 17 or the first corollary of proposition 13; thereupon Halley again went to Cambridge, where he saw ``a curious treatise, De Motu, drawn up since August.'' Most likely this contained Newton's manuscript notes of the lectures above alluded to: these notes are now in the university library and are headed ``De Motu Corporum.'' Halley begged that the results might be published, and finally secured a promise that they should be sent to the Royal Society: they were accordingly communicated to the Society not later than February, 1685, in the paper De Motu, which contains the substance of the following propositions in the Principia, book I, props. 1, 4, 6, 7, 10, 11, 15, 17, 32; book II, props. 2,3,4.

It seems also to have been due to the influence and tact of Halley at his visit in November, 1684, that Newton undertook to attack the whole problem of gravitation, and practically pledged himself to publish his results: these are contained in the Principia. As yet Newton had not determined the attraction of a spherical body on an external point, nor had he calculated the details of the planetary motions even if the members of the solar system could be regarded as points. The first problem was solved in 1685, probably either in January or in February. ``No sooner,'' to quote from Dr. Glaisher's address on the bicentenary of the publication of the Principia, ``had Newton proved this superb theorem - and we know from his own words that he had no expectation of so beautiful a result till it emerged from his mathematical investigation - than all the mechanism of the universe at once lay spread before him. When he discovered the theorems that form the first three sections of book I, when he gave them in his lectures of 1684, he was unaware that the sun and earth exerted their attractions as if they were but points. How different must these propositions have seemed to Newton's eyes when he realised that these results, which he had believed to be only approximately true when applied to the solar system, were really exact! Hitherto they had been true only in so far as he could regard the sun as a point compared to the distance of the planets, or the earth as a point compared to the distance of the moon - a distance amounting to only about sixty times the earth's radius - but now they were mathematically true, excepting only for the slight deviation from a perfectly spherical form of the sun, earth and planets. We can imagine the effect of this sudden transition from approximation to exactitude in stimulating Newton's mind to still greater efforts. It was now in his power to apply mathematical analysis with absolute precision to the actual problems of astronomy.''
Of the three fundamental principles applied in the Principia we may say that the idea that every particle attracts every other other particle in the universe was formed at least as early as 1666; the law of equable description of areas, its consequences, and the fact that if the law of attraction were that of the inverse square the orbit of a particle about a centre of force would be a conic were proved in 1679; and, lastly, the discovery that a sphere, whose density at any point depends only on the distance from the centre, attracts an external point as if the whole mass were collected at its centre was made in 1685. It was this last discovery that enabled him to apply the first two principles to the phenomena of bodies of finite size.

The draft of the first book of the Principia was finished before the summer of 1685, but the corrections and additions took some time, and the book was not presented to the Royal Society until April 28, 1686. This book is given up to the consideration of the motion of particles or bodies in free space either in known orbits, or under the action of known forces, or under their mutual attraction; and in particular to indicating how the effects of disturbing forces may be calculated. In it also Newton generalizes the law of attraction into a statement that every particle of matter in the universe attracts every other particle with a force which varies directly as the product of their masses, and inversely as the square of the distance between them; and he thence deduces the law of attraction for spherical shells of constant density. The book is prefaced by an introduction on the science of dynamics, which defines the limits of mathematical investigation. His object, he says, is to apply mathematics to the phenomena of nature; among these phenomena motion is one of the most important; now motion is the effect of force, and, though he does not know what is the nature or origin of force, still many of its effects can be measured; and it is these that form the subject-matter of the work.

The second book of the Principia was completed by the summer of 1686. This book treats of motion in a resisting medium, and of hydrostatics and hydrodynamics, with special applications to waves, tides, and acoustics. He concludes it by shewing that the Cartesian theory of vortices was inconsistent both with the known facts and with the laws of motion.

The next nine or ten months were devoted to the third book. Probably for this originally he had no materials ready. He commences by discussing when and how far it is justifiable to construct hypotheses or theories to account for known phenomena. He proceeds to apply the theorems obtained in the first book to the chief phenomena of the solar system, and to determine the masses and distances of the planets and (whenever sufficient data existed) of their satellites. In particular the motion of the moon, the various inequalities therein, and the theory of the tides are worked out in detail. He also investigates the theory of comets, shews that they belong to the solar system, explains how from three observations the orbit can be determined, and illustrates his results by considering certain special comets. The third book as we have it is but little more than a sketch of what Newton had finally proposed to himself to accomplish; his original scheme is among the ``Portsmouth papers,'' and his notes shew that he continued to work at it for some years after the publication of the first edition of the Principia: the most interesting of his memoranda are those in which by means of fluxions he has carried his results beyond the point at which he was able to translate them into geometry.

The demonstrations throughout the book are geometrical, but to readers of ordinary ability are rendered unnecessarily difficult by the absence of illustrations and explanations, and by the fact that no clue is given to the method by which Newton arrived at his results. The reason why it was presented in a geometrical form appears to have been that the infinitesimal calculus was then unknown, and, had Newton used it to demonstrate results which were in themselves opposed to the prevalent philosophy of the time, the controversy as to the truth of his results would have been hampered by a dispute concerning the validity of the methods used in proving them. He therefore cast the whole reasoning into a geometrical shape which, if somewhat longer, can at any rate be made intelligible to all mathematical students. So closely did he follow the lines of Greek geometry that he constantly used graphical methods, and represented forces, velocities, and other magnitudes in the Euclidean way by straight lines (ex. gr. book I, lemma 10), and not by a certain number of units. The latter and modern method had been introduced by Wallis, and must have been familiar to Newton. The effect of his confining himself rigorously to classical geometry is that the Principia is written in a lnaguage which is archaic, even if not unfamiliar.

The adoption of geometrical methods in the Principia for purposes of demonstration does not indicate a preference on Newton's part for geometry over analysis as an instrument of research, for it is known now that Newton used the fluxional calculus in the first instance in finding some of the theorems, especially those towards the end of book I and in book II; and in fact one of the most important uses of that calculus is stated in book II, lemma 2. But it is only just to remark that, at the time of its publication and for nearly a century afterwards, the differential and fluxional calculus were not fully developed, and did not possess the same superiority over the method he adopted which they do now; and it is a matter for astonishment that when Newton did employ the calculus he was able to use it to so good an effect.

The printing of the work was slow, and it was not finally published till the summer of 1687. The cost was borne by Halley, who also corrected the proofs, and even put his own researches on one side to press the printing forward. The conciseness, absence of illustrations, and synthetical character of the book restricted the numbers of those who were able to appreciate its value; and though nearly all competent critics admitted the validity of the conclusions, some little time elapsed before it affected the current beliefs of educated men. I should be inclined to say (but on this point opinions differ widely) that within ten years of its publication it was generally accepted in Britain as giving a correct account of the laws of the universe; it was similarly accepted within about twenty years on the continent, except in France, where the Cartesian hypothesis held its ground until Voltaire in 1738 took up the advocacy of the Newtonian theory.

The manuscript of the Principia was finished by 1686. Newton devoted the remainder of that year to his paper on physical optics, the greater part of which is given up to the subject of diffraction.

In 1687 James II, having tried to force the university to admit as a master of arts a Roman Catholic priest who refused to take the oaths of supremacy and allegiance, Newton took a prominent part in resisting the illegal interference of the king, and was one of the deputation sent to London to protect the rights of the university. The active part taken by Newton in this affair led to his being in 1689 elected member for the university. This parliament only lasted thirteen months, and on its dissolution he gave up his seat. He was subsequently returned in 1701, but he never took any prominent part in politics.

On his coming back to Cambridge in 1690 he resumed his mathematical studies and correspondence, but probably did not lecture. The two letters to Wallis, in which he explained his method of fluxions and fluents, were written in 1692 and published in 1693. Towards the close of 1692 and throughout the following two years, Newton had a long illness, suffering from insomnia and general nervous irritability. Perhaps he never quite regained his elasticity of mind, and, though after his recovery he shewed the same power in solving any question propounded to him, he ceased thenceforward to do original work on his own initiative, and it was somewhat difficult to stir him to activity in new subjects.

In 1694 Newton began to collect data connected with the irregularities of the moon's motion with the view of revising the part of the Principia which dealt with that subject. To render the observations more accurate, he forwarded to Flamsteed a table of corrections for refraction which he had previously made. This was not published till 1721, when Halley communicated it to the Royal Society. The original calculations of Newton and the papers connected with them are in the Portsmouth collection, and shew that Newton obtained it by finding the path of a ray, by means of quadratures, in a manner equivalent to the solution of a differential equation. As an illustration of Newton's genius, I may mention that even as late as 1754 Euler failed to solve the same problem. In 1782 Laplace gave a rule for constructing such a table, and his results agree substantially with those of Newton.

