"Ordinary people can be taught to understand, learn and enjoy important, non-trivial mathematics"

My dear friends,

In the public interest, we are providing Sawyer-lovers a link to an article-in-a-box, taken from the July 2009 issue of Resonance, which is a journal of science education, published monthly by the Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore, India.

The article entitled, "W.W. Sawyer (1911-2008)" is written by Dr. Vivek Monteiro, who is a founder of Nav Nirmiti (NN), an organization working for math universalization.

In the opening paragraph of his article, Dr Monteiro says, "Mathematics is commonly believed to be a difficult and esoteric subject, a holy temple situated at high altitude accessible only to a select and privileged few.

"The life and work of W. W. Sawyer, who passed away last year at the ripe age of 97, was dedicated to disproving the above thesis by demonstrating the converse proposition: that ordinary people can be taught to understand, learn and enjoy important, non-trivial mathematics."

After Sawyer’s death, a collection of his books in various translations, his hand-written notes, and photographs were kindly donated to Nav Nirmiti, by his daughter and son-in-law, Anne and Pedro Leon.

Nav Nirmiti is setting up a "Prof. W. W. Sawyer Memorial" in Pune, India, which will archive these materials and also translate his books into Indian languages. Translation into Marathi and Hindi has commenced.

The Sawyer archive and the Memorial will be located at the following address:
Third floor, Umed Building,
Raman Baug Chowk,
564B/2, Shaniwar Peth,
Pune - 411030, India.

Those interested in the work of the Sawyer Memorial may contact the author:
Dr. Vivek Monteiro,
at: vivekmonteiro@yahoo.com.

Yours sincerely,

On behalf of the Sawyer Memorial,
- Joe Pinto.

Pune, India, Wednesday, 19th August 2009.