Prof. M. Prakash

It was first week of first year in the college, a post lunch class and a boring lecture going on. Suddenly one nice young and matured person in jeans and t-shirt walked in and took permission from the teacher to tell us a few things. He went to the board and drew a triangle and two vertices of the triangle, drew a perpendicular to the next side. then he said, that if I draw the third one also, they will all pass through this common point!

It was quite amusing to me! He said same is true for angle bisectors and medians. You can learn more such interesting things about Geometry, Algebra, Number Theory and Combinatorics, in our classes for Regional Mathematics Olympiad in Bhaskaracharya Pratishthan.
That was my first meet with Prof. M. Prakash. That very evening I joined the classes in Bhaskaracharya Pratishthan, and my visits to this Maths institute continued for next two years.
I learnt lot of interesting Maths from Prakash Sir. After his MSc in Maths from IIT Kanpur, he has been teaching Olympiad Maths to all young students. Several of his students went on to win Gold Medals in International Mathematical Olympiads!
He tought us so many techniques of problem solving, and one day he said to me,"Abhay, mind works faster than hand." And he showed a way to find a solution by just thinking, rather than doing elaborate analysis.
I was selected in Regional Maths Olympiad and then joined the classes with Prakash Sir for Indian National Maths Olympiad. It was an amazing two month training that I underwent. A box of unknown things was opened. Unimaginable things were revealed and understood.
I expressed my interest in pursuing Physics to Prakash Sir. He immediately recommended me Feynman Lecture Series.
He opened a door for amazingly incredible thing called Science to me!

How to cut a Cake

"How to cut a cake and other mathematical Conundrums" is a book by Ian Stewart, author of "Math Hysteria". He discusses in a non-technical manner a number of interesting mathematical puzzles and brings out the beauty and mystery of Mathematics. Mathematicians can wonder about amazing situations, and bring out mathematics out of daily life situations. E.g. he puts the question as to from the number of different ways to tie a shoelace, which one uses the smallest length of shoe. Or, given that probability of a coin giving a head is half, and first four tosses turned out to be tail, will the coin catch up with the number of heads in remaining tosses. If yes, how long should one wait.
The title is based on the problem that given a cake, how would you cut and allow people to take the cuts, so that each one feels they have got their adequate share?
A very refreshing read for anyone who is curious about Mathematics, and if you are afraid of maths, this book will show you simple examples of problems and their solutions.