Subhash Kak (Hindi: सुभाष काक Subhāṣ Kāk) (born March 26, 1947 in Srinagar, Kashmir) is an Indian American computer scientist, most notable for his controversial Indological publications on history, the philosophy of science, ancient astronomy, and the history of mathematics. In computer science he has published material related to cryptography and quantum information.
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Kak's writings concerning the astronomy of the Vedic period in his book The Astronomical Code of the Rigveda (1994) back "Indigenous Aryans" ideology, questioning mainstream views on the Indo-Aryan migration and the nature of early Indian science. His chronology and astronomical calculations have been opposed by several Indologists (such as Michael Witzel[1]) and historians of science,.[2] Kak's interpretation has been included in recent overviews of astronomy in the Vedic period in India[3] and the West.[4]
The Astronomical Code of the Rigveda (New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan, 1994; revised and enlarged edition, New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 2000) claims regularities in the organization of the Rigveda, connecting the structure to certain numbers in the astronomy-based ritual of the five-layered brick altars of the Vedic times.
Kak's archaeoastronomical claims have the effect of significantly extending the Vedic period, postulating the arrival of ethnic Indo-Aryans to the 7th millennium BC. This claim is in contradiction with mainstream Indology and historical linguistics[5] and science historians[2]
Kak arranges the number of hymns in each book of the Rigveda as follows, and compares the arrangement to a Vedic fire altar:
RV 10:191 RV 9:114 RV 7 :104 RV 8: 92 RV 5 : 87 RV 6: 75 RV 3 : 62 RV 4: 58 RV 2 : 43 RV 1:191
He then computes various sums and subtractions within the diagram, finding numbers related to the distance between the Earth and the Sun, and the sidereal periods of various planets.
Kak's method depends on the structure of the Rigveda as redacted by Shakalya in the late Brahmana period as opposed to the intrinsic content in the oldest portions of the text. Specifically, Witzel (2001) believes that Kak's approach relates to the organizations of the Rigveda into mandalas ("books"), a process of redaction undertaken by the shakhas long after the composition of the individual hymns (the samhita prose period, dating to well within the Indian Iron Age), rendering the attempt to date the text in this flawed. Other scholars have discredited Kak's claims and methods. Nanda has said that Kak's "method is breathtakingly ad hoc and reads like numerology 101."[6]
Kak co-authored In Search of the Cradle of Civilization (1995) participating in the controversy in Indian politics surrounding Indigenous Aryans and the Out of India theory.[7]
Kak's book The Asvamedha: The Rite and Its Logic (2002) provides a symbolic interpretation of the Vedic Ashvamedha (horse sacrifice) rite.[8]
Kak takes a conservative stance politically, supporting Indian "nuclear deterrence" against China, opposing what he calls "socialist ideas" in the Indian constitution, the "Soviet-style ideas of the Congress party" and "terrorists from across the [Pakistani] border".[9] Alan Sokal sarcastically labeled Kak "one of the leading intellectual luminaries of the Hindu-nationalist diaspora", in the course of a discussion in which Sokal discusses pseudoscientific aspects of Hindutva ideology, under which he includes of some of Kak's work.[10]
Subhash Kak completed his BE from NIT Srinagar and Ph.D. at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi in 1970. He taught there. During 1975-1976, he was a visiting faculty at Imperial College, London, and a guest researcher at Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill. In 1977, he was a visiting researcher at Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Bombay.[11] In 1979 joined Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge where he is now Donald C. and Elaine T. Delaune Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering. In 2007, he was appointed head of the Computer Science department at Oklahoma State University.[12]
His research in the fields of cryptography, random sequences, artificial intelligence, and information theory have been published in peer reviewed journals. He proposed a test of algorithmic randomness,[13] and a type of instantaneously trained neural networks (INNs) (which he and his students have called "Kak neural networks"). He claims to be amongst the first to apply information metrics to quantum systems.[14]
Kak has argued that there are limits to the intelligence machines can have and it cannot equal biological intelligence.[15] He asserts that
Kak has proposed the use of recurring decimals for error correction coding, cryptography and as random sequences.[17]
The Kak neural network is an instantaneously trained neural network that creates a new "hidden neuron" for each training sample, achieving immediate training for binary data. The training algorithm for binary data creates links to the new hidden node that simply reflects the binary values in the training vector. Hence no computation is involved.[18]
"Kak's three stage protocol" is a protocol for quantum cryptography suggested by Kak.[19]
Kak claimed to be the first to have used the term "quantum neural computing",[20] taking a Quantum mind position not unlike that notably proposed by Roger Penrose in The Emperor's New Mind which was published in 1989. He sees the brain as a machine that reduces the infinite possibilities of a "quantum-like universal consciousness", which is a consequence of the "recursive nature of reality".[21]
Kak's "philosophy of recursionism" is expounded in his books The Gods Within, The Architecture of Knowledge, and The Prajna Sutra. Kak contributes to the Project of History of Indian Science, Philosophy and Culture.
In The Architecture of Knowledge, Kak talks about quantum mechanics, neuroscience, computers, and consciousness. The book is one of the twenty planned monographs in the multi-volume series on the Project of History of Indian Science, Philosophy and Culture under the general editorship of Professor D. P. Chattopadhyaya.
The book provides philosophical connections to contemporary science that reach back not only to the Greek but also to the Indian tradition.
The book seeks to find a consistent framework for knowledge in logic, purpose, and awareness, and sees science as representation and transformation of machines, of reality, and of life. Reality is seen in different layers, and
In February 2007 a Louisiana State University (LSU) press release[23] asserted that Kak had "resolved the twin paradox". The actual paper[24] states that the twin paradox has "various 'resolutions' that are not in consonance with each other",[25] while in state-of-the-art physics, there is nothing unresolved about the so-called twin paradox, rendering any claim to have "resolved" it meaningless.