Pakistan's Universities - Problems and Solutions

#41 Posted by haideri on January 29, 2008 5:38:36 am


Nobody is denying the importance of zero and contribution of Hindus.


Umm...you offered , as an example of islamic contribution to algebra and whatnot, someone whose book was called "On the Calculation with Hindu Numerals"



And here you are going overboard



Umm..overboard for quoting wikipedia? I take it reality and you aren't on good terms...

let me clue you in on a little secret...more than the zero, it was the place value system that forms the basis of everything..the zero was an invention to get around the problems in a place value system without one. in fact, all modern computing is based on place value systems....binary, hex, octal etc.

p.s. you miss the point by a mile...while the muslims of the past were doing great things by sharing and developing knowledge, the muslims of today are only sharing the knowledge of making suicide bomb vests...

#50 Posted by iron_mask:

No, don't get me wrong. People like your friend are not uncommon. But I am talking trends here. The average quality of research/teaching is falling because researchers/teachers are badly paid and research is becomming an expensive business.

It is a bit unfair to romanticize "research", "knowledge" etc. I am in the field and I know what wives and kids of Indian academics have to go through even when the academic is blissfully conducting research (which again is not generally true).

As far as China and India are concerned, I really do not know .... and maybe I do not care much too.

GT given the trajectories of India and China (and seeing your comments re:china), I was wondering if you give us an idea of where things will stand in a few years time from now (say using 10 year windows (so 10, 20, 30, 50 years from now)) - in terms of education and science and research and development.

Here is an interesting point to note - often forgotten the steam engine in times was a device which the science of that time said it could be done. Infact the engine's basics principles were explained many years after its invention!

Re: # 48 Also it is true re:science. I know the the aec are recruiting engineers and training them in their facilities to do pure science work. For they find pure scientists if available lack the ability of the common engineer.

It is sometime strange to find that a metallurgist is working as a physicist, and a chemical engineer (from VJTI) as Chemist in many critical govt labs.

Re: # 48 GT that is very true...a friend of mine a professor in IITB has had the same problem....even after all these years of toil they man cannot afford a decent flat in Mumbai, let alone a holiday his kids afford themselves these days in places like Kerala.

But here is the rub the friend is not at all unhappy - he is not in it for the money - for him the search for the solution of a problem (and coincidently he was also a complex dynamics man) was a drug and pursuit of knowledge itself was the goal.

Even in the west, the people who do the real work are these people who live lives of an ascetic and there are many like them. The Negroponte's of this world are few. The main difference is that in the west you can have a decent house in a decent location and atleast dream of a decent car and the odd holiday.

Re: # 47

The only thing that used to motivate students, to take up agri courses, was the lure of a government job. Needless to say that the agriculture officers never visit the fields. They don't even try to learn from the farmers. Selling the subsidized govt seeds, pesticides and fertilizers to the local shops, is the only thing they have mastered.

The smart crooks form a syndicate and make sure that the odd genuine learner is made obsolete. (Surprisingly I see this trait more pronounced in the americans)

The agriculture officers unashamedly market the chemical fertilizers of the private players. They increased the fertilizer and pesticide recommendations multi-folds than what was needed. As a result the soil quality degraded which resulted in wiping out the organic agents and thus the production. These AOs can also be credited for the farmers' suicide.

Many farmers, of late, have started seeking knowledge and are using their fields as labs.

My dad, an engineer who resigned his government job, is one among them.

Cont.... "Science in India"

This is from todays Hindu:

"Bangalore: “Interest in science, as we see it, is going down, with most people going for engineering and technology-related fields. They fail to realise that basic science is the mother of all such technology,” said K.N. Shankara, Director, ISRO Satellite Centre, Bangalore, speaking at a workshop on “Indian Odyssey in Space.”"

Mother of all technology! Well, so what? Does it allow me to raise a family who I can take for a vacation once a year? These guys like Shankara should be put behind bars. I remember Pres. Kalam once ask why should salaries be raised for teachers ... they should simply be in the profession because it is "noble". One should really ask these technocrats, who pass off as "scientists" in India, to STFU or become management gurus in the US like C.K. Prahalad .... bloody idiots.

#45 Posted by Kulharee:

I agree fully. You cannot just look at "education" in isolation. Most state universities in the US were set up to boost agriculture! No one seems to be paying attention to agricultural universities in India, though they exist in each and every state (I must say that rural development is gradually becomming hotter for students in IIMs ... of all places). But the basic point is that we Indians (i.e. those who can eat and wear yellow shoes and therefore "count" in society)are essentially interested in Bollywood, Ambanis and Tatas and cricket. As long as glitz is provided by these sectors we are happy and content. Baki sab jaye tel lene ....

#44 continued....

Apart from finances, research can be a very frustrating experience. Minds with great potential often suffer when their research "fail", i.e. they are not able to come up with the proper theory or a small snag in their experiments lead to their result being discarded or they are beaten in the "race" etc. Things are getting very very difficult at the frontiers of science. There are many more failures now that even 15 years ago. Add to it the greater emphasis put on experimental evidence and hence more resources, it is but natural for basic research to die out in third-world countries. Of course, dictatorial regimes like those in China can put forth these huge funds without an iota of consideration for the best use of these funds. But I do not see the market allocate scarce resources for such use in countries like India. Exceptions, of course, exist (say in the field of bio-technology where the funds are market generated ... the IBM lab in IIT Delhi is more "applied" than "basic").

Re #44 - That’s so spot on GT Sahib. My Professor, who wrote on Indo-Pak industrial base, concluded that Pak and India can do without theoretical scientists, what they need is more resourceful ones. What good is a Nobel Prize without access to clean drinking water.

