Shri Ram Gupta's contribution is now being appreciated not only by NCERT, HRD ministry and Limca Book of Records but also by the American Mathematical Society.
Otherwise, Gupta, 59, had been happily teaching at a Kendriya Vidyalaya in Jhansi for over three decades. The teacher's works on Menelaus' theorem and cyclic polygons theorem have led to their extension to bring about approximate generalisations. A theorem is good when its applicability is universal and he always felt there was something amiss in both postulates.
'For 10 years or so, I'd think about these theorems day and night. I felt there was something amiss. This doubt prompted me to keep exploring. I was successful in generalising them for higher geometric shapes,' Gupta told TOI after he had made a presentation of his second theorem at NCERT on June 3.
Submitted to the American Mathematical Society on July 24 last year, the work was acknowledged by it as “extension” of Menelaus' and cyclic quadrilateral theorems. The citation by Limca Book says that Gupta 'developed original theorems and registered them with the ministry of HRD on April 12, 2005'.
For his second theorem, the teacher even coined a new phrase
