Benjamin Netanyahu lauds India's science prowess

Tel Aviv, Nov 7: Lauding India's capacity for science and innovation, Israeli Prime Minister

told visiting Indian Home Minister

that the best mathematicians always came from India.

"My uncle, who was a mathematician, always used to tell me that the best mathematicians came from India", Netanyahu told Singh.

The Indian Home Minister commended the achievements of Israel and Israeli scientists in different fields sharing with the Israeli Premier a not so well collaboration in the field of science between people from the two old civilisations. Singh, a former Professor of Physics, also shared with Netanyahu the story of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle being inspired by Rabindranath Tagore.

Rajnath Singh commended the achievements of Israel and Israeli scientists

Heisenberg spent some time in India as the guest of the celebrated poet in 1929 during which he had long conversations about science and philosophy.

This introduction to Indian thought brought Heisenberg great comfort and is supposed to have convinced him to see that the recognition of relativity, interconnectedness, and impermanence as fundamental aspects of physical reality, which had been so difficult for him and his fellow physicists, was the very basis of the Indian spiritual traditions.

After those conversations with Tagore, Heisenberg is said to have acknowledged that some of the ideas that had seemed so crazy suddenly made much more sense to him.

Singh also referred to Indian achievements in science, including the concept of zero, decimals and algebra. Netanyahu in return pointed out the great potential for utilisation of this capacity noting that the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he studied, and the silicon valley is full of Indians and Israelis.

He also mentioned that he made a lot of Indian friends during his studies at MIT.

PTI