APJ's College Experience

I had a great teacher, who is a living legend now; his name is Prof. Rev. Father Chinnadurai. He taught me Physics in 1952, particularly nuclear physics and light. The way the Professor taught, many students started loving physics, particularly nuclear physics. Now Rev Father Chinnadurai in his 90’s is staying in Dindugal, whenever I visit southern region, I meet him and pay my respects.Now I would like to discuss about my mathematics teacher Prof Thothatri Iyengar. As a young science student, I had an opportunity at St. Joseph’s College to witness a unique scene of divine looking personality walking through the college campus every morning, and teaching Mathematics to various degree courses. Students looked at the personality who was a symbol of our own culture, with awe and respect. When he walked, knowledge radiated all around. The great personality was, Prof Thothatri Iyengar, our teacher. At that time, ‘Calculus Srinivasan who was my mathematics teacher, used to talk about Prof Thothatri Iyengar with deep respect. They had an understanding to have an integrated class by Thothatri Iyengar for first year B.Sc. (Hons) and first year B.Sc. (Physics). Thus, I also had the opportunity to attend his classes, particularly on modern algebra, statistics and complex variables. When we were in the B.Sc first year, Calculus Srinivasan used to select top ten students to the Mathematics Club of St. Joseph’s, whom were addressed by Prof Thothatri Iyengar. I still remember, in 1952, he gave a lecture on ancient mathematicians and astronomers of India. In that lecture, he introduced four great mathematicians and astronomers, which is still ringing in my ears.
Prof. Thothatri Iyengar explained, based on his analysis, that Aryabhata was both an astronomer and mathematician, born in 476 AD in Kusuma-pura (now called Patna). He was known to represent a summary of all Maths at that point of time. Just when he was only 23 years old, he wrote his book ARYABHATIYAM in two parts. He covered important areas like arithmetic, algebra (first ever contributor), trigonometry and of course, astronomy. He gave formulae for the areas of a triangle and a circle and attempted to give the volumes of a sphere and a pyramid. He was the first to give value of Pi.