This story is about a Russian Physicist Igor Tamm who saved his own life through the help of mathematics. You must be thinking now how that’s possible, but it’s a very interesting story and extraordinary.
Igor Tamm was born on 8th July 1895 in Vladivostok, Russia he was a Soviet Physicist while studying at the University of Edinburgh he had to join the army due to the outbreak of World War 1 in 1914 and after Tamm’s graduation, he started teaching physics.
During these years Tamm won a Nobel prize in the year 1958 in Physics while there was the revolution of Russians going on he used to teach at the University of Odesa in Ukraine as a professor. At that time of revolution, the situation wasn’t good for people around and the supply of food was very less and in search of food Tamm started his short trip toward a village trying to find some nourishment.
Tamm spent several days in the village in search of some food and during that period a group of anti-communist bandits surrounded the whole village area under them. The leader of the bandits got suspicious towards Tamm while looking at all the villagers he saw Tamm in city clothes and the leader knew he wasn’t a villager.
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The leader asked Tamm, ‘what does he do for a living?’ he answered by saying that he was a Professor at the University and came here in search of some food. Then the bandit leader asked ‘what subject do you teach?’ Tamm replied by saying ‘I teach mathematics’. ‘Mathematics? Ok,’ the leader replied.
After this, the leader asked Tamm to “give an estimated answer of an error one can make by cutting off a Maclaurin series expansion at the nth term” then the leader continued by saying there is one condition if you explain about this I’ll let you go free. If you fail in doing so I’ll directly shoot you.
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After listening to the question and the condition Tamm was not just a little amazed. The leader pointed the gun toward him and at that gunpoint, Tamm managed to work it out for answering after minutes of working Tamm showed it to the bandit leader and after pursuing the explanation the Tamm leader said “Correct! Go home.” Tamm was definitely in relief but he also gave it a thought that how can a bandit leader of anti-communist ask such a question and Tamm couldn’t even ever discover about the leader’s name.
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In conclusion, nobody can be sure when and how math can save your life but it can do one thing certainly which is it can change your life. A lot of people have the same feeling that math is very hard but if given a proper perspective towards the subject then they may have a different perspective altogether. Here, in Vedic Math, we have the same motto and a lot of people have liked the whole teaching period. To know more you can visit our courses. Thank you!
Simply Great