What do you think?
Rate this book
The Man Who Knew Infinity: A Life of the Genius Ramanujan
In 1913, a young unschooled Indian clerk wrote a letter to G H Hardy, begging the pre-eminent English mathematician's opinion on several ideas he had about numbers. Realising the letter was the work of a genius, Hardy arranged for Srinivasa Ramanujan to come to England. Thus began one of the most improbable and productive collaborations ever chronicled. With a passion for rich and evocative detail, Robert Kanigel takes us from the temples and slums of Madras to the courts and chapels of Cambridge University, where the devout Hindu Ramanujan, 'the Prince of Intuition,' tested his brilliant theories alongside the sophisticated and eccentric Hardy, 'the Apostle of Proof'. In time, Ramanujan's creative intensity took its he died at the age of thirty-two and left behind a magical and inspired legacy that is still being plumbed for its secrets today.
438 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1991
About the author
Robert Kanigel
13 books121 followersRobert Kanigel was born in Brooklyn, but for most of his adult life has lived in Baltimore. He has written nine books.
"The Man Who Knew Infinity," his second book, was named a National Book Critics Circle finalist, a Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist, and a New York Public Library "Book to Remember." It has been translated into Italian, German, Polish, Greek, Chinese, Thai, and many other languages, and has been made into a feature film, starring Jeremy Irons and Dev Patel, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2015.
Kanigel's 2012 book, "On an Irish Island," set on a windswept island village off the coast of Ireland, was nurtured by a Guggenheim fellowship and later awarded the Michael J. Durkan Prize by the American Conference for Irish Studies.
"Eyes on the Street," his biography of Jane Jacobs, the far-seeing author of "The Death and Life of Great American Cities" and fearless champion of big-city life, was published by Knopf in 2016.
His most recent book, "Hearing Homer's Song: The Brief Life and Big Idea of Milman Parry," is a biography of the man who revolutionized our understanding of the Homeric epics. In support of this project Kanigel was awarded an NEH Public Scholar award.
"The Man Who Knew Infinity," his second book, was named a National Book Critics Circle finalist, a Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist, and a New York Public Library "Book to Remember." It has been translated into Italian, German, Polish, Greek, Chinese, Thai, and many other languages, and has been made into a feature film, starring Jeremy Irons and Dev Patel, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2015.
Kanigel's 2012 book, "On an Irish Island," set on a windswept island village off the coast of Ireland, was nurtured by a Guggenheim fellowship and later awarded the Michael J. Durkan Prize by the American Conference for Irish Studies.
"Eyes on the Street," his biography of Jane Jacobs, the far-seeing author of "The Death and Life of Great American Cities" and fearless champion of big-city life, was published by Knopf in 2016.
His most recent book, "Hearing Homer's Song: The Brief Life and Big Idea of Milman Parry," is a biography of the man who revolutionized our understanding of the Homeric epics. In support of this project Kanigel was awarded an NEH Public Scholar award.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 521 reviews
August 15, 2016
oh my heart this story about ramanujan so painful the genius man , Absolutely I loved this book and happy to know about him and difficult life he lived just to prove something he believes .
February 19, 2013
2013 December 22nd was the 125th birth anniversary of Srinivasa Ramanujan. He was a genius whose early death, owing to a multitude of factors not entirely in his control, was a tragedy too profound for tears, as someone said.
That mathematicians are trying to come to terms with his papers and notebooks to this day, is a testimony to his originality. There was a news about his last notebooks on mock modular forms being proven just last month.
This biography by Robert Kanigel is a work of outstanding literary and scholarly accomplishment. The author clearly researched his subject thoroughly. He succeeds in successfully recreating the early 20th century rural Tamilnadu as well as Ramanujan's isolation in war time England for the readers.
I was never good at Mathematics. And i never regretted it anytime until i read some of the mathematical parts in this book. I could understand the importance of Ramanujan's work, thanks to Kanigel's explanation. But i wished i was good enough at Mathematics to at least attempt to experience the beauty of it. Instead, i had to rely on metaphor for it to make any sense to me.
A must read for anybody who is interested in Ramanujan, Mathematics, Hardy, Biographies or any good book.
That mathematicians are trying to come to terms with his papers and notebooks to this day, is a testimony to his originality. There was a news about his last notebooks on mock modular forms being proven just last month.
This biography by Robert Kanigel is a work of outstanding literary and scholarly accomplishment. The author clearly researched his subject thoroughly. He succeeds in successfully recreating the early 20th century rural Tamilnadu as well as Ramanujan's isolation in war time England for the readers.
I was never good at Mathematics. And i never regretted it anytime until i read some of the mathematical parts in this book. I could understand the importance of Ramanujan's work, thanks to Kanigel's explanation. But i wished i was good enough at Mathematics to at least attempt to experience the beauty of it. Instead, i had to rely on metaphor for it to make any sense to me.
A must read for anybody who is interested in Ramanujan, Mathematics, Hardy, Biographies or any good book.
