In Memory of George Padamadan :
Life is strange in its ways...listen to this,
It was in Oct-Nov 2002 that i first heard of George Padamadan. In the backdrop of a discussion on some mathematical topic, one of my friends mentioned to me that he knew a man - a rustic living away from the dust, smoke, noise and rush of Cochin. The man was George Padamadan - A philosopher and a mathematician. My friend had been to his residence for some lessons and was fortunate to learn from the master hismself. I remember him recounting how George Sir, as they call him, explained problems and solutions with passion and how the beauty of the subject mesmerized him. I remember having searched for him on the internet and reading an article about him, that appeared in a newspaper.
After my last post about PHI, i went ahead to read some stuff on abstract algebra and strangely happened to remember George Padamadan. I quickly searched for him on Google. I was petrified for a moment when i read the first line "George Padamadan (1932 - 2004) was an Indian Mathematician." He passed away last year.
Given below is an excerpt from Wikipedia,
George Padamadan lived in a village called Thuruthur, Puthenvelikara in the Ernakulam district of Kerala in India. He was educated at St.Joseph's College, Thiruchirappally, Tamilnadu, India and later studied at Loyola College, Madras, India. He devoted his entire life to mathematical study and analysis. He remained unknown to the world of mathematics till the last stage of his life. The world community took notice of him in 1993, when his paper titled "An Amateur Look on the Fallibilist Epistemology of Mathematics", challenged the findings of world renowned Hungarian mathematician Lacoste's 'Proof and Analysis Theory'. Padamadan's logic kept mathematicians spellbound.
May his soul rest in peace.