I do not suppose that Newton would in any case have produced much more original work after his illness; but his appointment in 1696 as warden, and his promotion in 1699 to the mastership of the Mint, at a salary of £ 1500 a year, brought his scientific investigations to an end, though it was only after this that many of his previous investigations were published in the form of books. In 1696 he moved to London, in 1701 he resigned the Lucasian chair, and in 1703 he was elected president of the Royal Society.

In 1704 Newton published his Optics, which contains the results of the papers already mentioned. To the first edition of this book were appended two minor works which have no special connection with optics; one being on cubic curves, the other on the quadrature of curves and on fluxions. Both of them were manuscripts with which his friends and pupils were familiar, but they were here published urbi et orbi for the first time.

The first of these appendices is entitled Enumeratio Linearum Tertii Ordinis; the object seems to be to illustrate the use of analytical geometry, and as the application to conics was well known, Newton selected the theory of cubics.

He begins with some general theorems, and classifies curves according as their equations are algebraical or transcendental; the former being cut by a straight line in a number of points (real or imaginary) equal to the degree of the curve, the latter being cut by a straight line in an infinite number of points. Newton then shews that many of the most important properties of conics have their analogues in the theory of cubics, and he discusses the theory of asymptotes and curvilinear diameters.

After these general theorems, he commences his detailed examination of cubics by pointing out that a cubic must have at least one real point at infinity. If the asymptote or tangent at this point be a finite distance, it may be taken for the axis of y. This asymptote will cut the curve in three points altogether, of which at least two are at infinity. If the third point be at a finite distance, then (by one of his general theorems on asymptotes) the equation can be written in the form

where the axes of x and y are the asymptotes of the hyperbola which is the locus of the middle points of all chords drawn parallel to the axis of y; while, if the third point in which this asymptote cuts the curve be also at infinity, the equation can be written in the form

Next he takes the case where the tangent at the real point at infinity is not at a finite distance. A line parallel to that direction in which the curve goes to infinity may be taken as the axis of y. Any such line will cut the curve in three points altogether, of which one is by hypothesis at infinity, and one is necessarily at a finite distance. He then shews that if the remaining point in which this line cuts the curve be at a finite distance, the equation can be written in the form

while if it be at an infinite distance, the equation can be written in the form
Any cubic is therefore reducible to one of four characteristic forms. Each of these forms is then discussed in detail, and the possibility of the existence of double points, isolated ovals, etc., is worked out. The final result is that in all there are seventy-eight possible forms which a cubic may take. Of these Newton enumerated one seventy-two; four of the remainder were mentioned by Stirling in 1717, one by Nicole in 1731, and one by Nicholas Bernoulli about the same time.

In the course of the work Newton states the remarkable theorem that, just as the shadow of a circle (cast by a luminous point on a plane) gives rise to all the conics, so the shadows of the curves represented by the equation

give rise to all the cubics. This remained an unsolved puzzle until 1731, when Nicole and Clairaut gave demonstrations of it; a better proof is that given by Murdoch in 1740, which depends on the classification of these curves into five species according as to whether their points of intersection with the axis of x are real and unequal, real and two of them are equal (two cases), real and all equal, or two imaginary and one real.

In this tract Newton also discusses double points in the plane and at infinity, the description of curves satisfying given conditions, and the graphical solution of problems by the use of curves.

The second appendix to the Optics is entitled De Quadratura Curvarum. Most of it had been communicated to Barrow in 1668 or 1669, and probably was familiar to Newton's pupils and friends from that time onwards. It consists of two parts.

The bulk of the first part is a statement of Newton's method of effecting the quadrature and rectification of curves by means of infinite series; it is noticeable as containing the earliest use in print of literal indices, and also the first printed statement of the binomial theorem, but these novelties are introduced only incidentally. The main object is to give rules for developing a function of x in a series in ascending powers of x, so as to enable mathematicians to effect the quadrature of any curve in which the ordinate y can be expressed as an explicit algebraical function of the abscissa x. Wallis had shewn how this quadrature could be found when y was given as a sum of a number of multiples of powers of x, and Newton's rules of expansion here established rendered possible the similar quadrature of any curve whose ordinate can be expressed as the sum of an infinite number of such terms. In this way he effects the quadrature of the curves

,,,, but naturally the results are expressed as infinite series. He then proceeds to curves whose ordinate is given as an implicit function of the abscissa; and he gives a method by which y can be expressed as an infinite series in ascending powers of x, but the application of the rule to any curve demands in general such complicated numerical calculations as to render it of little value. He concludes this part by shewing that the rectification of a curve can be effected in a somewhat similar way. His process is equivalent to finding the integral with regard to x of in the form of an infinite series. I should add that Newton indicates the importance of determining whether the series are convergent - an observation far in advance of his time - but he knew of no general test for the purpose; and in fact it was not until Gauss and Cauchy took up the question that the necessity of such limitations was commonly recognized.

The part of the appendix which I have just described is practically the same as Newton's manuscript De Analysi per Equationes Numero Terminorum Infinitas, which wa subsequently printed in 1711. It is said that this was originally intended to form an appendix to Kinckhuysen's Algebra, which, as I have already said, he at one time intended to edit. The substance of it was communicated to Barrow, and by him to Collins, in letters of July 31 and August 12, 1669; and a summary of it was included in the letter of October 24, 1676, sent to Leibnitz.

It should be read in connection with Newton's Methodus Differentialis, also published in 1711. Some additional theorems are there given, and he discusses his method of interpolation, which had been briefly described in the letter of October 24, 1676. The principle is this. If y = be a function of x, and if, when x is successively put equal to , ,..., the values of y be known and be , ,..., then a parabola whose equation is y = p + qx + rx² + ... can be drawn through the points , ,..., and the ordinate of this parabola may be taken as an approximation to the ordinate of the curve. The degree of the parabola will of course be one less than the number of given points. Newton points out that in this way the areas of any curves can be approximately determined.

The second part of this appendix to the Optics contains a description of Newton's method of fluxions. This is best considered in connection with Newton's manuscript on the same subject which was published by John Colson in 1736, and of which it is a summary.

The invention of the infinitesimal calculus was one of the great intellectual achievements of the seventeenth century. This method of analysis, expressed in the notation of fluxions and fluents, was used by Newton in or before 1666, but no account of it was published until 1693, though its general outline was known to his friends and pupils long anterior to that year, and no complete exposition of his methods was given before 1736.

The idea of a fluxion or differential coefficient, as treated at this time, is simple. When two quantities - e.g. the radius of a sphere and its volume - are so related that a change in one causes a change in the other, the one is said to be a function of the other. The ratio of the rates at which they change is termed the differential coefficient or fluxion of the one with regard to the other, and the process by which this ratio is determined is known as differentiation. Knowing the differential coefficient and one set of corresponding values of the two quantities, it is possible by summation to determine the relation between them, as Cavalieri and others had shewn; but often the process is difficult, if, however, we can reverse the process of differentiation we can obtain this result directly. This process of reversal is termed integration. It was at once seen that problems connected with the quadrature of curves, and the determination of volumes (which were soluble by summation, as had been shewn by the employment of indivisibles), were reducible to integration. In mechanics also, by integration, velocities could be deduced from known accelerations, and distances traversed from known velocities. In short, wherever things change according to known laws, here was a possible method of finding the relation between them. It is true that, when we try to express observed phenomena in the language of the calculus, we usually obtain an equation involving the variables, and their differential coefficients - and possibly the solution may be beyond our powers. Even so, the method is often fruitful, and its use marked a real advance in thought and power.

I proceed to describe somewhat fully Newton's methods as described by Colson. Newton assumed that all geometrical magnitudes might be conceived as generated by continuous motion; thus a line may be considered as generated by the motion of a point, a surface by that of a line, a solid by that of a surface, a plane angle by the rotation of a line, and so on. The quantity thus generated was defined by him as the fluent or flowing quantity. The velocity of the moving magnitude was defined as the fluxion of the fluent. This seems to be the earliest definite recognition of the idea of a continuous function, though it had been foreshadowed in some of Napier's papers.

Newton's treatment of the subject is as follows. There are two kinds of problems. The object of the first is to find the fluxion of a given quantity, or more generally ``the relation of the fluents being given, to find the relation of their fluxions.'' This is equivalent to differentiation. The object of the second or inverse method of fluxions is from the fluxion or some relations involving it to determine the fluent, or more generally ``an equation being proposed exhibiting the relation of the fluxions of quantities, to find the relations of those quantities, or fluents, to one another.'' This is equivalent either to integration which Newton termed the method of quadrature, or to the solution of a differential equation which was called by Newton the inverse method of tangents. The methods for solving these problems are discussed at considerable length.

