Many fell in love with ‘dreaded subject’ because of mathematician Mangala Narlikar
Renowned mathematician Mangala Narlikar passed away at the age of 80 after a long battle with cancer. She dedicated her life to making mathematics accessible to all, particularly children, and wrote several books on the subject. She is survived by her husband, astrophysicist Jayant Narlikar, and their three daughters, all of whom pursued careers in science. Mangala Narlikar's contributions to the field and her impact on students will be remembered.
The mission of eminent mathematician and scientist Mangala Narlikar, wife of noted astrophysicist and cosmologist Jayant Narlikar, who passed away at her residence in Pune on Monday after a prolonged illness, was to make the subject of numbers interesting and accessible to all. Her forte was to explain the subject to all, especially children, in lucid language.
According to her family members, Mangala had been battling cancer for the past few months.
She is survived by husband and three daughters - Geeta, Girija and Leelavati.
Leelavati said, “Mangala Jayant Narlikar, an eminent mathematician and educationalist, aged 80, passed away during the early hours on July 17, 2023. She had been battling cancer for more than a year. She is survived by her husband, three daughters and five grandchildren.”
All their three daughters have pursued careers in science; Geeta is a professor of biochemistry at the University of California, San Francisco, and the other two are in computer science.
On balancing work and family, Mangala used to say that her story is perhaps a representation of the lives of many women of her generation who are well educated, but always put household responsibilities before their personal careers.
Her core fields of interest were real and complex analysis, analytic geometry, number theory, algebra, and topology.
Born in Mumbai on May 17, 1943, Mangala topped her BA (1962) and MA (1964) in maths with first rank from the University of Bombay (now known as University of Mumbai), besides winning the Chancellor’s gold medal.
From 1964 to 1966, she worked as a research student and research associate at the School of Mathematics of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai.
She married Jayant Narlikar in 1965. The couple moved to the UK, where she taught maths at the Cambridge University in England from 1967 to 1969.
From 1974 to 1980, she again worked at the School of Mathematics of TIFR.
She obtained her doctorate in maths from the University of Bombay, 16 years after her marriage, in 1981, on analytic number theory.
After obtaining her doctoral degree, she continued to work with TIFR from 1982 to 1985 as a pool officer, a temporary placement given to highly qualified persons not holding any other employment, in the School of Mathematics.
In 1989, the couple moved to Pune. She taught at the Department of Mathematics at the University of Pune, now called as the Savitribai Phule Pune University, from 1989 to 2002, and taught MSc students at the centre in Bhaskaracharya Pratishthan from 2006 to 2010.
She was honoured with the Vishwanath Parvati Gokhale Award 2002.
She was also on Balbharati’s (Maharashtra State Bureau of Textbook) committee on mathematics for school student.
Some of her popular books in English and Marathi include “A Cosmic Adventure”, “An easy Access to Basic Mathematics (book for school students)”, Ganit Gappa (Part 1, 2)”, “Easy access to mathematics (book for school students)”, “Nabhat Hasre Taare (co-authors - Ajit Kembhavi and Jayant Narlikar), and “Pahalale Desh”, and “Bhetleli Manasam” on astronomy.
Arvind Paranjpye, director, Nehru Planetarium, Mumbai, said, “Mangala Narlikar dedicated her life to teaching mathematics and science in India. She has written several books for school students on mathematics in English, Hindi and Marathi. Alongside teaching, she also dedicated time to scientific outreach across the entire nation. In Pune, she used to teach mathematics to school and college students and is remembered by generations of students who learned from her. It is a huge loss for the mathematics and scientific community of India and her home state Maharashtra.”
The Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA), Pune, also released a statement about Mangala Narlikar’s demise stating, “IUCAAstro family is in great grief due to the sad demise of mathematician and popular writer Mangala Narlikar at her residence in Pune.”
“She was also a proponent of rationalism and scientific attitude and a popular writer. The whole IUCAA family is currently together in this moment of mourning... She was the strongest supporter of our founder, Director Prof. Jayant Narlikar and thus instrumental in the birth and evolution of IUCAA,” it added.
Her mortal remains were kept at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) here for people to pay homage and the last rites were performed at the Vaikunth crematorium in the afternoon.
Chief minister Eknath Shinde also condoled her death. “The news of the death of senior mathematician, scientist and writer Mangala Narlikar is very sad. Her outstanding contribution to making mathematics, which is difficult for students, was to make it easy with writing style. With her death, we have lost a great mathematician as well as a scientific thinker...,” said Shinde in a tweet.
In one of the articles on “A career in mathematics”, Mangala had said, “As I grew older, I realised that I enjoy teaching maths to bright students as well as those who are afraid of it. It is rewarding to help school kids to understand and enjoy mathematics which is often a dreaded subject. So, I wrote a book on how to make mathematics interesting and accessible to students who are scared of it.”
While Mangala’s passing away may be just a number in the history of mathematicians, her extensive body of work and the inspiration for many who fell in love with the subject because of her will be an admirable count.
