M S Raghunathan joined the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai in 1960 and is presently a Professor of Eminence there..

In this two part article I will attempt to convey the flavour of some current mathematical ideas, aiming at the non-expert. In Part 1 a little about mathematics and mathematicians is discussed.

Often there is a big gap between what the general public thinks about a profession and what the professionals themselves do. I think that this gap is particularly wide in the case of mathematics as many people do not quite know what mathematicians do. People have asked me what there was left to do in mathematics – have not all theorems been already proved! There are others who think that calculating prodigies like Sakunthala Devi are mathematicians, which they are not.

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Address for Correspondence
M S Raghunathan
Tata Institute of Fundamental Research
Homi Bhabha Road
Mumbai 400 005, India.