The upcoming museum of statistics in Hyderabad will showcase India’s seminal contribution in developing fundamental concepts in the subject.
There are museums of history and civilisation, of art, even science; but ever heard of a museum of statistics? “Sankhya — A Museum of Statistics”, India’s, and possibly the world’s only such museum was formed at the University of Hyderabad two years ago and will in a few years’ time shift into its own building on a five-acre plot inside the campus.
“We apply statistics everyday in our daily endeavour. We even use the science for cooking rice,” says 90-year-old Calyampudi Radhakrishna Rao, more famous as C R Rao, and the man behind the museum. Rao, professor emeritus at Penn State University and winner of the US National Medal of Science in 2002, is one of the most respected statisticians in the world today. The idea of establishing a museum of statistics, he says, came from a brief conversation with the then vice-chancellor of the University of Hyderabad, Seyed E Hasnain, in 2009. “He decided to allot five acres of land and made all arrangements to register the museum as a society,” recalls Rao.
The exhibits at the museum will illustrate the use of statistics in all spheres of human activity besides showcasing the achievements of Indian statisticians, and its seminal contribution in developing fundamental concepts and applications in the subject. It will have exhibits on the history of statistics, its emergence as a problem-solving tool, and serve as a repository of data on issues related to health, education and economics.
“Sankhya means number and also philosophy as a method of approaching reality — or generating knowledge — through observations — or numbers. I used to edit Sankhya, the journal of the Indian Stastical Institute, so I adopted this title,” Rao says.
Although statistics started as a separate discipline only in the middle of the last century, it has since been adopted as a great science, Rao points out. Around 150 hand-written letters from PC Mahalanobis, the pioneering statistician and founder of the Indian Statistical Institute, correspondence with statisticians on controversial issues, some academic robes, a gallery of Srinivasa Ramanujan and ancient Indian mathematicians will be on display. “Certificates, awards and citations of scholars who made major contributions to the development of statistics in India will be on show,” informs S B Rao, director, CR Rao Advanced Institute of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science. The museum will also have a reception and sales counter, seminar and meeting rooms, an auditorium and a library.
It will also act as a centre for scientific research, economic planning, quality control of manufactured goods, medical diagnosis, weather prediction, and so on. The museum also hopes to draw plans to face future challenges in cyber and information security and provide information on population figures and economic indices.
The museum will be built at a cost of around Rs 15 crore, and is a joint enterprise of University of Hyderabad and the CR Rao Institute. Hasnain will be its president. “The concept and the design for the museum have not been finalised yet. The construction work will start soon after we get the initial funding of Rs 6 crore. It will take around two years to complete the project,” says Rao.