July 22, 2021
Such as wonderful book. I came to know about Ramanujan through Prasad Kothari's lecture on Ramanujan machine. Such a wonderful mathematician. I am amazed to know that Ramanujan did not have math degree and yet come up with such wonderful math! genius from India.
October 9, 2011
Ramanujam is considered one of the best mathematicians of all times, in the same league as a Jacobi or Euler.Even though his work is well known within the mathematical community, outside of it, he is virtually an unknown quantity. Robert Kanigel has put in a lot of effort researching material to write such a comprehensive biography of a genius from a century ago.
Ramanujam was born in a poor Tamil brahmin family and had little access to formal education. He had an unnatural flair for mathematics and nothing else! After a life a penury and struggle, with no one in India capable of even understanding if his work was brilliant or a just pure drivel, Ramanujam got the recognition he deserved when his papers reached the British mathematician Hardy. After a brief period of collaboration with Hardy in England and some brilliant individual effort back in India, Ramanujam passed away, at the age of 32.
In his short life, Ramanujam achieved a lot. A meteoric rise to fame, FRS and fellowship to Trinity and a body of mathematical work that is still being studied and analyzed more than a 100 years later. One can only wonder what he could have achieved had he lived a few more years.
This book is very comprehensive, being not just the story of Ramanujam, but also a social biography of colonial India and war time Europe during the early 1900s. Does digress from Ramanujam's life quite a few times, with details on life in Britain, or the social customs of Brahmanical India etc.
There is no mathematics in this book and so, can be read by anyone interested in the romantically tragic, but brilliant life of Ramanujam
Ramanujam was born in a poor Tamil brahmin family and had little access to formal education. He had an unnatural flair for mathematics and nothing else! After a life a penury and struggle, with no one in India capable of even understanding if his work was brilliant or a just pure drivel, Ramanujam got the recognition he deserved when his papers reached the British mathematician Hardy. After a brief period of collaboration with Hardy in England and some brilliant individual effort back in India, Ramanujam passed away, at the age of 32.
In his short life, Ramanujam achieved a lot. A meteoric rise to fame, FRS and fellowship to Trinity and a body of mathematical work that is still being studied and analyzed more than a 100 years later. One can only wonder what he could have achieved had he lived a few more years.
This book is very comprehensive, being not just the story of Ramanujam, but also a social biography of colonial India and war time Europe during the early 1900s. Does digress from Ramanujam's life quite a few times, with details on life in Britain, or the social customs of Brahmanical India etc.
There is no mathematics in this book and so, can be read by anyone interested in the romantically tragic, but brilliant life of Ramanujam
May 20, 2021
One of the best-crafted biographies I've ever read, this book offered not only a deep insight into the story of Ramanujan himself, but also a social biography of colonial India and war time Europe during the early 1900s. Not too heavy on mathematics, it had just enough for the reader to acquire a basic idea of Ramanujan's accomplishments and his contribution to many and various branches of science(note to self: audio books are not well suited for understanding equations). The book is a fertile ground for contemplating the importance of chance in life - what would have happened if the conditions in India were different at that time, or if his mother was a different person from the one she was, or he himself, for that matter (his strict vegetarianism in war-time conditions pretty much condemned him), or even - what would he be able to achieve, were he better educated in the basics, had he lived a bit longer or were he born in a different era... Almost 100 years after his death, the results he derived, both original and highly unconventional, have inspired a vast amount of further research, and his biography turned out to be an utterly compelling read.
July 29, 2021
I watched the movie after Prasad Kothari's lecture on ramanujan machine. I really liked that he highlighted contributions of Ramanujan who gave greatest gift to mankind - math through intuition. To be honest, I did not know about Ramanujan who came from India. Such a genius. I think he covered 3 mathematicians - Dr. Yau, Dr Grigori Perelman & Ramanujan while keeping the context of AI. Later in lecture, Prasad also gave example about AI for Math as CNNs for analyzing Calabi Yau further - volume minimum of Sasaki-Einstein base manifolds and explained importance of Dr Yau's math work. Such great mathematicians coming from Asia. Somehow we do not often hear about them in the western world.
May 12, 2017
It’s way beyond five stars ! The Book was just BRILLIANT !
I really had an amazing time reading this one and I was reading this at a time when no other book seemed nice [I really tried a lot of books from the Hitchhiker’s guide to Sherlock to Child Thief ….but nothing worked] .
It’s a very ,very well written and thoroughly researched book and I would just like to say that I haven’t read many biographies, but this is exactly how a biography should be done .What Robert Kanigel has done with Ramanujan’s biography ,is simply mind-blowing, he makes you love Ramanujan not only for his mathematical genius but for the amazing and beautiful person he was, It almost felt as if I were transported back to the period from 1887 to the early 1900’s and living each moment right from when he was born ,one could literally feel his(Ramanujan's) anguish when he was going door to door in search for a job with his notebook in his hands ,his joy when Hardy said “A Yes”or when he received an F.R.S. ,his impatience at not finding Janaki when he reached India and 26th April 1920 trust me, I couldn’t stop those few tears that escaped my eyes. I loved each and every moment spent with this book and I think, I can see myself re-reading this all over again sometime soon.
