Netizens trolled Piyush Goyal for crediting Newton’s invention to Einstein: Learn More

Union minister Piyush Goyal’s defence of the economy under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government led to an inadvertent error on the discovery of gravity today, setting Twitter buzzing.

Yesterday Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s comment linking millennials’ preference for Uber and Ola cabs to the auto sector crisis had set off a flurry of criticism on social media. Sarcastic hashtag “#BoycottMillennials” quickly became a top trend.

Ms Sitharaman said millennials choosing app-based cab aggregators over committing money to EMIs for new cars had affected the auto sector, which has seen double-digit fall in sales for both two and four-wheeler manufacturers. Earlier, speaking to reporters after a meeting in Delhi, Mr Piyush Goyal advised people not to go by calculations seen on television.

“If you’re looking at a five trillion dollar economy, the country will have to grow at 12%. Today it’s growing at 6%,” he said. “Don’t get into those maths. Those maths have never helped Einstein discover gravity… If you’d only gone by structured formulae and what was past knowledge, I don’t think there would have been any innovation in this world,” he added.

Twitter promptly pointed out that it was Newton and not Einstein who discovered gravity and the names of both scientists shot up in the trending lists.

watch this full video of Piyush Goyal: