Amit's Blog

How a 14th-Century Kerala Astronomer Became the Uncredited Engine of Wall Street The claim that the Black-Scholes option pricing model is "Indian" is neither entirely true nor false—it is a provocation exposing how global knowledge has been systematically extracted, refined, and rebranded. While Fischer Black, Myron Scholes, and Robert Merton created the financial framework that revolutionized Wall Street in 1973, the mathematical engine beneath their famous equation draws directly from infinite series pioneered by Madhava of Sangamagrama in 14th-century Kerala. This article traces the full arc: from Madhava's forgotten calculus, through the Jesuit transmission pipeline, to Srinivasa Ramanujan's mock theta functions, and finally to modern trading floors. It examines the parallel discovery claim of Thiruvenkatachari Shanthakumar, the fierce debate over independent invention versus structural appropriation, and the broader pattern of epistemological erasure that h...

The Collapse of the Linear Labor Equation For three decades, the foundational economic calculus of the global IT services sector was deceptively elementary: to grow top-line revenue, corporations expanded their human armies. This tight, linear dependency between headcount and financial growth created a massive engine of upward mobility across emerging economies. However, that linear correlation has permanently fractured. Over the last three years, an unprecedented structural decoupling has taken place. Driven by advanced algorithmic automation, global IT giants are maintaining and even expanding net profits while systematically hollowing out their human core. The traditional "linear headcount model" that defined the global information technology ecosystem since the dawn of offshoring has officially collapsed. Historically, a tech firm’s economic health was directly mapped to its workforce size; a contract for a Fortune 500 bank required a predictable allocation of human h...

How Ancient Civilizations Shape Modern Consciousness, Morality, and the Search for Meaning Ethics and aesthetics are not separate domains but deeply intertwined civilizational technologies that shape human perception, desire, and moral imagination. Across Indian and Western traditions, beauty has never been merely decorative—it has served as a vehicle for spiritual transformation, ethical formation, and metaphysical insight. Yet beneath this shared recognition lie profound divergences: whether the self is eternal, provisional, or illusory; whether art represents reality or transforms consciousness; whether ethics concerns rules, flourishing, or liberation. These ancient debates continue to shape modern architecture, politics, education, social media behavior, and even how people experience time. This article synthesizes discussions across Greek, Christian, Buddhist, Jain, Vedic, existentialist, and utilitarian traditions to reveal how civilizations train perception before they trai...