Lincoln Newton and Education in my thoughts

From being narrow to getting broader and from imposition of learning to exploring new avenues of learning.

There is this dialogue in movie 'Lincoln' --

"Euclid's first common notion is this: Things which are equal to the same thing are equal to each other. That's a rule of mathematical reasoning and it's true because it works - has done and always will do. In his book Euclid says this is self evident. You see there it is even in that 2000 year old book of mechanical law it is the self-evident truth that things which are equal to the same thing are equal to each other. We begin with equality. That's the origin, isn't it? That's balance, that's fairness, that's justice."

Lincoln, a lawyer by profession, is having this conversation with two fellows. He is talking about mathematical reasoning that the engineer sitting with him doesn't even remember.

The beauty of it is that knowledge learned does not get compartmentalized. It is internalised by the person. It gets woven into the previous learnings, things get interconnected and new meanings emerge. Equality, justice are political concepts but who could have imagined their origin in mathematics. 

At early life many of us find additions and subtractions as clear devils but unknowingly through the journey of life we keep doing them just casually. Newton may have troubled us in school but after getting memorable reactions definitely the third law itself doesn't allow us to forget the first two.

Realising this interconnectedness and trying to understand the greater picture of being is difficult. But let's pick a thread and follow it into the web...

~~ Prajakta Prakash

15 December 2019