P.S.There isn’t a great deal of maths, so anyone could read it. Whatever little maths has been done to give an” idea” of Ramanujan’s contribution to maths, is well explained .
I really had an amazing time reading this one and I was reading this at a time when no other book seemed nice [I really tried a lot of books from the Hitchhiker’s guide to Sherlock to Child Thief ….but nothing worked] .
It’s a very ,very well written and thoroughly researched book and I would just like to say that I haven’t read many biographies, but this is exactly how a biography should be done .What Robert Kanigel has done with Ramanujan’s biography ,is simply mind-blowing, he makes you love Ramanujan not only for his mathematical genius but for the amazing and beautiful person he was, It almost felt as if I were transported back to the period from 1887 to the early 1900’s and living each moment right from when he was born ,one could literally feel his(Ramanujan's) anguish when he was going door to door in search for a job with his notebook in his hands ,his joy when Hardy said “A Yes”or when he received an F.R.S. ,his impatience at not finding Janaki when he reached India and 26th April 1920 trust me, I couldn’t stop those few tears that escaped my eyes. I loved each and every moment spent with this book and I think, I can see myself re-reading this all over again sometime soon.
P.S.There isn’t a great deal of maths, so anyone could read it. Whatever little maths has been done to give an” idea” of Ramanujan’s contribution to maths, is well explained .
March 31, 2019
Exceptional, brilliant, tragic, and mind altering.
I first watched the movie by the same title and felt as if I missed so much. It turned out to be the case. The entire first half of the book was about Ramanujan's life before working with G. H. Hardy. So many shocking details; not the least of which was that fact that no university in India would allow Ramanujan entrance because he continued to fail his English exams. It was heartbreaking to read about his shame, which was so profound, he took a train and ran away.
The second half of the book dealt with the groundbreaking mathematics worked out by Ramanujan, despite the shocking lack of education to arrive at these ideas/equations. To call it astonishing would be to minimize his accomplishments in a severe manner. He is often referred to as the 3rd most brilliant human who ever lived. However, considering where he came from, I personally view him as more brilliant than Newton.
Another aspect of the book that you won't see in the movie is the wonderful biography of G. H. Hardy. He was a brilliant mathematician but an even more brilliant humanitarian, fighting against people in his own institution to champion Ramanujan and later fighting against people on multiple continents to help Jewish academics escape Nazi Germany.
Because of the importance of the ideas of both of these men to society as a whole, I consider this book a must read.
I first watched the movie by the same title and felt as if I missed so much. It turned out to be the case. The entire first half of the book was about Ramanujan's life before working with G. H. Hardy. So many shocking details; not the least of which was that fact that no university in India would allow Ramanujan entrance because he continued to fail his English exams. It was heartbreaking to read about his shame, which was so profound, he took a train and ran away.
The second half of the book dealt with the groundbreaking mathematics worked out by Ramanujan, despite the shocking lack of education to arrive at these ideas/equations. To call it astonishing would be to minimize his accomplishments in a severe manner. He is often referred to as the 3rd most brilliant human who ever lived. However, considering where he came from, I personally view him as more brilliant than Newton.
Another aspect of the book that you won't see in the movie is the wonderful biography of G. H. Hardy. He was a brilliant mathematician but an even more brilliant humanitarian, fighting against people in his own institution to champion Ramanujan and later fighting against people on multiple continents to help Jewish academics escape Nazi Germany.
Because of the importance of the ideas of both of these men to society as a whole, I consider this book a must read.
May 5, 2015
Ramanujan is one of the greatest mathematicians and the most famous mathematician that India has ever produced. I hardly knew anything about him or his contributions to mathematics. I picked this book up with the sole intention of knowing more about this genius. And I am so glad that I did. It was such an inspiring story that I feel every young person must read it.
Ramanujan has been compared with mathematicians like Euler and Jacobi. Ramanujan was a genius, he was -
"... the man whom the English had moved heaven and earth to bring to Cambridge..."
The book is full of quotations, interviews compiled by the author and it shows how much research went into this book. Author has done a great job of not being judgmental about anything he mentions in the book. It is one of the best biographies I have ever read. Ramanujan's story is very interesting since it is a rags-to-intellectual riches story, where an Indian clerk who did not even complete his graduation scribbles theorems in a notebook, which even surprised the most educated mathematicians in colleges like Trinity (where people like Newton taught). Without any formal education, he came up with theorems which took many years for other mathematicians to decipher or come up with proof. Unfortunately, he died at the age of 32. I wonder what other major contributions he would have done, had he lived for 60 years or so!
