SEPTEMBER 13, 2019
Union minister Piyush Goyal, who found himself in hot water with his remark that “Maths never helped Einstein discover gravity”, Friday admitted that he committed a gaffe by crediting the discovery of gravity to Albert Einstein instead of Issac Newton.
“We all get the opportunity to make mistakes. I said Einstein instead of Newton. The same Einstein had said, `A person who never made a mistake, never tried anything new.’ I am not someone who is afraid of making mistakes…the moment I realised my mistake, I made a clarification,” news agency PTI quoted Goyal as saying at a function at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus in Mumbai.
Speaking at Board of Trade Meeting, Union Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal said, “let’s work together collectively, with new ideas, with a new spirit of engagement and with anew enthusiasm, believing nothing is impossible.”
The Indian Express (@IndianExpress) September 12, 2019
Clarifying his statement, the Union minister for commerce and railways said he was talking about the need to find innovative ways to build a 5 trillion dollar economy in five years, of which exports would account for 20 per cent. “Unfortunately, the context took a backseat and my inadvertent mistake was highlighted,” he said.
On Thursday, while speaking to reporters on boosting India’s exports at a meeting with the Board of Trade here, Goyal had said, Don’t get into the calculations that you see on television: Oh, if you’re looking at a $5 trillion economy, the country will have to grow at 12 per cent. Today it’s growing at 6-7 per cent. Don’t get into those maths. Those maths have never helped Einstein discover gravity.
Goyal had quickly issued a clarification saying, There is a very mischievous and baseless narrative sought to be presented about my closing comments at the Board of Trade meeting this morning. The comment I made had a certain context.”
While it was Newton who formulated the law of universal gravitation in late 17th century, gravity is most accurately described by the general theory of relativity proposed by Albert Einstein in 1915 which describes gravity not as a force, but as a consequence of the curvature of space-time caused by the uneven distribution of mass.
Courtesy/Source: Indian Express