Newton then went on to apply these results to questions connected with the maxima and minima of quantities, the method of drawing tangents to curves, and the curvature of curves (namely, the determination of the centre of curvature, the radius of curvature, and the rate at which the radius of curvature increases). He next considered the quadrature of curves and the rectification of curves. In finding the maximum and minimum of functions of one variable we regard the change of sign of the difference between two consecutive values of the function as the true criterion; but his argument is that when a quantity increasing has attained its maximum it can have no further increment, or when decreasing it has attained its minimum it can have no further decrement; consequently the fluxion must be equal to nothing.

It has been remarked that neither Newton nor Leibnitz produced a calculus, that is, a classified collection of rules; and that the problems they discussed were treated from first principles. That, no doubt, is the usual sequence in the history of such discoveries, though the fact is frequently forgotten by subsequent writers. In this case I think the statement, so far as Newton's treatment of the differential or fluxional part of the calculus is concerned, is incorrect, as the foregoing account sufficiently shews.

If a flowing quantity or fluent were represented by x, Newton denoted its fluxion by , the fluxion of or second fluxion of x by , and so on. Similarly the fluent of x was denoted by , or sometimes by x' or [x]. The infinitely small part by which a fluent such as x increased in a small interval of time measured by o was called the moment of the fluent; and its value was shewn to be o. Newton adds the important remark that thus we may in any problem neglect the terms multiplied by the second and higher powers of o, and we may always find an equation between the co-ordinates x, y of a point on a curve and their fluxions , . It is an application of this principle which constitutes one of the chief values of the calculus; for if we desire to find the effect produced by several causes on a system, then, if we can find the effect produced by each cause when acting alone in a very small time, the total effect produced in that time will be equal to the sum of the separate effects. I should here note the fact that Vince and other English writers in the eighteenth century used to denote the increment of x and not the velocity with which it increased; that is in their writings stands for what Newton would have expressed by o and what Leibnitz would have written as dx.

I need not discuss in detail the manner in which Newton treated the problems above mentioned. I will only add that, in spite of the form of his definition, the introduction into geometry of the idea of time was evaded by supposing that some quantity ex. gr. the abscissa of a point on a curve) increased equably; and the required results then depend on the rate at which other quantities (ex. gr. the ordinate or radius of curvature) increase relatively to the one so chosen. The fluent so chosen is what we now call the independent variable; its fluxion was termed the ``principal fluxion''; and, of course, if it were denoted by x, then was constant, and consequently = 0.

There is no question that Newton used a method of fluxions in 1666, and it is practically certain that accounts of it were communicated in manuscript to friends and pupils from and after 1669. The manuscript, from which most of the above summary has been taken, is believed to have been written between 1671 and 1677, and to have been in circulation at Cambridge from that time onwards, though it is probable that parts were rewritten from time to time. It was unfortunate that it was not published at once. Strangers at a distance naturally judged of the method by the letter to Wallis in 1692, or by the Tractatus de Quadratura Curvarum, and were not aware that it had been so completely developed at an earlier date. This was the cause of numerous misunderstandings. At the same time it must be added that all mathematical analysis was leading up to the ideas and methods of the infinitesimal calculus. Foreshadowings of the principles and even of the language of that calculus can be found in the writings of Napier, Kepler, Cavalieri, Pascal, Fermat, Wallis, and Barrow. It was Newton's good luck to come at a time when everything was ripe for the discovery, and his ability enabled him to construct almost at once a complete calculus.

The infinitesimal calculus can also be expressed in the notation of the differential calculus: a notation which was invented by Leibnitz probably in 1675, certainly by 1677, and was published in 1684, some nine years before the earliest printed account of Newton's method of fluxions. But the question whether the general idea of the calculus expressed in that notation was obtained by Leibnitz from Newton, or whether it was discovered independently, gave rise to a long and bitter controversy. The leading facts are given in the next chapter.

The remaining events of Newton's life require little or no comment. In 1705 he was knighted. From this time onwards he devoted much of his leisure to theology, and wrote at great length on prophecies and predictions, subjects which had always been of interest to him. His Universal Arithmetic was published by Whiston in 1707, and his Analysis by Infinite Series in 1711; but Newton had nothing to do with the preparation of either of these for the press. His evidence before the House of Commons in 1714 on the determination of longitude at sea marks an important epoch in the history of navigation.
The dispute with Leibnitz as to whether he had derived the ideas of the differential calculus from Newton or invented it independently originated about 1708, and occupied much of Newton's time, especially between the years 1709 and 1716.

In 1709 Newton was persuaded to allow Cotes to prepare the long-talked-of second edition of the Principia; it was issued in March 1713. A third edition was published in 1726 under the direction of Henry Pemberton. In 1725 Newton's health began to fail. He died on March 20, 1727, and eight days later was buried in Westminster Abbey.
His chief works, taking them in their order of publication, are the Principia, published in 1687; the Optics (with appendices on cubic curves, the quadrature and rectification of curves by the use of infinite series, and the method of fluxions), published in 1704; the Universal Arithmetic, published in 1707; the Analysis per Series, Fluxiones, etc., and the Methodus Differentialis, published in 1711; the Lectiones Opticae, published in 1729; the Method of Fluxions, etc. (that is Newton's manuscript on fluxions), translated by J. Colson and published in 1736; and the Geometrica Analytica, printed in 1779 in the first volume of Horsley's edition of Newton's works.

In appearance Newton was short, and towards the close of his life rather stout, but well set, with a square lower jaw, brown eyes, a broad forehead, and rather sharp features. His hair turned grey before he was thirty, and remained thick and white as silver till his death.

As to his manners, he dressed slovenly, was rather languid, and was often so absorbed in his own thoughts as to be anything but a lively companion. Many anecdotes of his extreme absence of mind when engaged in any investigation have been preserved. Thus once when riding home from Grantham he dismounted to lead his horse up a steep hill; when he turned at the to remount, he found that he had the bridle in his hand, while his horse had slipped it and gone away. Again, on the few occasions when he sacrificed his time to entertain his friends, if he left them to get more wine or for any similar reason, he would as often as not be found after the lapse of some time working out a problem, oblivious alike of his expectant guests and of his errand. He took no exercise, indulged in no amusements, and worked incessantly, often spending eighteen or nineteen hours out of the twenty-four in writing.

In character he was religious and conscientious, with an exceptionally high standard of morality, having, as Bishop Burnet said, ``the whitest soul'' he ever knew. Newton was always perfectly straightforward and honest; but in his controversies with Leibnitz, Hooke and others, though scrupulously just, he was not generous; and it would seem that he frequently took offence at a chance expression when none was intended. He modestly attributed his discoveries largely to the admirable work done by his predecessors; and once explained that, if he had seen further than other men, it was only because he had stood on the shoulders of giants. He summed up his own estimate of his work in the sentence, ``I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy, playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself, in now and then finding a smoother pebble, or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.'' He was morbidly sensitive to being involved in any discussions. I believe that, with the exception of his papers on optics, every one of his works was published only under pressure from his friends and against his own wishes. There are several instances of his communicating papers and results on condition that his name should not be published: thus when in 1669 he had, at Collins's request, solved some problems on harmonic series and on annuities which had previously baffled investigation, he only gave permission that his results should be published ``so it be,'' as he says, ``without my name to it; for I see not what there is desirable in public esteem, were I able to acquire and maintain it: it would perhaps increase my acquaintance, the things which I chiefly study to decline.''

Perhaps the most wonderful single illustration of his powers was the composition in seven months of the first book of the Principia, and the expression of the numerous and complex results in classical geometrical form. As other illustrations of his ability I may mention his solutions of the problems of Pappus, of John Bernoulli's challenge, and of the question of orthogonal trajectories. The problem of Pappus, here alluded to, is to find the locus of a point such the rectangle under its distances from two given straight lines shall be in a given ratio to the rectangle under its distances from two other given straight lines. Many geometricians from the time of Apollonius had tried to find a geometrical solution and had failed, but what had proved insuperable to his predecessors seems to have presented little difficulty to Newton who gave an elegant demonstration that the locus was a conic. Geometry, said Lagrange when recommending the study of analysis to his pupils, is a strong bow, but it is one which only a Newton can fully utilize. As another example I may mention that in 1696 John Bernoulli challenged mathematicians (i) to determine the brachistochrone, and (ii) to find a curve such that if any line drawn from a fixed point O cut it in P and Q then would be constant. Leibnitz solved the first of these questions after an interval of rather more than six months, and then suggested that they be sent as a challenge to Newton and others. Newton received the problems on Jan. 29, 1697, and the next day gave the complete solutions to both, at the same time generalising the second question. An almost exactly similar case occurred in 1716 when Newton was asked to find the orthogonal trajectory of a family of curves. In five hours Newton solved the problem in the form in which it was propounded to him, and laid down the principles for finding trajectories.

