Damodar Dharmananda Kosambi was an Indian mathematician, statistician, Marxist historian, and polymath who contributed to genetics by introducing Kosambi's map function. He is well known for his work in numismatics and for compiling critical editions of ancient Sanskrit texts.
Background
After a few years of schooling in India, in 1918 D.D. Kosambi and his elder sister, Manik Kosambi, travelled to Cambridge, Massachusetts with his father; the latter was tasked by Professor Charles Rockwell Lanman of Harvard University to complete compiling a critical edition of Visuddhimagga, a book on Buddhist philosophy, which was originally started by Henry Clarke Warren. There he spent a year in the Grammar school and then was admitted to the Cambridge High and Latin School in 1920. He became a member of the Cambridge branch of American Boy Scouts. It was here in Cambridge that he befriended another prodigy of the time, Norbert Wiener, whose father Leo Wiener was the elder Kosambi's colleague at Harvard University. Kosambi excelled in his final school examination and was one of the few candidates who was exempt on the basis of merit from necessarily passing an entrance examination essential at the time to gain admission to Harvard University. He enrolled in Harvard in 1924, but eventually postponed his studies, and returned to India. He stayed with his father who was now working in the Gujarat University, and was in the close circles of Mahatma Gandhi. In January 1926, Kosambi returned to the US with his father, who once again studied at Harvard University for a year and half. Kosambi studied mathematics under George David Birkhoff, who wanted him to concentrate on mathematics, but the ambitious Kosambi instead took many diverse courses excelling in each of them. In 1929, Harvard awarded him the Bachelor of Arts degree with a summa cum laude. He was also granted membership to the esteemed Phi Beta Kappa Society, the oldest undergraduate honours organisation in the United States. He returned to India soon after. He was technical consultant to the Chinese government.
Education
At the age of 11, he accompanied his father to the USA where his father was working with the Harvard University on Buddhism. He completed his schooling from the Cambridge Latin School and joined his father's university from where he graduated in Mathematics, History and Languages. English, Greek Latin, French and German were his favorites along with Sanskrit, Pali and Persian which he learned at the feet of his father. But his basic specialty remained with Mathematics, Statistics and Genetics. He returned to India and began teaching mathematics in universities.
He enrolled in Harvard in 1924, but eventually postponed his studies, and returned to India. He stayed with his father who was now working in the Gujarat University, and was in the close circles of Mahatma Gandhi. In January 1926, Kosambi returned to the US with his father, who once again studied at Harvard University for a year and half. Kosambi studied mathematics under George David Birkhoff, who wanted him to concentrate on mathematics, but the ambitious Kosambi instead took many diverse courses excelling in each of them. In 1929, Harvard awarded him the Bachelor of Arts degree with a summa cum laude. He was also granted membership to the esteemed Phi Beta Kappa Society, the oldest undergraduate honours organisation in the United States. He returned to India soon after. He was technical consultant to the Chinese government.
Career
He became the professor of Banaras Hindu University (BHU), teaching German and mathematics. He published his first research paper, "Precessions of an Elliptic Orbit" in the Indian Journal of Physics in 1930.
In 1931 that he was hired by mathematician Andr‚ Weil, then Professor of Mathematics at Aligarh Muslim University, to the post of lecturer in mathematics at Aligarh. He produced eight research papers in the general area of Differential Geometry and Path Spaces. As he was fluent in several European languages, some of his early papers in French, Italian and German journals in their respective languages were published.
In 1933, he joined Fergusson College in Pune, where he taught mathematics for 12 years. He started his interdisciplinary pursuit. In 1944 he published a small article of 4 pages titled `The Estimation of Map Distance from Recombination Values` in Annals of Eugenics, in which he introduced map function.
His important contribution is the widely known technique called proper orthogonal decomposition. It is now referred to as the Karhunen-Loeve expansion. This is applied in image processing, signal processing, data compression, oceanography, chemical engineering and fluid mechanics.
He published his critical editions of Bhartrihari`s Shatakatrayee and Subhashitas. He started his political activism by supporting the Communist Party of India.
In 1945, he became the professor of Mathematics in Tata Institute of Fundamental Research. Post independence, in 1948-49 he was sent to England and the US as a UNESCO Fellow to study the theoretical and technical aspects of computer. After returning to India, he was drawn into the World Peace Movement and served as a Member of the World Peace Council. Due to some untoward circumstances he had to leave this institute.
Thereafter he concentrated on his research in ancient Indian history and wrote a book `The Culture and Civilisation of Ancient India`, which was published in 1965. In June 1964, Kosambi was appointed as a Scientist Emeritus of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). He died in Pune on June 29, 1966. He was posthumously given the Hari Om Ashram Award by the government of India`s University Grant Commission in 1980.
As a historian, he revolutionised Indian historiography with his Marxist approach.