‘Maths didn’t help Einstein discover gravity’: Union Minister Piyush Goyal

First it was Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman blaming millennials for the stagnation in the auto industry. Now, it’s Union Railways and Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal coming up with another, umm, stunning statement to deflect blame for slow growth.

At a Board of Trade Meeting in New Delhi, Goyal essentially stated that one shouldn’t bother too much about numbers: “…don’t get into that calculation that you see on television, if you are looking at a five trillion economy then the country will have to grow country at twelve per cent. Today it is growing at 6 or 7 per cent, don’t get into those maths, those maths have never helped Einstein to discover gravity. If he would have gone only by structured formulae and what was past knowledge, I don’t think there would have been any innovation in the world”.

Apart from the fact that Einstein didn’t really ‘discover gravity’, Goyal’s pronouncement on not needing Math for scientific discoveries is comical to say the least. Goyal is currently trending on Twitter, mostly for making Sitharaman’s previous utterances seem a little smarter.