It is almost impossible to describe the effect of Newton's writings without being suspected of exaggeration. But, if the state of mathematical knowledge in 1669 or at the death of Pascal or Fermat be compared with what was known in 1700 it will be seen how immense was the advance. In fact we may say that it took mathematicians half a century or more before they were able to assimilate the work produced in those years.
In pure geometry Newton did not establish any new methods, but no modern writer has shewn the same power in using those of classical geometry. In algebra and the theory of equations he introduced the system of literal indices, established the binomial theorem, and created no inconsiderable part of the theory of equations: one rule which he enunciated in this subject remained till a few years ago an unsolved riddle which had overtaxed the resources of succeeding mathematicians. In analytical geometry, he introduced the modern classification of curves into algebraical and transcendental; and established many of the fundamental properties of asymptotes, multiple points, and isolated loops, illustrated by a discussion of cubic curves. The fluxional or infinitesimal calculus was invented by Newton in or before the year 1666, and circulated in manuscript amongst his friends in and after the year 1669, though no account of the method was printed till 1693. The fact that the results are nowadays expressed in a different notation has led to Newton's investigations on this subject being somewhat overlooked.

Newton, further, was the first to place dynamics on a satisfactory basis, and from dynamics he deduced the theory of statics: this was in the introduction to the Principia published in 1687. The theory of attractions, the application of the principles of mechanics to the solar system, the creation of physical astronomy, and the establishment of the law of universal gravitation are due to him, and were first published in the same work, but of the nature of gravity he confessed his ignorance, though he found inconceivable the idea of action at a distance. The particular questions connected with the motion of the earth and moon were worked out as fully as was then possible. The theory of hydrodynamics was created in the second book of the Principia, and he added considerably to the theory of hydrostatics which may be said to have been first discussed in modern times by Pascal. The theory of the propagation of waves, and in particular the application to determine the velocity of sound, is due to Newton and was published in 1687. In geometrical optics, he explained amongst other things the decomposition of light and the theory of the rainbow; he invented the reflecting telescope known by his name, and the sextant. In physical optics, he suggested and elaborated the emission theory of light.

The above list does not exhaust the subjects he investigated, but it will serve to illustrate how marked was his influence on the history of mathematics. On his writings and on their effects, it will be enough to quote the remarks of two or three of those who were subsequently concerned with the subject-matter of the Principia. Lagrange described the Principia as the greatest production of the human mind, and said he felt dazed at such an illustration of what man's intellect might be capable. In describing the effect of his own writings and those of Laplace it was a favourite remark of his that Newton was not only the greatest genius that had ever existed, but he was also the most fortunate, for as there is but one universe, it can happen but to one man in the world's history to be the interpreter of its laws. Laplace, who is in general very sparing of his praise, makes of Newton the one exception, and the words in which he enumerates the causes which ``will always assure to the Principia a pre-eminence above all the other productions of human genius'' have been often quoted. Not less remarkable is the homage rendered by Gauss; for other great mathematicians or philosophers he used the epithets magnus, or clarus, or clarissimus: for Newton alone he kept the prefix summus. Finally Biot, who had made a special study of Newton's works, sums up his remarks by saying, ``comme géomètre et comme expérimentateur Newton est sans égal; par la réunion de ces deux genres de génies à leur plus haut degré, il est sans exemple.''

This page is included in a collection of mathematical biographies taken from A Short Account of the History of Mathematics by W. W. Rouse Ball (4th Edition, 1908).

Transcribed by
D.R. Wilkins

(dwilkins@maths.tcd.ie)School of MathematicsTrinity College, Dublin

Grateful thanks to Mr.W. W. Rouse Ball, Mr.D.R.Wilkins and all the others who have made it possible to bring it to the public domain where everybody can freely use it.

Inspiring Lives-21: Blaise Pascal (1623 - 1662)

From `A Short Account of the History of Mathematics' (4th edition, 1908) by W. W. Rouse Ball.

Among the contemporaries of Descartes none displayed greater natural genius than Pascal, but his mathematical reputation rests more on what he might have done than on what he actually effected, as during a considerable part of his life he deemed it his duty to devote his whole time to religious exercises.

Blaise Pascal was born at Clermont on June 19, 1623, and died at Paris on Aug. 19, 1662. His father, a local judge at Clermont, and himself of some scientific reputation, moved to Paris in 1631, partly to prosecute his own scientific studies, partly to carry on the education of his only son, who had already displayed exceptional ability. Pascal was kept at home in order to ensure his not being overworked, and with the same object it was directed that his education should be at first confined to the study of languages, and should not include any mathematics. This naturally excited the boy's curiosity, and one day, being then twelve years old, he asked in what geometry consisted. His tutor replied that it was the science of constructing exact figures and of determining the proportions between their different parts. Pascal, stimulated no doubt by the injunction against reading it, gave up his play-time to this new study, and in a few weeks had discovered for himself many properties of figures, and in particular the proposition that the sum of the angles of a triangle is equal to two right angles. I have read somewhere, but I cannot lay my hand on the authority, that his proof merely consisted in turning the angular points of a triangular piece of paper over so as to meet in the centre of the inscribed circle: a similar demonstration can be got by turning the angular points over so as to meet at the foot of the perpendicular drawn from the biggest angle to the opposite side. His father, struck by this display of ability, gave him a copy of Euclid's Elements, a book which Pascal read with avidity and soon mastered.

At the age of fourteen he was admitted to the weekly meetings of Roberval, Mersenne, Mydorge, and other French geometricians; from which, ultimately, the French Academy sprung. At sixteen Pascal wrote an essay on conic sections; and in 1641, at the age of eighteen, he constructed the first arithmetical machine, an instrument which, eight years later, he further improved. His correspondence with Fermat about this time shews that he was then turning his attention to analytical geometry and physics. He repeated Torricelli's experiments, by which the pressure of the atmosphere could be estimated as a weight, and he confirmed his theory of the cause of barometrical variations by obtaining at the same instant readings at different altitudes on the hill of Puy-de-Dôme.
In 1650, when in the midst of these researches, Pascal suddenly abandoned his favourite pursuits to study religion, or, as he says in his Pensées, ``contemplate the greatness and the misery of man''; and about the same time he persuaded the younger of his two sisters to enter the Port Royal society.

In 1653 he had to administer his father's estate. He now took up his old life again, and made several experiments on the pressure exerted by gases and liquids; it was also about this period that he invented the arithmetical triangle, and together with Fermat created the calculus of probabilities. He was meditating marriage when an accident again turned the current of his thoughts to a religious life. He was driving a four-in-hand on November 23, 1654, when the horses ran away; the two leaders dashed over the parapet of the bridge at Neuilly, and Pascal was saved only by the traces breaking. Always somewhat of a mystic, he considered this a special summons to abandon the world. He wrote an account of the accident on a small piece of parchment, which for the rest of his life he wore next to his heart, to perpetually remind him of his covenant; and shortly moved to Port Royal, where he continued to live until his death in 1662. Constitutionally delicate, he had injured his health by his incessant study; from the age of seventeen or eighteen he suffered from insomnia and acute dyspepsia, and at the time of his death was physically worn out.

His famous Provincial Letters directed against the Jesuits, and his Pensées, were written towards the close of his life, and are the first example of that finished form which is characteristic of the best French literature. The only mathematical work that he produced after retiring to Port Royal was the essay on the cycloid in 1658. He was suffering from sleeplessness and toothache when the idea occurred to him, and to his surprise his teeth immediately ceased to ache. Regarding this as a divine intimation to proceed with the problem, he worked incessantly for eight days at it, and completed a tolerably full account of the geometry of the cycloid.

I now proceed to consider his mathematical works in rather greater detail.

His early essay on the geometry of conics, written in 1639, but not published till 1779, seems to have been founded on the teaching of Desargues. Two of the results are important as well as interesting. The first of these is the theorem known now as ``Pascal's Theorem,'' namely, that if a hexagon be inscribed in a conic, the points of intersection of the opposite sides will lie in a straight line. The second, which is really due to Desargues, is that if a quadrilateral be inscribed in a conic, and a straight line be drawn cutting the sides taken in order in the points A, B, C, and D, and the conic in P and Q, then

PA.PC : PB.PD = QA.QC : QB.QD.