Ramanujan never got any support, while in India, maybe because of British Raj or maybe because nobody understood the significance of his theorems. Hardy, who was a mathematics professor at Trinity college studied the letters that Ramanujan sent and made him come to Britain with the help of Neville (a colleague). Hardy and Ramanujan together published many papers. Littlewood was another professor who appreciated Ramanujan's talent. Ramanujan who did not get good vegetarian food (since he was a Brahmin) and had to face the brutal British chillness fell sick with tuberculosis. I believe he would not have fallen sick had his mother let him take his wife with him to UK. It was sad to know that he even tried to kill himself, because of the loneliness and rejection of fellowship as a result of racial prejudice. He later ended up getting fellowship from Royal Society and Trinity college.
Laurence Young had written -
"Teaching Ramanujan was like writing on a blackboard covered with excerpts from a more interesting lecture"
He believed in God and attributed all of his brilliance to God. Some of the work that he had done, had already been discovered by someone else. But since he was not in touch with the western world and had no formal education, he was not aware of these discoveries. The book talks about his religious beliefs, personal life, his relationship with professors like Hardy, Littlewood and Neville, about Hardy's life, his contributions to mathematics, his struggle to get recognition for the work he had done, his struggle to feed his poor family and his eccentricity and stubbornness. His interest in mathematics was so great that he worked on problems even when he was in hospital and even few days before dying.
At one point, he was so poor that he could not afford to buy a notebook. He would then write in-between the lines on an already written notebook using a different colored ink pen. Such was the determination of this man!
As Hardy says, a mathematician has to have an intuition first in order to come up with anything new, which Ramanujan had in abundance -
"a mathematician usually discovers a theorem by an effort of intuition; the conclusion strikes him as plausible, and he sets to work to manufacture a proof"
As P.K. Srinivasan said,
"The British thought Indians were inferior, and Ramanujan showed otherwise."
His contributions include the infinite series, tau conjecture (also called Ramanujan's hypothesis), a field known as probabilistic number theory, partition problems, mock theta functions, Ramanujan's identities, composite numbers and many more. The book briefly talks about his theorems and papers. I would really like to get hold of "Collected papers" of Ramanujan which was published by Cambridge University press. His last set of papers written by him just before he died, were compiled as "The Lost notebook" and published later. I am sure most part of his theorems would not make sense to me. Those who are doing research in that field would understand them better. There was a book which inspired Ramanujan to a great extent and I was really happy that I got to browse an online copy of the book. The book was called "A synopsis of Elementary results in pure and applied mathematics", by Carr. Another book that was mentioned in this book (and I want to read) was "A mathematician's apology", written by Hardy.
Hardy says,
"There is always more in one of Ramanujan's formulae than meets the eye, as anyone who sets to work to verify those which look the easiest will soon discover".
I was really surprised to know that it took about 3 months to arrive at a proof for one of the theorems written in his notebook. Ramanujan never bothered about proving any of his theorems.
I had no idea that his mathematics has applications in pyrometry, crystallography, atomic research, string theory, splicing telephone cables, cancer treatment, statistical mechanics, computer algorithms, space travel, cryptology, particle physics, fastest known algorithm to determine pi by computer and many more fields. Probably even he had no idea that it had so many practical applications.
As J.B.S Haldane says, new Ramanujans in India find little encouragement and recognition for their talent -
"But it is scandalous that India's great men should have to wait for foreign recognitions..."
Hardy, who was the most distinguished mathematician in Britain says:
(Had he been discovered earlier and educated in a good University,) "... he would have been less of a Ramanujan, and more of a European professor, and the loss might have been greater than the gain"
"I owe more to him than to any one else in the world...".
While reading the book, I was interested and I did research on Nobel Prize laureates from India for Physics/Mathematics and found only two names in the list: C.V. Raman and S. Chandrashekar. The other laureates are for Chemistry, Biology, Peace, Literature etc. Don't you think it is too small a number for a country with highest population?!
I highly recommend this book.
I watched this documentary - "Letters from an Indian clerk" shot in 1987 by BBC. It was an interesting documentary about Ramanujan and it ran for about 60 minutes. They even interviewed his wife who was 87 years old at that time. Ramanujan died when she was just 20 years old. I felt so sad looking at her talking about her husband who had died some 67 years back. Did she even remember his face properly? I doubt that. :( They also showed many photos of Ramanujan taken when he was at Cambridge. I had not seen most of these photos before.
The Man who knew Infinity movie is releasing in 2014. Earlier it was reported that R. Madhavan would play the lead role. But now I am seeing Dev Patel being casted. He doesn't even suit the role. And I personally dislike him. I don't want to watch the movie anymore. Madhavan would have fit the role perfectly, since he resembles Ramanujan and is a much better actor. Got the info from IMDB, here, here and many more websites.
P.S: There have been no good books written about Aryabhatta so far. Isn't it time someone wrote one? Do you know any books on any of the other Indian mathematicians?
Ramanujan has been compared with mathematicians like Euler and Jacobi. Ramanujan was a genius, he was -
"... the man whom the English had moved heaven and earth to bring to Cambridge..."