Getting people to do research is somewhat difficult if there is a lack of interest. For, 70% of "good research" has to do with the formulation of a good question. Without interest, comming up with a question is difficult. However, it is relatively easy to teach them how to solve (simple variants) of well known problems.

I do not know about Pakistan, but in India today there is a tremendous demand (also generated from other parts of the world) for problem solving, from management to engineering to coding. As a result supply is appropriately channeled. Of course there is that 0.5% of geniuses (not only in India, but accross the world) who will do what they want to do and at times it happens to be research in sciences otherwise you see them in literature, music etc etc.

In India there is this notion (amongst politicians and pundits) that we have to encourage basic research, we have to beat China etc. At times it makes me laugh. My colleagues in the Indian Institute of Science do their best to discourage PhD applicants to get into research. Here is how it goes: "You are a very smart guy, why do you want to work on complex dynamics"; "In two years time you will see your friends earn 50 times what you can ever hope to earn"; If you leave the program half-way you will be no-where" etc. Of course, this is a screening device. But it also lays bare the fact that the life of a researcher in India is difficult. That is because there is no demand for them. After all, even Hoodbhoy is in demand basically for his political commentary.

Re: # 42

Kulharee,
I am a Kizilbash and a Persian. Many of the guys mentioned in my reply are Persians. And I agree with rest of your Post.

haideri

Re #41 Haideri, what have any of these Arabs have to do with Pakistanis or Indians? Shouldn’t you be showing pride in your own heritage for inventing zero? One thing is for sure that before Al Gore invented the internet, none of these Arabs were known of any Pakistani. Now go and google Pakistani DNA, and search for all your ancestors from India.

Professor’s essay is way too ambitious. What Pakistan needs is not number of publication or higher educational institutes, but a solid elementary and secondary education for all. It’s hard to produce world-class scientists from a crumbling and sorryass elementary school system of Pakistan. A country with less than 30% literacy rate shouldn’t be worried about number of Publications, but more basic needs. In addition, Islamiat has got to go, in the dumpster.

Re: # 40

Nobody is denying the importance of zero and contribution of Hindus. The problem is you are suffering from psychological blindness. And here you are going overboard
"An early decimal system was clearly in use by the inhabitants of the Indus valley civilization by 3000 BC"

Did you get a chance to search for?

Alhazen
Geber
Ibn Sina
Al-Biruni
Ibn Rushd
Al-Battani
Al-Farghani

haideri

#33 Posted by haideri on January 28, 2008 9:13:47 pm

goatbrain: we've been through this before...like I told masadi, the muslims from a long long time ago were interested in learning stuff and spreading knowledge...like the place value system they learn from india...that's a very good thing

In fact, Al-Khwarizmi's book was called "On the Calculation with Hindu Numerals"

the muslims of today only share knowledge of suicide vest and car bomb making techniques.


now get a clue...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Hindu-Arabic_numeral_syst em

An early decimal system was clearly in use by the inhabitants of the Indus valley civilization by 3000 BC. Excavations at both Harappa and Mohenjo Daro reveal decimal weights belonging to "two series both being decimal in nature with each decimal number multiplied and divided by two, giving for the main series ratios of 0.05, 0.1, 0.2, 0.5, 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, 200, and 500."[3] Also, marked rulers at Lodhar reveal gradations of 1.32 inches (3.35 centimetres), ten of which are 13.2 inches, possibly something akin to a "foot" (similar measures exist in other parts of Asia and beyond). Markings on these and other texts reveal a number system with symbols for the numbers one through nine, and separate symbols for 10, 20, 100; thus the decimal system is highly developed though place-value is not used.

Linguistic comparison among Indo-European languages (ca. 3000 BC), shows a decimal enumeration system [4]. In early Vedic texts, composed between 1500 BC and 800 BC, we find Sanskrit number words not only for counting numbers in very large ranges, ranging up to 1019, with some puranas referring to numbers as large as 1062[5].

Historians trace modern numerals in most languages to the Brahmi numerals, which were in use around the middle of the third century BC.[6] The place value system, however, evolved later. The Brahmi numerals have been found in inscriptions in caves and on coins in regions near Pune, Mumbai, and Uttar Pradesh. These numerals (with slight variations) were in use over quite a long time span up to the 4th century AD[6].

There is indirect evidence that the Indians developed a positional number system as early as the first century CE[6]. The Bakhshali manuscript (c. 3d c. BCE) uses a place value system with a dot to denote the zero, which is called shunya-sthAna, "empty-place", and the same symbol is also used in algebraic expressions for the unknown (as in the canonical x in modern algebra). However, the date of the Bakhshali manuscript is hard to establish, and has been the subject of considerable debate. The oldest dated Indian document showing use of the modern place value form is a legal document dated 346 in the Chhedi calendar, which translates to 594 CE[6]. While some historians have claimed that the date on this document was a later forgery, it is not clear what might have motivated it, and it is generally accepted that enumeration using the place-value system was in common use in India by the end of the 6th century. [7]. Indian books dated to this period are able to denote numbers in the hundred thousands using a place value system. [8] Many other inscriptions have been found which are dated and make use of the place-value system for either the date or some other numbers within the text [6], although some historians claim these to also be forgeries.

Re: # 37 This problem of management.
In univ. there is too much pressure on professor here either publish or perish. Management should reward research but smae time reward for good teaching, interest in students.Overemphesis on research and publication in foren leads to such things in desperation as promotions or visiting foren to present paper etc. Management needs to think as they should produce good people not hope for einstein etc or like jews they are more talanted in brain dept than all people of des.