This is science, children

This is science, children
Rajendra Bhatia

Virtual campuses have been in the news lately. Recently I he-ard an enthusiastic vice-chancellor talk of the crores he has been granted to put on the Internet every lesson taught at his university, and an equally enthusiastic school principal talk of the golden triangle with pupils, teachers and the school interconnected by computers.

It would be extremely difficult to engage either of these two visionaries into a serious discussion about the quality of the text books and of the lessons at their institutions. The new millennium is upon us and not being on the Internet will leave us behind. The content of the books does not really matter!

How big is the gap between the technology and the content? I will illustrate this by choosing three science books for children. Two of them are currently in use at the elite school I mentioned and have been written by teachers from equally elite schools. The third is written by a science journalist and has received an award. All three have gone through several editions.

Modern Geography (Book I) by J.K. Bhatnagar, published by Pitambar Publishing Co., has gone through five editions and 23 printings. Let me count the more glaring of the mistakes in just one chapter of this book. In Chapter 2 the author says there are nine planets which wander around our earth. The very next sentence goes on to say our earth is one of these nine planets. Of course, one can be charitable here; the author would certainly know that the nine planets wander about the sun. One cannot be so charitable when he informs us that from an aeroplane one can see that the earth is round!

Introduction to Physics (Book 1) by S. Singal, published by Arya Publishing House, has gone through three editions and 12 printings. It starts with an introductory chapter meant to give an idea about science and about physics. This has a list of ``some prominent scientists, of Indian and International fame who have made meaningful contributions". What is one to say when the author spells S. Ramanujan as S. Ramanujam and gives his contribution as nuclear theory? Or, when he changes S. Chandrasekhar to C.S. Chandrashekhar and mentions his contribution as``White swarg limit"? Perhaps the proximity of certain keys on the typewriter can change dwarf to swarg, and a bad telephone connection could have made him hear``nuclear'' when ``number'' was said. But then how do you explain his naming Vikram Sarabhai as``founder of TIFR". (It was Homi Bhabha. This would not make anyone a great scientist, but that is beside the point.) Or, his telling us that C.V. Raman was the first Indian recipient of the Nobel Prize. (Itwas Tagore.)

Factual mistakes like these apart, I was astonished by statements like ``On-ce the life is destroyed, it would take hundreds of years to take the same form". (The time scale for evolution is millions not hundreds of years.)Scientists of India by Dilip M. Salwi, published by the Children's Book Trust, has gone through three editions. In the chapter on S. Ramanujan, the author says,``Some mathematicians claimed that zero divided by zero was zero. Others claimed it to be unity. It was the Indian mathematician Bhaskara who proved that it is infinity." I wonder where the author learnt this. Every school child is taught that ``zero divided by zero" is not defined, as the operation would lead to contradictions very soon. No one seems to have told the author that there is nothing called ``a congruent triangle".

Perhaps the author never learnt mathematics, but a science journalist should know that discovering an elementary particle is not a routine event, and that M.G.K. Menon could not possibly have discovered ``a few " of them. Even more incredible is the author's belief that Raja Ramanna was the first to think of an underground nuclear test.

Writers, publishers, teachers, principals, directors of school boards and vice-chancellors should wonder how students brought up on such books will fare in the new millennium, even if they were to download their contents from computers. That such books are written by teachers from elite schools, published by prominent publishers, and used year after year, should be a cause for concern.

The writer is with the Indian Statistical Institute, New Delhi