The book is full of quotations, interviews compiled by the author and it shows how much research went into this book. Author has done a great job of not being judgmental about anything he mentions in the book. It is one of the best biographies I have ever read. Ramanujan's story is very interesting since it is a rags-to-intellectual riches story, where an Indian clerk who did not even complete his graduation scribbles theorems in a notebook, which even surprised the most educated mathematicians in colleges like Trinity (where people like Newton taught). Without any formal education, he came up with theorems which took many years for other mathematicians to decipher or come up with proof. Unfortunately, he died at the age of 32. I wonder what other major contributions he would have done, had he lived for 60 years or so!
Ramanujan never got any support, while in India, maybe because of British Raj or maybe because nobody understood the significance of his theorems. Hardy, who was a mathematics professor at Trinity college studied the letters that Ramanujan sent and made him come to Britain with the help of Neville (a colleague). Hardy and Ramanujan together published many papers. Littlewood was another professor who appreciated Ramanujan's talent. Ramanujan who did not get good vegetarian food (since he was a Brahmin) and had to face the brutal British chillness fell sick with tuberculosis. I believe he would not have fallen sick had his mother let him take his wife with him to UK. It was sad to know that he even tried to kill himself, because of the loneliness and rejection of fellowship as a result of racial prejudice. He later ended up getting fellowship from Royal Society and Trinity college.
Laurence Young had written -
"Teaching Ramanujan was like writing on a blackboard covered with excerpts from a more interesting lecture"
He believed in God and attributed all of his brilliance to God. Some of the work that he had done, had already been discovered by someone else. But since he was not in touch with the western world and had no formal education, he was not aware of these discoveries. The book talks about his religious beliefs, personal life, his relationship with professors like Hardy, Littlewood and Neville, about Hardy's life, his contributions to mathematics, his struggle to get recognition for the work he had done, his struggle to feed his poor family and his eccentricity and stubbornness. His interest in mathematics was so great that he worked on problems even when he was in hospital and even few days before dying.
At one point, he was so poor that he could not afford to buy a notebook. He would then write in-between the lines on an already written notebook using a different colored ink pen. Such was the determination of this man!
As Hardy says, a mathematician has to have an intuition first in order to come up with anything new, which Ramanujan had in abundance -
"a mathematician usually discovers a theorem by an effort of intuition; the conclusion strikes him as plausible, and he sets to work to manufacture a proof"
As P.K. Srinivasan said,
"The British thought Indians were inferior, and Ramanujan showed otherwise."
His contributions include the infinite series, tau conjecture (also called Ramanujan's hypothesis), a field known as probabilistic number theory, partition problems, mock theta functions, Ramanujan's identities, composite numbers and many more. The book briefly talks about his theorems and papers. I would really like to get hold of "Collected papers" of Ramanujan which was published by Cambridge University press. His last set of papers written by him just before he died, were compiled as "The Lost notebook" and published later. I am sure most part of his theorems would not make sense to me. Those who are doing research in that field would understand them better. There was a book which inspired Ramanujan to a great extent and I was really happy that I got to browse an online copy of the book. The book was called "A synopsis of Elementary results in pure and applied mathematics", by Carr. Another book that was mentioned in this book (and I want to read) was "A mathematician's apology", written by Hardy.
Hardy says,
"There is always more in one of Ramanujan's formulae than meets the eye, as anyone who sets to work to verify those which look the easiest will soon discover".
I was really surprised to know that it took about 3 months to arrive at a proof for one of the theorems written in his notebook. Ramanujan never bothered about proving any of his theorems.
I had no idea that his mathematics has applications in pyrometry, crystallography, atomic research, string theory, splicing telephone cables, cancer treatment, statistical mechanics, computer algorithms, space travel, cryptology, particle physics, fastest known algorithm to determine pi by computer and many more fields. Probably even he had no idea that it had so many practical applications.
As J.B.S Haldane says, new Ramanujans in India find little encouragement and recognition for their talent -
"But it is scandalous that India's great men should have to wait for foreign recognitions..."
Hardy, who was the most distinguished mathematician in Britain says:
(Had he been discovered earlier and educated in a good University,) "... he would have been less of a Ramanujan, and more of a European professor, and the loss might have been greater than the gain"
"I owe more to him than to any one else in the world...".
While reading the book, I was interested and I did research on Nobel Prize laureates from India for Physics/Mathematics and found only two names in the list: C.V. Raman and S. Chandrashekar. The other laureates are for Chemistry, Biology, Peace, Literature etc. Don't you think it is too small a number for a country with highest population?!
I highly recommend this book.
I watched this documentary - "Letters from an Indian clerk" shot in 1987 by BBC. It was an interesting documentary about Ramanujan and it ran for about 60 minutes. They even interviewed his wife who was 87 years old at that time. Ramanujan died when she was just 20 years old. I felt so sad looking at her talking about her husband who had died some 67 years back. Did she even remember his face properly? I doubt that. :( They also showed many photos of Ramanujan taken when he was at Cambridge. I had not seen most of these photos before.