Pascal employed his arithmetical triangle in 1653, but no account of his method was printed till 1665. The triangle is constructed as in the figure below, each horizontal line being formed form the one above it by making every number in it equal to the sum of those above and to the left of it in the row immediately above it; ex. gr. the fourth number in the fourth line, namely, 20, is equal to 1 + 3 + 6 + 10.

The numbers in each line are what are now called figurate numbers. Those in the first line are called numbers of the first order; those in the second line, natural numbers or numbers of the second order; those in the third line, numbers of the third order, and so on. It is easily shewn that the mth number in the nth row is (m+n-2)! / (m-1)!(n-1)!
Pascal's arithmetical triangle, to any required order, is got by drawing a diagonal downwards from right to left as in the figure. The numbers in any diagonal give the coefficients of the expansion of a binomial; for example, the figures in the fifth diagonal, namely 1, 4, 6, 4, 1, are the coefficients of the expansion . Pascal used the triangle partly for this purpose, and partly to find the numbers of combinations of m things taken n at a time, which he stated, correctly, to be (n+1)(n+2)(n+3) ... m / (m-n)!

Perhaps as a mathematician Pascal is best known in connection with his correspondence with Fermat in 1654 in which he laid down the principles of the theory of probabilities. This correspondence arose from a problem proposed by a gamester, the Chevalier de Méré, to Pascal, who communicated it to Fermat. The problem was this. Two players of equal skill want to leave the table before finishing their game. Their scores and the number of points which constitute the game being given, it is desired to find in what proportion they should divide the stakes. Pascal and Fermat agreed on the answer, but gave different proofs. The following is a translation of Pascal's solution. That of Fermat is given later.

The following is my method for determining the share of each player when, for example, two players play a game of three points and each player has staked 32 pistoles.

Suppose that the first player has gained two points, and the second player one point; they have now to play for a point on this condition, that, if the first player gain, he takes all the money which is at stake, namely, 64 pistoles; while, if the second player gain, each player has two points, so that there are on terms of equality, and, if they leave off playing, each ought to take 32 pistoles. Thus if the first player gain, then 64 pistoles belong to him, and if he lose, then 32 pistoles belong to him. If therefore the players do not wish to play this game but to separate without playing it, the first player would say to the second, ``I am certain of 32 pistoles even if I lose this game, and as for the other 32 pistoles perhaps I will have them and perhaps you will have them; the chances are equal. Let us then divide these 32 pistoles equally, and give me also the 32 pistoles of which I am certain.'' Thus the first player will have 48 pistoles and the second 16 pistoles.
Next, suppose that the first player has gained two points and the second player none, and that they are about to play for a point; the condition then is that, if the first player gain this point, he secures the game and takes the 64 pistoles, and, if the second player gain this point, then the players will be in the situation already examined, in which the first player is entitled to 48 pistoles and the second to 16 pistoles. Thus if they do not wish to play, the first player would say to the second, ``If I gain the point I gain 64 pistoles; if I lose it, I am entitled to 48 pistoles. Give me then the 48 pistoles of which I am certain, and divide the other 16 equally, since our chances of gaining the point are equal.'' Thus the first player will have 56 pistoles and the second player 8 pistoles.

Finally, suppose that the first player has gained one point and the second player none. If they proceed to play for a point, the condition is that, if the first player gain it, the players will be in the situation first examined, in which the first player is entitled to 56 pistoles; if the first player lose the point, each player has then a point, and each is entitled to 32 pistoles. Thus, if they do not wish to play, the first player would say to the second, ``Give me the 32 pistoles of which I am certain, and divide the remainder of the 56 pistoles equally, that is divide 24 pistoles equally.'' Thus the first player will have the sum of 32 and 12 pistoles, that is, 44 pistoles, and consequently the second will have 20 pistoles.

Pascal proceeds next to consider the similar problems when the game is won by whoever first obtains m + n points, and one player has m while the other has n points. The answer is obtained using the arithmetical triangle. The general solution (in which the skill of the players is unequal) is given in many modern text-books on algebra, and agrees with Pascal's result, though of course the notation of the latter is different and less convenient.

Pascal made an illegitimate use of the new theory in the seventh chapter of his Pensées. In effect, he puts his argument that, as the value of eternal happiness must be infinite, then, even if the probability of a religious life ensuring eternal happiness be very small, still the expectation (which is measured by the product of the two) must be of sufficient magnitude to make it worth while to be religious. The argument, if worth anything, would apply equally to any religion which promised eternal happiness to those who accepted its doctrines. If any conclusion may be drawn from the statement, it is the undersirability of applying mathematics to questions of morality of which some of the data are necessarily outside the range of an exact science. It is only fair to add that no one had more contempt than Pascal for those who changes their opinions according to the prospect of material benefit, and this isolated passage is at variance with the spirit of his writings.

The last mathematical work of Pascal was that on the cycloid in 1658. The cycloid is the curve traced out by a point on the circumference of a circular hoop which rolls along a straight line. Galileo, in 1630, had called attention to this curve, the shape of which is particularly graceful, and had suggested that the arches of bridges should be built in this form. Four years later, in 1634, Roberval found the area of the cycloid; Descartes thought little of this solution and defied him to find its tangents, the same challenge being also sent to Fermat who at once solved the problem. Several questions connected with the curve, and with the surface and volume generated by its revolution about its axis, base, or the tangent at its vertex, were then proposed by various mathematicians. These and some analogous question, as well as the positions of the centres of the mass of the solids formed, were solved by Pascal in 1658, and the results were issued as a challenge to the world, Wallis succeeded in solving all the questions except those connected with the centre of mass. Pascal's own solutions were effected by the method of indivisibles, and are similar to those which a modern mathematician would give by the aid of the integral calculus. He obtained by summation what are equivalent to the integrals of , , and , one limit being either 0 or . He also investigated the geometry of the Archimedean spiral. These researches, according to D'Alembert, form a connecting link between the geometry of Archimedes and the infinitesimal calculus of Newton.

This page is included in a collection of mathematical biographies taken from A Short Account of the History of Mathematics by W. W. Rouse Ball (4th Edition, 1908).

Transcribed by
D.R. Wilkins

dwilkins@maths.tcd.ie)School of MathematicsTrinity College, Dublin

Grateful thanks to Mr.D.R.Wilkins and all the others who have made it possible to bring it to the public domain where everybody can freely use it.

Inspiring Lives-20: René Descartes (1596 - 1650)

From `A Short Account of the History of Mathematics' (4th edition, 1908) by W. W. Rouse Ball.

We may consider Descartes as the first of the modern school of mathematics. René Descartes was born near Tours on March 31, 1596, and died at Stockholm on February 11, 1650; thus he was a contemporary of Galileo and Desargues. His father, who, as the name implies, was of good family, was accustomed to spend half the year at Rennes when the local parliament, in which he held a commission as councillor, was in session, and the rest of the time on his family estate of Les Cartes at La Haye. René, the second of a family of two sons and one daughter, was sent at the age of eight years to the Jesuit School at La Flêche, and of the admirable discipline and education there given he speaks most highly. On account of his delicate health he was permitted to lie in bed till late in the mornings; this was a custom which he always followed, and when he visited Pascal in 1647 he told him that the only way to do good work in mathematics and to preserve his health was never to allow anyone to make him get up in the morning before he felt inclined to do so; an opinion which I chronicle for the benefit of any schoolboy into whose hands this work may fall.

On leaving school in 1612 Descartes went to Paris to be introduced to the world of fashion. Here, through the medium of the Jesuits, he made the acquaintance of Mydorge, and renewed his schoolboy friendship with Mersenne, and together with them he devoted the two years of 1615 and 1616 to the study of mathematics. At that time a man of position usually entered either the army or the church; Descartes chose the former profession, and in 1617 joined the army of Prince Maurice of Orange, then at Breda. Walking through the streets there he saw a placard in Dutch which excited his curiosity, and stopping the first passer, asked him to translate it into either French or Latin. The stranger, who happened to be Isaac Beeckman, the head of the Dutch College at Dort, offered to do so if Descartes would answer it; the placard being, in fact, a challenge to all the world to solve a certain geometrical problem. Descartes worked it out within a few hours, and a warm friendship between him and Beeckman was the result. This unexpected test of his mathematical attainments made the uncongenial life of the army distasteful to him, but under family influence and tradition he remained a soldier, and was persuaded at the commencement of the Thirty Years' War to volunteer under Count de Bucquoy in the army of Bavaria. He continued all this time to occupy his leisure with mathematical studies, and was accustomed to date the first ideas of his new philosophy and of his analytical geometry from three dreams which he experienced on the night of November 10, 1619, at Neuberg, when campaigning on the Danube. He regarded this as the critical day of his life, and one which determined his whole future.

