(12) Why no Book or Research Papers on Magic Squares!?
Pankaj Khanna
9424810575
Previous/Next Blog Posts:
(1) Beauty Squarely Introduction & Kuber Yantra
(2) Murphy Radio!? अले वाह!! My first Experience of Magic Square.
(3) Decoding the Quadratum Mirabile! How to solve 3x3 Magic Squares.
(4) Lo Shu Square History of Chinese Magic Square.
(5) The Unhurried Odyssey of a Turtle!! History of Magic Squares in short.
Brief Introduction.
(7) Khajuraho Magic: Introduction.
(8) Chautisa Yantra: Mytho-math Spice.
(9) Dürer Square
(11) Tona Lisa as a Rock Star!
(12) Why no Book or Research Papers ?
People often ask me, sometimes politely and other times with the tone usually reserved for unfinished homework:
“Why don’t you write a book or research papers on magic squares?”
It is a reasonable question. Magic Squares are ancient, mysterious, and mathematically elegant. They certainly deserve comprehensive literature, especially one that takes a holistic approach combining history, art, and mathematics.
Despite this, I intend to continue writing only blogs on diverse subjects, including Magic Squares. My purpose is simply to share the happiness and awareness that I experience while writing these blog posts.
Please allow me to present my defence! Not excuses—reasons. Six of them, neatly arranged, like a well-behaved 4×4 square. Let us start with the two primary reasons:
(1) Environment: Publishing and printing of books is not environment friendly.
Magic squares are creatures of balance. Every row, column, and diagonal must agree, without shouting or sulking. It would be deeply ironic if a subject devoted to harmony arrived in the form of a book by disturbing environmental balance.
Printing a book means paper.
Paper means trees.
Trees mean forests.
Forests mean oxygen.
Oxygen means survival.
The above is applicable to printing of unnecssary papers, magazines, Pamphlets and flyers too. (And manufacturing of toilet rolls also. More on it some other day at some other forum. )
Let us remember: Resources are finite. Infinity exists only in mathematics.
Apart from papers, books require ink, transport, storage and promotional activities all of which are not environment friendly. Blogs require just a bit of electricity and a lot of curiosity. From Khajuraho’s stone carvings to palm-leaf manuscripts, mathematics once lived lightly on the earth. Pixels feel closer to that spirit than houses and warehouses full of dust gathering unopened books, and certain libraries full of unimportant and unread books.
Magic squares are about harmony. Deforestation is not. If numbers can balance themselves, surely we can balance our publishing choices.
(This is not to argue against books, but against excess: the printing of words that may never be read, stored, or needed. It invites the viewer to pause and consider the environmental cost hidden behind intellectual vanity and habitual publishing.)
(2) Easy openable Links: Books and Research Papers can't provide links of music and videos!
There is no way to provide audio/ video input in a conventional book. Mathematics, like many other subjects of my interest like Tawa Sangeet, Rail Sangeet and Cycle Sangeet etc, often needs background music.
A book cannot play music. A blog can. One link, and suddenly numbers acquire a mood as they listen to a great musical number!
Now let me move on to the remaining four secondary, but nevertheless very important, reasons for not writing books.
(3) Book Launches: A Curious Vanishing Act!
Book launch ceremony costs huge money unlikely to be recovered through sale of books in majority of the cases.
A book launch is a magical event of a different kind. Money goes in, speeches come out, snacks disappear, and the huge expenditure—without any sale of the book—ensures instant enlightenment for the poor author. (I would prefer to remain a poor blogger instead!)
This kind of massive expenditure, reminiscent of Fat Indian Weddings, is quite unnecessary—and thankfully avoidable.
Magic squares require no launch. They simply appear—patient, silent, waiting to be noticed centuries later if necessary. My blog follows the same philosophy: no banners, no applause, just ideas quietly entering the world and hoping someone interesting bumps into them.
(4) Generally people don't want to purchase books. Free blog they may read!
Readers Like Browsing, Not Buying. Modern readers are explorers. They may enjoy discovering Dürer today, Khajuraho tomorrow, and Ramanujan next week, while pretending to do something else!
A book demands loyalty. A blog offers casual friendship. Read one paragraph, skip three, return months later—no awkwardness involved. (That is how mathematics is actually learned: slowly, sideways, and with pleasant distractions.)
(5) The reach of a book is limited to only those who purchase and then perhaps read it too!
A book travels politely. A blog teleports—appearing in late-night searches, accidental clicks, and moments of sudden curiosity. That is often where fascination begins for the blog reader.
Research papers, wrapped in heavy scientific language, usually reach only elite academicians. Common readers rarely dare to open them. Blogs, written informally, invite everyone, in—no intimidation, no fear, just curiosity.
(6) Redinkophobia : Publishers/Editors may not accept my informal style of writing.
It is a rather dreadful idea to have one’s writings edited by someone who has not raised it, lived with it, or watched it grow—an editor who may lovingly prune not the excess, but the very soul of the subject, simply to suit his own taste.
Hence I prefer to write and edit my blogs! Yes I do have a fear of editors, editing, and marked-up manuscripts! And this fear in English is known as Redinkophobia! ( Red-ink-o-phobia.)
Imagine if editors existed for paintings, engravings, sculptures, or music! Why, then, should only writers be edited?
For this blogger-cum-gardener, blogging is gardening—planting a small twig of an idea, nurturing it patiently, pruning dead leaves when needed, feeding it with the right nutrients at the right time, and finally watching it grow into a full-grown tree that one day offers shade and fruit to its ageing gardener and his family.
The gardener above looks content, not proud—the quiet satisfaction of patient labour of life time. He seems almost to invite the gender neutral readers to pause, listen, and perhaps hum along to that old-time Bobby Goldsboro classic of Sixties: “It was just a twig!"
(The next blog post about Ramanujan's Maths.)
Pankaj Khanna
9424810575
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मेरे कुछ अन्य ब्लॉग:
हिन्दी में:
तवा संगीत : ग्रामोफोन का संगीत और कुछ किस्सागोई।
रेल संगीत: रेल और रेल पर बने हिंदी गानों के बारे में।
साइकल संगीत: साइकल पर आधारित हिंदी गाने।
कुछ भी: विभिन्न विषयों पर लेख।
तवा भाजी: वन्य भाजियों को बनाने की विधियां!
मालवा का ठिलवा बैंड: पिंचिस का आर्केस्टा!
ईक्षक इंदौरी: इंदौर के पर्यटक स्थल। (लेखन जारी है।)
अंग्रेजी में:
Love Thy Numbers : गणित में रुचि रखने वालों के लिए।
Epeolatry: अंग्रेजी भाषा में रुचि रखने वालों के लिए।
CAT-a-LOG: CAT-IIM कोचिंग।छात्र और पालक सभी पढ़ें।
Corruption in Oil Companies: HPCL के बारे में जहां 1984 से 2007 तक काम किया।