The Man who knew Infinity movie is releasing in 2014. Earlier it was reported that R. Madhavan would play the lead role. But now I am seeing Dev Patel being casted. He doesn't even suit the role. And I personally dislike him. I don't want to watch the movie anymore. Madhavan would have fit the role perfectly, since he resembles Ramanujan and is a much better actor. Got the info from IMDB, here, here and many more websites.
P.S: There have been no good books written about Aryabhatta so far. Isn't it time someone wrote one? Do you know any books on any of the other Indian mathematicians?
September 15, 2013
This is one of the most fascinating and incredible books I have read in recent times. It is the biography of the famous Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan.
The book’s blurb states: “The Man Who Knew Infinity is a fascinating biography of the brilliant, self-taught Indian mathematician, Srinivasa Ramanujan. It is also a history of the astonishingly fruitful cross-cultural collaboration between this young, ill-educated mathematical genius and his mentor at Cambridge University, G. H. Hardy – a relationship that turned the world of mathematics upside down before it withered and died through a combination of Indian bureaucratic short-sightedness, superstition, English spiritual asceticism and the First World War. Robert Kanigel, author of The One Best Way, tells this extraordinary tale, assessing the legacy of a man whose work contains some of the most beautiful ideas in the history of science, and whose major papers are still being plumbed for their secrets today.”
When I picked up the book, I was a bit apprehensive about reading the biography of a mathematician – I wondered if I would be able to follow it. However, my apprehensions were laid to rest. Kanigel’s attempt at piecing together Ramanujan’s brilliant and short life (he died at the young age of 32) is an outstanding oeuvre. Right from his childhood in the small town of Kumbanokam to his dedicated single-minded focus on learning mathematics to his journey to Cambridge and back, Kanigel paints before us a vivid picture of South India in the late 1800s/early 1900s.
The book is outstanding for a number of reasons. Most importantly, because it brings out the human element in each and every action or decision that Ramanujan took. You almost feel pity for the young Ramanujan who is unable to clear his exams because he would not study other subjects due to his interest in Mathematics. At the same time, you are also amazed at how he would sit in the courtyard of his home dedicatedly solving problems on his slate and erasing any errors with his elbows to avoid lifting his arms. But the best way in which the human aspect is brought about is by highlighting throughout the book how Ramanujan craved for appreciation and recognition at each stage; even though he knew he was brilliant and outshone everybody else, he still wanted others to say that.
Kanigel is also able to narrate to us life at Cambridge during those times, how the other mathematicians were in awe of Ramanujan for his genius and how Ramanujan, who never had an Indian degree to his name, was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (F.R.S.) and a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge.
The other important part about this book is the way the relationship between Ramanujan and his mentor Godfred Harold Hardy has been elaborated. The importance of having a mentor at a critical juncture in life and how it leads someone to achieve his true potential has been beautifully brought out. It is as if this relation was meant to be – else why would only Hardy respond to Ramanujan’s letters when the latter had written to two other Cambridge mathematicians as well?
The only sad part which ran through the book is the fact that ultimately it took a foreigner to recognize the genius in an Indian; Ramanujan had to go to Cambridge because his brilliance was not rewarded in his own country. This, unfortunately, seems to be the situation today as well though it is changing albeit at a snail’s pace. Another sad thing was the relation Ramanujan shared with his wife, Janki (who was only nine years old when they got married). Since Ramanujan was so pre-occupied with his work and since Janki was still too young to be a wife, they never really had a traditional husband-wife relationship. Janki also did not accompany him to Cambridge. Neither was she interested in learning about his work and his research.
This book is a must-read for anybody who feels passionately about Indians achieving something in their chosen field. It is about a person who is not afraid to spend time and attention on his passion even though it does not bear fruit initially; who is not afraid to go from door to door trying to make an honest living so that he gets the freedom to do what he wants and ultimately who is not afraid to leave the comforts of his home and family to go pursue a better career abroad (at a time when not many people would do so).
This review first appeared on my blog www.pallosworld.blogspot.in.
The book’s blurb states: “The Man Who Knew Infinity is a fascinating biography of the brilliant, self-taught Indian mathematician, Srinivasa Ramanujan. It is also a history of the astonishingly fruitful cross-cultural collaboration between this young, ill-educated mathematical genius and his mentor at Cambridge University, G. H. Hardy – a relationship that turned the world of mathematics upside down before it withered and died through a combination of Indian bureaucratic short-sightedness, superstition, English spiritual asceticism and the First World War. Robert Kanigel, author of The One Best Way, tells this extraordinary tale, assessing the legacy of a man whose work contains some of the most beautiful ideas in the history of science, and whose major papers are still being plumbed for their secrets today.”
When I picked up the book, I was a bit apprehensive about reading the biography of a mathematician – I wondered if I would be able to follow it. However, my apprehensions were laid to rest. Kanigel’s attempt at piecing together Ramanujan’s brilliant and short life (he died at the young age of 32) is an outstanding oeuvre. Right from his childhood in the small town of Kumbanokam to his dedicated single-minded focus on learning mathematics to his journey to Cambridge and back, Kanigel paints before us a vivid picture of South India in the late 1800s/early 1900s.
