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The Man Who Knew Infinity: A Life of the Genius Ramanujan (Paperback) (Paperback)
by Robert Kanigel
| Category:
Mathematics, Science |
| Market price: ¥ 168.00
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¥ 158.00
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| MSL Pointer Review:
An Inspirational account of the life of a Mathematical genius. |
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Author: Robert Kanigel
Publisher: Washington Square Press
Pub. in: April, 1991
ISBN: 0671750615
Pages: 464
Measurements: 8.3 x 5.4 x 1.4 inches
Origin of product: USA
Order code: BA00287
Other information: Rep edition
ISBN-13: 978-0671750619
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- Awards & Credential -
A New York Times Notable Book of the Year |
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- MSL Picks -
One of the most wonderful things in the story of Srinavasa Ramanujan, the Indian mathematician, is the noble character of G.H. Hardy, the English mathematician. Hardy's character was as remarkable for things that he didn't do as it was for things that he did.
When Ramanujan sent his first letter to Hardy, enclosing valuable mathematical results, Hardy could have laid it aside, unread or undervalued. Other mathematicians did. Instead, Hardy sent an emissary half way around the earth to bring Ramanujan to England. Once Ramanujan arrived in Cambridge, Hardy could have taken credit for Ramanujan's work and seen him off, back to India. Other men have done worse.
Also, one of the worst things that can happen to a brilliant man such as Ramanujan is to have a powerful but duller teacher who can not take second place to a brighter student. Hardy recognized Ramanujan as a far better mathematician and nurtured him without envy. That is one of the most remarkable things about this story.
It is easy to be anachronistic about Hardy and Ramanujan. It's easy to put sneer quotes around Hardy's "discovery" of Ramanujan, now that there are Indian names in most large American telephone books. And it's easy to fault Hardy for failing to enrich Ramanujan's food with vitamin D, years before its discovery. All it takes is to know little or nothing of Ramanujan's times.
To a small extent, the author of this book does the equivalent. Still, this is a deeply interesting story, very well told. Reading it, you'll learn why Ramanujan died so early, tightly constrained by the limitations of his own era. And you'll learn why his early death was such a great loss.
It's a pity that Ramanujan wasn't born later, say in 1927. Read this book and imagine what Ramanujan could have done with a pocket calculator, during a long life.
Target readers:
The readers interested in the Mathematics
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Robert Kanigel, author of The One Best Way: Frederick Winslow Taylor and the Enigma of Efficiency, is a professor of science writing at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Also a freelance writer, his work has appeared in various publications, including the New York Times Book Review, the Wilson Quarterly, and Psychology Today.
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From Publishers Weekly (MSL quote)
This moving and astonishing biography tells the improbable story of India-born Srinavasa Ramanujan Iyengar, self-taught mathematical prodigy. In 1913 Ramanujan, a 25-year-old clerk who had flunked out of two colleges, wrote a letter filled with startlingly original theorems to eminent English mathematician G. H. Hardy. Struck by the Indian's genius, Hardy, member of the Cambridge Apostles and an obsessive cricket aficionado, brought Ramanujan to England. Over the next five years, the vegetarian Brahmin who claimed his discoveries were revealed to him by a Hindu goddess turned out influential mathematical propositions. Cut off from his young Indian wife left at home and emotionally neglected by fatherly yet aloof Hardy, Ramanujan returned to India in 1919, depressed, sullen and quarrelsome; he died one year later of tuberculosis. Kanigel ( Apprentice to Genius ) gives nontechnical readers the flavor of how Ramanujan arrived at his mathematical ideas, which are used today in cosmology and computer science.
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| View all 8 comments |
Sumit Rahman (MSL quote), UK
<2007-01-30 00:00>
Ramanujan perhaps suffers a little from being such an extraordinary character - I'm surprised at how little-known his story is, even in Britain (a friend of mine who read mathematics at Cambridge had never heard of him until after she graduated!), and most accounts I've read seem rather superficial. Kanigel manages to make him sound like a man - a man with a uniqely sharp mathematical vision - but a human being nonetheless. What, I think, makes Kanigel's account so successful is his willingness to take Ramanujan's religious faith seriously and not to sideline it. He is very good at describing the two different worlds (South India and Cambridge), both of which are vastly different from 21st century Western life, and letting us get a feel for the culture of each place. He also should take credit for attempting to describe some of the mathematics involved.
The Ramanujan story is, I believe, a sad one and Kanigel isn't scared to confront some of the issues that should anger some of us. Yes, Ramanujan was a phenomenon of which India should feel proud - but equally she should be shocked at how easily he could have lived his life undiscovered. Yes, Hardy should take credit for recognising Ramanujan's genius and taking him under his wing - but equally he allowed Ramanujan to live a lonely and in many way malnourished life in Britain. And so on. I think that this is an excellent, honest, book.
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Marius Jordaan (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-30 00:00>
It is interesting to note that much of the work of Ramanujan is still not understood, and it might be another 100 years before we could even begin to unravel the way he thought. A superb proof of the power of one mind, and a warning to everyone to take care not to summarily discard that which we do not understand.
A superb book. It will appeal to anyone interested in the triumph of excellence over great obstacles. No math background is needed to read this book.
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A reader (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-30 00:00>
In each field of science there are many unsung heroes whose stories are all but forgotten. Nevertheless some of these stories are astonishing and in the hands of a good author makes fascinating reading. One such story is that of Ramanujan, who was to Math what Mozart was to music. His genius was almost mystical. This book deals with his life, how came to the attention of Hardy, went to England and became one of the well known mathematicians of his time. But this book also deals with the "mystical" aspects of his genius. Strange, almost unbelievable anecdotes of how from the esoteric shadows of the east came an almost uneducated man who, isolated from the scientific world, rediscovered many of the great mathematical theorems that had been discovered over centuries in Europe. The book is written in a superb style. I really enjoyed reading it, and I urge everyone to read it for its sheer entertainment value. |
Wilberne (MSL quote), Jamaica
<2007-01-30 00:00>
Kanigel's is the first book I've read on Ramanujan. It is well put together and explores the elements of the man, South India and Cambridge that led to the "collaboration" which allowed Ramanujan to flourish and be "discovered" by the West. Mathematics and Science is Planetary in scope, whereas cultures and colonialism, idiosyncrasies of Universities, constraints of poverty, all in some way deny us the fruits of genius, whom I daresay are "normally" distributed in all populations! Nurture, in the true and fullest sense of the word, allows the light to shine through. Ramanujan's letter to Hardy is a classic! It is the essence of understatement, he may have been uneducated in the purely formal sense, but he was quite aware of the world he was to be reluctantly invited to join. His gifts are rare, his powers abundantly evident, there is no use debating how much longer he may have lived, if both he and Hardy understood the difficulties of a South Indian clerk attempting to live in Cambridge. The collaboration brings into sharp relief, the generally accepted notion that in most endeavors of man, critical mass, or an informed bouncing wall/mirror brings out the best. Does Hingis give of her best against a weak opponent? Doesn't Michael Jordon reach deep when there is half a minute and five points to score? Would Karpov have ramped up his game had Fischer allowed him a match? Ramanujan may have contributed much more had he survived even two more summers. As it stands his contribution is so outstanding that his notebooks still give up useful gems to knowledge-hungry post-graduate students. Kanigel's book is a must read for anyone interested in the history of Mathematics, anyone interested in harnessing the powers of genius, the relationships among nature and nurture, genes and culture etc. Good companion reading would include the lives of Richard Feynman, John Maynard Keynes and anything on the Manhattan Project to name but a few. |
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