He resigned his commission in the spring of 1621, and spent the next five years in travel, during most of which time he continued to study pure mathematics. In 1626 we find him settled at Paris, ``a little well-built figure, modestly clad in green taffety, and only wearing sword and feather in token of his quality as a gentleman.'' During the first two years there he interested himself in general society, and spent his leisure in the construction of optical instruments; but these pursuits were merely the relaxations of one who failed to find in philosophy that theory of the universe which he was convinced finally awaited him.

In 1628 Cardinal de Berulle, the founder of the Oratorians, met Descartes, and was so much impressed by his conversation that he urged on him the duty of devoting his life to the examination of truth. Descartes agreed, and the better to secure himself from interruption moved to Holland, then at the height of his power. There for twenty years he lived, giving up all his time to philosophy and mathematics. Science, he says, may be compared to a tree; metaphysics is the root, physics is the trunk, and the three chief branches are mechanics, medicine, and morals, these forming the three applications of our knowledge, namely, to the external world, to the human body, and to the conduct of life.

He spend the first four years, 1629 to 1633, of his stay in Holland in writing Le Monde, which embodies an attempt to give a physical theory of the universe; but finding that its publication was likely to bring on him the hostility of the church, and having no desire to pose as a martyr, he abandoned it: the incomplete manuscript was published in 1664. He then devoted himself to composing a treatise on universal science; this was published at Leyden in 1637 under the title Discours de la méthode pour bien conduire sa raison et chercher la vérité dans les sciences, and was accompanied with three appendices (which possibly were not issued till 1638) entitled La Dioptrique, Les Météores, and La Géométrie; it is from the last of these that the invention of analytical geometry dates. In 1641 he published a work called Meditationes, in which he explained at some length his views on philosophy as sketched out in the Discours. In 1644 he issued the Principia Philosophiae, the greater part of which was devoted to physical science, especially the laws of motion and the theory of vortices. In 1647 he received a pension from the French court in honour of his discoveries. He went to Sweden on the invitation of the Queen in 1649, and died a few months later of inflammation of the lungs.

In appearance, Descartes was a small man with large head, projecting brow, prominent nose, and black hair coming down to his eyebrows. His voice was feeble. In disposition he was cold and selfish. Considering the range of his studies he was by no means widely read, and he despised both learning and art unless something tangible could be extracted therefrom. He never married, and left no descendants, though he had one illegitimate daughter, who died young.

As to his philosophical theories, it will be sufficient to say that he discussed the same problems which have been debated for the last two thousand years, and probably will be debated with equal zeal two thousand years hence. It is hardly necessary to say that the problems themselves are of importance and interest, but from the nature of the case no solution ever offered is capable either of rigid proof or of disproof; all that can be effected is to make one explanation more probable than another, and whenever a philosopher like Descartes believes that he has at last finally settled a question it has been possible for his successors to point out the fallacy in his assumptions. I have read somewhere that philosophy has always been chiefly engaged with the inter-relations of God, Nature, and Man. The earliest philosophers were Greeks who occupied themselves mainly with the relations between God and Nature, and dealt with Man separately. The Christian Church was so absorbed in the relation of God to Man as entirely to neglect Nature. Finally, modern philosophers concern themselves chiefly with the relations between Man and Nature. Whether this is a correct historical generalization of the views which have been successively prevalent I do not care to discuss here, but the statement as to the scope of modern philosophy marks the limitations of Descartes's writings.

Descartes's chief contributions to mathematics were his analytical geometry and his theory of vortices, and it is on his researches in connection with the former of these subjects that his mathematical reputation rests.

Analytical geometry does not consist merely (as is sometimes loosely said) in the application of algebra to geometry; that had been done by Archimedes and many others, and had become the usual method of procedure in the works of the mathematicians of the sixteenth century. The great advance made by Descartes was that he saw that a point in a plane could be completely determined if its distances, say x and y, from two fixed lines drawn at right angles in the plane were given, with the convention familiar to us as to the interpretation of positive and negative values; and that though an equation f(x,y) = 0 was indeterminate and could be satisfied by an infinite number of values of x and y, yet these values of x and y determined the co-ordinates of a number of points which form a curve, of which the equation f(x,y) = 0 expresses some geometrical property, that is, a property true of the curve at every point on it. Descartes asserted that a point in space could be similarly determined by three co-ordinates, but he confined his attention to plane curves.

It was at once seen that in order to investigate the properties of a curve it was sufficient to select, as a definition, any characteristic geometrical property, and to express it by means of an equation between the (current) co-ordinates of any point on the curve, that is, to translate the definition into the language of analytical geometry. The equation so obtained contains implicitly every property of the curve, and any particular property can be deduced from it by ordinary algebra without troubling about the geometry of the figure. This may have been dimly recognized or foreshadowed by earlier writers, but Descartes went further and pointed out the very important facts that two or more curves can be referred to one and the same system of co-ordinates, and that the points in which two curves intersect can be determined by finding the roots common to their two equations. I need not go further into details, for nearly everyone to whom the above is intelligible will have read analytical geometry, and is able to appreciate the value of its invention.

Descartes's Géométrie is divided into three books: the first two of these treat of analytical geometry, and the third includes an analysis of the algebra then current. It is somewhat difficult to follow the reasoning, but the obscurity was intentional. ``Je n'ai rien omis.'' says he, ``qu'à dessein ... j'avois prévu que certaines gens qui se vantent de sçavoir tout n'auroient par manqué de dire que je n'avois rien écrit qu'ils n'eussent sçu auparavant, si je me fusse rendu assez intelligible pour eux.''

The first book commences with an explanation of the principles of analytical geometry, and contains a discussion of a certain problem which had been propounded by Pappus in the seventh book of his and of which some particular cases had been considered by Euclid and Apollonius. The general theorem had baffled previous geometricians, and it was in the attempt to solve it that Descartes was led to the invention of analytical geometry. The full enunciation of the problem is rather involved, but the most important case is to find the locus of a point such that the product of the perpendiculars on m given straight lines shall be in a constant ratio to the product of the perpendiculars on n other given straight lines. The ancients had solved this geometrically for the case m = 1, n = 1, and the case m = 1, n = 2. Pappus had further stated that, if m = n = 2, the locus is a conic, but he gave no proof; Descartes also failed to prove this by pure geometry, but he shewed that the curve is represented by an equation of the second degree, that is, a conic; subsequently Newton gave an elegant solution of the problem by pure geometry.

In the second book Descartes divides curves into two classes, namely, geometrical and mechanical curves. He defines geometrical curves as those which can be generated by the intersection of two lines each moving parallel to one co-ordinate axis with ``commensurable'' velocities; by which terms he means that dy/dx is an algebraical function, as, for example, is the case in the ellipse and the cissoid. He calls a curve mechanical when the ratio of the velocities of these lines is ``incommensurable''; by which term he means that dy/dx is a trancendental function, as, for example, is the case in the cycloid and the quadratrix. Descartes confined his discussion to geometrical curves, and did not treat of the theory of mechanical curves. The classification into algebraical and transcendental curves now usual is due to Newton.

Descartes also paid particular attention to the theory of the tangents to curves - as perhaps might be inferred from his system of classification just alluded to. The then current definition of a tangent at a point was a straight line through the point such that between it and the curve no other straight line could be drawn, that is, the straight line of closest contact. Descartes proposed to substitute for this a statement equivalent to the assertion that the tangent is the limiting position of the secant; Fermat, and at a later date Maclaurin and Lagrange, adopted this definition. Barrow, followed by Newton and Leibnitz, considered a curve as the limit of an inscribed polygon when the sides become indefinitely small, and stated that the side of the polygon when produced became in the limit a tangent to the curve. Roberval, on the other hand, defined a tangent at a point as the direction of motion at that instant of a point which was describing the curve. The results are the same whichever definition is selected, but the controversy as to which definition was the correct one was none the less lively. In his letters Descartes illustrated his theory by giving the general rule for drawing tangents and normals to a roulette.