The book is outstanding for a number of reasons. Most importantly, because it brings out the human element in each and every action or decision that Ramanujan took. You almost feel pity for the young Ramanujan who is unable to clear his exams because he would not study other subjects due to his interest in Mathematics. At the same time, you are also amazed at how he would sit in the courtyard of his home dedicatedly solving problems on his slate and erasing any errors with his elbows to avoid lifting his arms. But the best way in which the human aspect is brought about is by highlighting throughout the book how Ramanujan craved for appreciation and recognition at each stage; even though he knew he was brilliant and outshone everybody else, he still wanted others to say that.
Kanigel is also able to narrate to us life at Cambridge during those times, how the other mathematicians were in awe of Ramanujan for his genius and how Ramanujan, who never had an Indian degree to his name, was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (F.R.S.) and a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge.
The other important part about this book is the way the relationship between Ramanujan and his mentor Godfred Harold Hardy has been elaborated. The importance of having a mentor at a critical juncture in life and how it leads someone to achieve his true potential has been beautifully brought out. It is as if this relation was meant to be – else why would only Hardy respond to Ramanujan’s letters when the latter had written to two other Cambridge mathematicians as well?
The only sad part which ran through the book is the fact that ultimately it took a foreigner to recognize the genius in an Indian; Ramanujan had to go to Cambridge because his brilliance was not rewarded in his own country. This, unfortunately, seems to be the situation today as well though it is changing albeit at a snail’s pace. Another sad thing was the relation Ramanujan shared with his wife, Janki (who was only nine years old when they got married). Since Ramanujan was so pre-occupied with his work and since Janki was still too young to be a wife, they never really had a traditional husband-wife relationship. Janki also did not accompany him to Cambridge. Neither was she interested in learning about his work and his research.
This book is a must-read for anybody who feels passionately about Indians achieving something in their chosen field. It is about a person who is not afraid to spend time and attention on his passion even though it does not bear fruit initially; who is not afraid to go from door to door trying to make an honest living so that he gets the freedom to do what he wants and ultimately who is not afraid to leave the comforts of his home and family to go pursue a better career abroad (at a time when not many people would do so).
This review first appeared on my blog www.pallosworld.blogspot.in.
September 13, 2012
A fascinating account on the short but outstanding life of the enigmatic and extraordinary Ramanujan.
From a young, unschooled Indian clerk to an exemplary mathematician, his journey albeit he died at the mere age of 32, is nevertheless awe-inspiring. Even in his final days, he never left his slate and continued to give prominent contributions. Such was his love for Mathematics. He failed in everything else but scored high in Mathematics. But it just wasn’t enough to clutch him a degree. So he wasn’t admitted for higher education but it was G.H. Hardy, Apostle of Proof, after Ramanujan’s failed attempts to contact two other noted Mathematicians of the time, who did discover this Intuition Incarnate who was evidently stuck in a rut in India, which closed all the doors on his dreams just because he lacked a degree. Rules couldn’t be bent, they said. But they did not yet realize what intellectual treasures lay deep inside him. His glowing eyes just couldn’t persuade them.
Together, Hardy and Ramanujan produced astonishing results which made their names indelible in the history of Mathematics. G.H. Hardy later described his kinship with Ramanujan as the ‘one romantic incident in his life’. Mathematics was the only thing which intertwined them. Hardy was an atheist while Ramanujan was a stout Brahmin. Hardy loved cricket but Ramanujan showed no interest. Only Mathematics linked them. And it did do a little harm to Ramanujan. Read to find out!
Robert Kanigel has produced indeed a delightful book. With writing so exquisite, I was moved and almost shed a tear during the last portion of the book.
Ramanujan’s own country failed to encourage him. It was Hardy and England which showed Ramanujan to the world. Although he had disadvantages many, fortunately his genius did finally overcome them. Ramanujan showed the world what Indians are capable of; that India has potential. But who knows many Ramanujans might still exist, waiting only to be discovered.
From a young, unschooled Indian clerk to an exemplary mathematician, his journey albeit he died at the mere age of 32, is nevertheless awe-inspiring. Even in his final days, he never left his slate and continued to give prominent contributions. Such was his love for Mathematics. He failed in everything else but scored high in Mathematics. But it just wasn’t enough to clutch him a degree. So he wasn’t admitted for higher education but it was G.H. Hardy, Apostle of Proof, after Ramanujan’s failed attempts to contact two other noted Mathematicians of the time, who did discover this Intuition Incarnate who was evidently stuck in a rut in India, which closed all the doors on his dreams just because he lacked a degree. Rules couldn’t be bent, they said. But they did not yet realize what intellectual treasures lay deep inside him. His glowing eyes just couldn’t persuade them.
Together, Hardy and Ramanujan produced astonishing results which made their names indelible in the history of Mathematics. G.H. Hardy later described his kinship with Ramanujan as the ‘one romantic incident in his life’. Mathematics was the only thing which intertwined them. Hardy was an atheist while Ramanujan was a stout Brahmin. Hardy loved cricket but Ramanujan showed no interest. Only Mathematics linked them. And it did do a little harm to Ramanujan. Read to find out!
