Lecture series launched to celebrate National Mathematics Day

Chandigarh: The Society for Promotion of Science & Technology in India (SPSTI) and the Chandigarh Chapter of National Academy of Sciences, India (NASI), with support from Haryana State Council for Science, Technology & Innovation, has launched a lecture series today to celebrate National Mathematics Day, the birth anniversary of the great mathematician Srinivasa  Ramanujan. To mark the occasion, a series of online activities involving lectures, quiz, poster competition and declamation would be conducted up to March, 2021.

The first in this series was a lecture, "Mathematics behind Data Transmission” by Prof. Gurmeet Kaur Bakshi, Department of Mathematics, Panjab University, Chandigarh, held today. The lecture was attended by more than 1,500 students, teachers and others on Zoom and Facebook.

The session was conducted by Prof. Keya Dharmvir with opening remarks. Miss Rajni Bhalla, Joint Secretary SPSTI greeted all those present and introduced the speaker and her achievements.

Prof. Gurmeet Bakshi is a distinguished professor of Mathematics with research interest in Group Rings, Representation Theory and Algebraic Coding. structure of semi simple group algebras and its applications in coding theory.

Prof. Bakshi started the lecture on data transmission, digital transmission and digital communication in the context of the physical transfer of data over a point-to-point or point-to-multipoint communication channel and its correction using examples such as ISBN number, which is a code allotted as International Standard Book Number. When data is transmitted through any channel it may get distorted due to disturbances in channel and hence data cannot be transmitted correctly. She spoke about Hamming code which is used in computer memory, nano-satellite and telecommunication; Golay code, which was a search for the perfect coding and Hamming code. Golay code is used in general science, engineering data for missions and in medical science for ultrasonic machines and non-invasive surgeries. BSH code uses Ramanujan equations for decoding. It has application in satellite communication, compact disc players, DVDs, disk drives, solid state drives, cryptography and bar codes. She said there is room to work in group algebra codes as much work is presently going on and can help in effective encoding.
The session followed with questions about use of such information by a number of students and mathematics enthusiast. There was also detailed discussion on accuracy and secrecy of the message and also no interruptions that can occur during data transmission. The session was appreciated by attendees. The concluding remarks were made by Prof. Arun K. Grover.

Shri Dharam Vir, IAS (Retd.) & President SPSTI, presented a vote of thanks to the speaker as well as the audience. He said a few more lectures would be organized to create awareness on mathematics and its growing application in our lives.