The method used by Descartes to find the tangent or normal at any point of a given curve was substantially as follows. He determined the centre and radius of a circle which should cut the curve in two consecutive points there. The tangent to the circle at that point will be the required tangent to the curve. In modern text-books it is usual to express the condition that two of the points in which a straight line (such as y = mx + c) cuts the curve shall coincide with the given point: this enables us to determine m and c, and thus the equation of the tangent there is determined. Descartes, however, did not venture to do this, but selecting a circle as the simplest curve and one to which he knew how to draw a tangent, he so fixed his circle as to make it touch the given curve at the point in question, and thus reduced the problem to drawing a tangent to a circle. I should note in passing that he only applied this method to curves which are symmetrical about an axis, and he took the centre of the circle on the axis.

The obscure style deliberately adopted by Descartes diminished the circulation and immediate appreciation of these books; but a Latin translation of them, with explanatory notes, was prepared by F. de Beaune, and an edition of this, with a commentary by F. van Schooten, issued in 1659, was widely read.

The third book of the Géométrie contains an analysis of the algebra then current, and it has affected the language of the subject by fixing the custom of employing the letters at the beginning of the alphabet to denote known quantities, and those at the end of the alphabet to denote unknown quantities. [On the origin of the custom of using x to represent an unknown example, see a note by G. Eneström in the Bibliotheca Mathematica, 1885, p. 43.] Descartes further introduced the system of indices now in use; very likely it was original on his part, but I would here remind the reader that the suggestion had been made by previous writers, though it had not been generally adopted. It is doubtful whether or not Descartes recognized that his letters might represent any quantities, positive or negative, and that it was sufficient to prove a proposition for one general case. He was the earliest writer to realise the advantage to be obtained by taking all the terms of an equation to one side of it, though Stifel and Harriot had sometimes employed that form by choice. He realised the meaning of negative quantities and used them freely. In this book he made use of the rule for finding the limit to the number of positive and of negative roots of an algebraical equation, which is still known by his name; and introduced the method of indeterminate coefficients for the solution of equations. He believed that he had given a method by which algebraical equations of any order could be solved, but in this he was mistaken. It may also be mentioned that he enunciated the theorem, commonly attributed to Euler, on the relation between the numbers of faces, edges and angles of a polyhedron: this is in one of the papers published by Careil.

Of the two other appendices to the Discours one was devoted to optics. The chief interest of this consists in the statement given of the law of refraction. This appears to have been taken from Snell's work, though, unfortunately, it is enunciated in a way which might lead a reader to suppose that it is due to the researches of Descartes. Descartes would seem to have repeated Snell's experiments when in Paris in 1626 or 1627, and it is possible that he subsequently forgot how much he owed to the earlier investigations of Snell. A large part of the optics is devoted to determining the best shape for the lenses of a telescope, but the mechanical difficulties in grinding a surface of glass to a required form are so great as to render these investigations of little practical use. Descartes seems to have been doubtful whether to regard the rays of light as proceeding from the eye and so to speak touching the object, as the Greeks had done, or as proceeding from the object, and so affecting the eye; but, since he considered the velocity of light to be infinite, he did not deem the point particularly important.

The other appendix, on meteors, contains an explanation of numerous atmospheric phenomena, including the rainbow; the explanation of the latter is necessarily incomplete, since Descartes was unacquainted with the fact that the refractive index of a substance is different for lights of different colours.

Descartes's physical theory of the universe, embodying most of the results contained in his earlier and unpublished Le Monde, is given in his Principia, 1644, and rests on a metaphysical basis. He commences with a discussion on motion; and then lays down ten laws of nature, of which the first two are almost identical with the first two laws of motion as given by Newton; the remaining eight laws are inaccurate. He next proceeds to discuss the nature of matter which he regards as uniform in kind though there are three forms of it. He assumes that the matter of the universe must be in motion, and that the motion must result in a number of vortices. He states that the sun is the centre of an immense whirlpool of this matter, in which the planets float and are swept round like straws in a whirlpool of water. Each planet is supposed to be the centre of a secondary whirlpool by which its satellites are carried: these secondary whirlpools are supposed to produce variations of density in the surrounding medium which constitute the primary whirlpool, and so cause the planets to move in ellipses and not in circles. All these assumptions are arbitrary and unsupported by any investigation. It is not difficult to prove that on his hypothesis the sun would be in the centre of these ellipses, and not at a focus (as Kepler had shewn was the case), and that the weight of a body at every place on the surface of the earth except the equator would act in a direction which was not vertical; but it will be sufficient here to say that Newton in the second book of his Principia, 1687, considered the theory in detail, and shewed that its consequences are not only inconsistent with each of Kepler's laws and with the fundamental laws of mechanics, but are also at variance with the laws of nature assumed by Descartes. Still, in spite of its crudeness and its inherent defects, the theory of vortices marks a fresh era in astronomy, for it was an attempt to explain the phenomena of the whole universe by the same mechanical laws which experiment shews to be true on the earth.
This page is included in a collection of mathematical biographies taken from A Short Account of the History of Mathematics by W. W. Rouse Ball (4th Edition, 1908).

Transcribed by
D.R. Wilkins(dwilkins@maths.tcd.ie)School of MathematicsTrinity College, Dublin

Free Public Domain link: http://www.maths.tcd.ie/pub/HistMath/People/RBallHist.html

Grateful thanks to Mr.D.R.Wilkins and all the others who have made it possible to bring it to the public domain where everybody can freely use it.

Inspiring Lives-19: "Missile Woman: Ms Tessy Thomas"

Tessy Thomas has multiple monikers. Missile Woman and Agni Putri are just a few of them. The 45-year-old from Kerala, after all, is India’s first woman scientist to head a strategic weapons project and was also part of the elite team responsible for Agni III. “It is a great sense of responsibility contributing to national security,” says Thomas, who was one of the 10 chosen by the Defence Research and Development Organisation after a national entrance test in 1985. Superwoman, indeed.

Courtesy: Jhilmil Motihar (compiled by), India Today, June 10, 2008
Grateful thanks to Jhilmil Motihar and India Today.

Inspiring Lives-18: Martian Indian: Prasun Desai

Prasun Desai is the second Indian in Mars. We mean NASA’s Mars ventures. The first was Kannan Rajan, who developed the software for the landing of rovers, ‘Spirit’ and ‘Opportunity’. Desai, who is with NASA’s Langley Research Center, had led the team that guided the landing. This time, he and three others helped the ‘Phoenix’ land. As the robotic lander finds ‘signatures of life’ on the red planet, here is yet another Indian who leaves his signature on Mars.

Courtesy: The Week, June 08, 2008

Grateful thanks to The Week.

How To-2: "How to Choose a Role Model"

from wikiHow - The How to Manual That You Can Edit

Role models are important. They help us become the person we want to be and inspire us to make a difference. Choosing wisely means that you are influenced correctly and will help you be the best person you can be.

Steps

1. Choose someone who has a lot of confidence in themselves and their abilities. A good role model would be someone who knows who they are. You don't want someone who is down and who will bring you down. You want someone who won't pretend to be someone they are not, and won't be fake just to suit other people.
   
2. Consider someone who thinks it is alright to be unique; even if that means accepting some ridicule. They should make you feel good about being yourself, they shouldn't make you compare yourself to them and wish you were pretty.
   
3. Think about someone who interacts well with others', and someone who is kind and can communicate well with people.
   
4. Look for someone who is living life the way you would like to. If you want to be a famous author, your role model could be someone who has been successful at writing. If you have always wanted to be a nurse, your role model could be someone at your local hospital who is dedicated to their job and someone who you look up to for their achievements.
   
5. Find someone who doesn't always take credit for what they do. Like a teacher or nurse. Not a celebrity or athlete because most of them tend to be conceited.
   
6. Choose a role model who may have done something you find admirable, such as raised a lot of money for charity, saved lots of lives, helped people in need or discovered the cure for a disease.
   

Tips

• Keep in mind that having a role model does not mean you become exactly like that person, remember to retain your individuality.
  
• A role model should be someone who you want to be like, and someone you admire.
  
• You shouldn't change yourself to be like your role model; be like them, but put your own individuality into the things they do.
  
• "Believe in yourself, fulfil your potential, be your own Role Model". [1]
  
• Your role model doesn't have to be a real person, or someone who is alive. Maybe you consider Anne Frank to be your role model, or a character from a book. That's okay, but bear in mind that instead of being able to directly ask your role model for help, then you'll have to think, "What would he/she do in my position?"
  

Warnings

• Some poorly chosen role models may take advantage of their position.
  
• they also can direct you to a wrong place where you dont want to be.
  

