Piyush Goyal trolled for saying Einstein discovered gravity

In a bid to defend the government’s target of transforming the country into a $5 trillion economy amid a current economic slowdown, Union minister Piyush Goyal on Thursday (September 12) claimed that maths did not help Albert Einstein to discover gravity, while stating that the ambitious target should not be seen through the prism of maths.

“Do not get into the calculations that you see on television. Do not get into those maths. Those maths never helped Einstein discover gravity,” Goyal said.

“If he had only gone by structured formulae and what was past knowledge, I do not think there would have been any innovation in this world,” he said at the meeting of the Board of Trade, while wrongly attributing the discovery of gravity to Einstein instead of Newton.

Soon, the wrongful attribution started trending on social media as netizens pointed out that gravity was discovered by Isaac Newtown and that Albert Einstein is credited for his theory of relativity. Memes ruled the internet as Twitterati erupted into an offence over the statement.

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A few days ago, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman too was trolled on social media for blaming millennials for the slump in car sales. She had told reporters that nowadays millennials were preferring to travel by Ola and Uber rather than committing to buying cars.

Opposition Congress too had slammed the minister saying it reflected the “inefficiency, immaturity and inexperience” of the BJP in governance. Congress spokesperson AM Singhvi too had termed Sitharaman’s statement as a grave joke on the poor state of the economy.

(With inputs from agencies)