If you find yourself grappling with an intellectual problem that has remained unsolved for millennia, try taking a few months off and engage in activities like swimming and meditating. This strategy proved successful for a Cambridge PhD student named Rishi Rajpopat. After a summer spent away from research-related activities, he returned to a text by the ancient grammarian, logician, and “father of linguistics” Pāṇini, and found it newly comprehensible.
Pāṇini composed his texts using an algorithm that had baffled scholars for 2,500 years. However, Rajpopat’s discovery of a difficult-to-interpret “metarule” led to a breakthrough. This metarule dictates the rule applicable to the right side of a word between conflicting rules. Applying this rule renders interpretations of Pāṇini’s work almost completely unambiguous and grammatical.
Even though understanding the structure of Sanskrit may be challenging for some, Rajpopat’s discovery could potentially be used to teach Sanskrit grammar to computers programmed for natural language processing. The process highlights the importance of letting our unconscious mind tackle complex problems, often leading to innovative solutions.
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Based in Seoul, Colin Marshall writes and broadcasts on cities, language, and culture. His projects include the Substack newsletter Books on Cities and the book The Stateless City: a Walk through 21st-Century Los Angeles. Follow him on Twitter at @colinmarshall or on Facebook.