Related wikiHows

• How to Be Yourself Around Someone You Admire or Like
  
• How to Imitate a Person That You Admire
  
• How to Be a Teenage Role Model
  
• How to Be a Good Role Model
  
• How to Be a Leader
  
• How to Be Persuasive
  
• How to Appreciate Benazir Bhutto
  

Article provided by wikiHow, a collaborative writing project to build the world's largest, highest quality how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Choose a Role Model. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.

How To-1: "How to Follow Gandhi's Principles"

http://www.wikihow.com/

How to Follow Gandhi's Principles
from wikiHow - The How to Manual That You Can Edit

"Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever." Mahatma Gandhi from India.

Steps

1. To understand what the principles are. There are 6 principles that Gandhi followed:
   
   • Truth: learning from your own mistakes and conducting experiments on yourself
     
   • Nonviolence: nonresistance connected in a way to religion
     
   • Vegetarianism: carved in the Hindu and Jain traditions in India
     
   • Brahmacharya: spiritual and practical purity
     
   • Simplicity: giving up unnecessary spending
     
   • Faith: belief in a Higher power and that all religions are equal
     
   
   
2. Understand what is different of where and when Mahatma Gandhi lived and where and when you live
   
• He lived in India during the '30s and '40s when he was following these principles.
  
• We live in a society and amongst a generation that has a lot more technology, is more materialistic and we are not fighting for the same reasons (we have 'freedom'(opportunities to do what we want to do))
  
3. Manipulate the principles to not lose the meaning behind them but be able to apply them without feeling restricted. Here is an example:
   
• Truth: fight your own inner demons, fear and insecurities. Everyone is unique in this world and therefore, one should not compare with others. Be honest with yourself of who you are and what you want. If you think there is something to fix, then fix it.
  
• Nonviolence: control your temper and also your thoughts. What we think, we become and therefore if you always are thinking of hurting someone or feeling extremely angry at someone, those are the vibes you'll be giving to others. Best way to be nonviolent is to think positive and believe that whatever happens, it is for a good reason.
  
• Vegetarianism: not everyone can resist meat, but you can control your consumption. For health reasons, avoiding eating a lot of red meat is a good idea.
  
• Brahmacharya: many of us want to get married and have children or be intimate with someone. Therefore, becoming a brahmacharya might not be possible. However, you could reduce thinking of the opposite sex as an object. You could also wait to be intimate with someone till after marriage.
  
• Simplicity: life in the western countries tends to be quite fast. Do you need the latest fashion clothing or can you wear the clothes you already have? Do you need 50-100 pairs of shoes? Do you need the latest gadgets? Do you need a brand new BMW? Simplicity doesn't mean foregoing all your desires, but not buying something right away or something you don't really need. Simplicity also means being happy with what you are given and have.
  
• Faith: believing that there is someone or something higher than you. You don't need to believe in God, but believing that everyone is equal and you are no less or more than someone else. It is knowing your values, ethics and morals. Faith is not following others blindly especially when someone else is doing something that your heart says is not right.
  

Tips

• Understand what you want out of life and know who you are; in this way you will be following these principles.
  
• Not all 6 principles need to be followed exactly the same way because your desires and wants also matter.
  
• See how these principles can fit in your lifestyle and make modifications to your lifestyle where you see it requires
  
• You can also modify the principles without losing the meaning behind what Gandhi was trying to teach.
  
• Have patience because it is easy to learn a bad habit, but hard to let go of one.
  
• Watch film 'GANDHI' (English film) on Mahatma Gandhi and 'Lage Raho Munna Bhai' (Hindi film)
  
• Read books on Mahatma Gandhi.

Warnings

• If you have decided to change a part of your life, you will need to be patient because there are days when you might fail and then you will need courage to start again.
  

Related wikiHows

• How to Defend Creationism Against Evolutionism
  
• How to Convert People to a New Religion
  
• How to Ask Yourself What You Truly Believe
  
• How to Have Devotion As Told by Lord Rama
  
• How to Understand the Degrees of the Palm
  

Article provided by wikiHow, a collaborative writing project to build the world's largest, highest quality how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Follow Gandhi's Principles. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.

Inspiring Lives-17: Galileo Galilei

Galileo Galilei, an Italian mathematician, physicist, astronomer and philosopher and a Towering Figure in the World of Modern Science, was born on this day, February 15, in the year 1564.

He has been acclaimed as the ‘Father of Modern Science’, ‘Father of Modern Physics’ and ‘Father of Astronomy’. His contributions for the advancement of science have been immense and very remarkable.

His "scientific investigations greatly enhanced humanity's knowledge of the universe.... his work is today considered crucial to the development of the modern scientific method" (http://www.refdesk.com/)

He was persecuted for supporting the views of Copernicus and spent his last years under house arrest. He died at the age of 78.

Wikipedia furnishes a more detailed account of His Life like Works, Pictures, References for Further Study, Links etc:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_Galilei

In the News-3: "A Golden Moment"

Jnanpith winning Malayalam writer, M.T.Vasudevan Nair, received a special honour recently. The Kerala Sahitya Akademi organized a grand four-day literary festival in Thrissur to celebrate the golden jubilee of his novel Nalukettu, published in 1958. The novel deals with the disintegration of the Nair joint families. Malayalam’s living literary pantheon was present in full strength at the festival to sing paeans to writer who is tipped to be the next Central Sahitya Akademi president.

Courtesy: ‘Indiana’, The Week, February 3, 2008

"Living Without Violence" by Usha Jesudasan

Gandhiji made non-violence a political weapon and showed its power to those who were captive to violence and oppression.

On January 30, we remember the anniversary of Gandhiji’s violent death.

Violence. How we fear it. How we hope that it will not touch or those we love. But it does so often. The violence we face may not be brutal or physical; It may not be on our streets; or with bombs and guns; but nevertheless it is there. We find it lurking in our everyday relationships, attitudes to each other, words, thoughts, looks and feelings.

For centuries men mostly, and those in authority, marginalized the idea of non-violence as it did not help them prosper or succeed in getting what they wanted as much as violence and fear did. Then came people like Gandhiji, Martin Luther, Vaclav Havel and others who made non-violence a political weapon and showed those who were captive to violence and oppression, its power.

Since then, people all over the world have discovered the power of non-violence as a political weapon. But the non-violent life is more than just a political tactic. It is a way of life for every single person and that is both challenging and meaningful. The idea of non-violence is revolutionary and feared by those who cling to power, because it is an idea that can completely change the nature of society, and thus is a grave threat to the established order.

Non-violence or ahimsa living, is not just for activists; it is for us ordinary people – we all need to transform our minds and hearts to embody non-violence. This is a huge challenge because our society surrounds us with violence – in the media, in our workplaces, relationships and way of life. So, unless we train ourselves to consciously unlearn all the habits of violence we use, our first response to a crisis is violence.

We need to practise the art of “ahimsa living” every day. We need to store within ourselves a repertoire of non-violent actions, thoughts and words, so that when we do face crises, we can draw upon these practical, ethical, and spiritual ahimsa resources.

Could you make a commitment to an ahimsa way of life for a day or week? Which areas of your life would you have to specially target to live this way?

- “Living without Violence” by Usha Jesudasan, Young World, Supplement to The Hindu, January 25, 2008

My grateful thanks to Ms Usha Jesudasan for the wonderful article and to The Hindu for publishing it.

Inspiring Lives-16: Swami Vivekananda

Swami Vivekananda, a spiritual giant with intellect and power, was born on January 12 at Kolkata, West Bengal, India. After the Parliament of Religions in Chicago, he became a celebrity and his lectures were much sought after in USA. His voice awakened the sleeping India and inspired Indians to a new national consciousness. As principal disciple of Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, he founded the worldwide Ramakrishna Mission and Math. The Math and Mission have now more than 150 centres all over the world.

Detailed biography from Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swami_Vivekananda

Readings from Swami Vivekananda at the Vedanta Network,

Ramakrishna Vedanta Society of Boston:

http://www.vivekananda.org/readingscategory.asp

Photo Gallery of Swami Vivekananda

at the Vedanta Network, Ramakrishna Vedanta Society of Boston:

http://www.vivekananda.org/archivephotogallery.asp

Life and Teachings of Swami Vivekananda:

http://www.belurmath.org/swamivivekananda.htm

Swami Vivekananda Quotes:

http://thinkexist.com/quotes/swami_vivekananda/

Swami Vivekananda: a biography by Swami Nikhilananda:

http://www.vivekananda.net/PDFBooks/BiographybyNikhilananda.pdf

"The Master as I saw him" by Sister Nivedita:

http://www.vivekananda.net/PDFBooks/Nivedita/masterasisawhimb00niveiala.pdf

"Inspired Talks