Robert Kanigel has produced indeed a delightful book. With writing so exquisite, I was moved and almost shed a tear during the last portion of the book.
Ramanujan’s own country failed to encourage him. It was Hardy and England which showed Ramanujan to the world. Although he had disadvantages many, fortunately his genius did finally overcome them. Ramanujan showed the world what Indians are capable of; that India has potential. But who knows many Ramanujans might still exist, waiting only to be discovered.
May 1, 2022
It is humanly impossible to pause reading for a while without wiping away a tear or two and feel your heart wrench while reading this book. With lucid writing and a clear description of who Ramanujan was and what he had to go through to become immortalised, Kanigel expertly related the story of a legendary man with an equally legendary mind. It had taken me a longer than usual time period to read this book, but I cherished every minute I spent with it.
A must read Biography.
EDIT
My refutation to @v_read's criticism
Maybe I owe the book a re-read, since it has been more than a hot minute since I last read the biography. Criticisms pertaining to the Western lens hold water and point to the fact a lot of our stories and narratives are controlled by cultures not our own. Some, however, miss the mark.
There is nothing that Kanigel wrote that was a speculation of his imagination. There could be critical analysis levied on how Kanigel wrote, but the what of it seems to be no different than any other biographer.
The influence of Carr's book on Ramanujan is not something new and was well observed by not only Ramanujan's earlier biographers but also the people he was surrounded by on a regular basis. Leaving out Carr's Synopsis would greatly disservice the biography, having been a crucial part of his early days. The book even mentions a mathematician observing the role of Synopsis in Ramanujan's life was that of a compass and not something that defined his methods of mathematical deduction. Labelling it "inane" is a mark of personal distaste over a criticism of the book itself.
Ramanujan as we know him does not exist without the actions of Hardy. This is not accepting "colonial charity" but a recognition of the fact the talent of Ramanujan celebrated pan-India was a result of certain events that built up the success story. The reality is, there is no Ramanujan as we know him without the efforts of Hardy, and therefore deserves a place in this unabridged work of Ramanujan’s life and times. Who knows how many such Ramanjuans have gone under the radar due to lack of proper recognition of talent?
Like the previous instance of Carr’s Synopsis, the speculation of Hardy’s homosexuality was not that of Kanigel himself like the criticism leans towards but of his various colleagues and peers. I wonder if Kaniel did not indulge in a little cynical humour by mentioning his sharing a room with R. K. Gaye, as observed by Leonard Woolf, right after introducing this arc. Nevertheless, an arc that must be included for the book while expounding on Hardy’s life for the book to be holistic in nature given his importance in Ramanujan’s life. This is important information for those students in the LGBT spectrum as a life of education without an idol is a demotivating and dark one, doubly true for marginalised folk.
In both cases, Kanigel did not indulge in speculation as insinuated but reproduced information and thoughts of their peers as stated by them. The way Kanigel put it could be up for criticism and can only be personally ascertained after a re-read.
I do share your criticism of not exploring the racism faced by Ramanujan, and this is a topic that is not explored in multiple sources, including Ramanujan The Man And The Mathematician by B Krishnayya, the only other proper biography I could find. Reprints must, in my opinion, contain a section towards the end of the book that is dedicated to exploring not only the personal prejudice endured by Ramanujan but the cultural and economical impact colonisation had on the country and her people, which is ironically not even touched upon in our education. While I did not find “...one Indian biographer noted”, he did mention “but as one biographer noted ”without the race that does not clear his faults but changes the impact of the sentence. The biographer should have been mentioned by name as opposed to a vague pointer.
He mentions the over-representation of Brahmins in civil service, dominating education institutions, restriction and discrimiantion against backward castes and some of the regressive habits present. Like colonisation, it would have been prudent to have someone else (if he was not clear on this topic) give an introduction and brief history of discrimination in the country. I wonder if both these points were completely overlooked or not included on the basis of “editorial wisdom”.
A good chunk of the criticism can be fixed in reprints that add sections providing information on caste, colonisation, racism and discrimination, and the rest are misunderstanding. Any real issue in the review seems to lie in what Kanigel did not add as opposed to what's printed. As far as his writing goes, I enjoyed it as there is no citation of what exactly was "deliberately convoluting" or what made it seem like a "third-grade crime thriller style of narration".
As mentioned above, there is no Ramanujan without Hardy and ignoring their friendship/camraderie/companionship in a time of global catastrophe (World War) cannot be ignored. Robert Kanigels presentation of Hardy being "the saviour" in the prologue is critique-worthy, but the rapport itself is one that is unique and memorable in nature. They weren't friends, they weren't lovers, but they provided each other with a companionship, intellectual and otherwise during a time of calamity (World War). There is no reason Hardy, or his relationship with Ramanujan should stay in the dark in what is a complete biography.
The criticism above does not disqualify the book from being read, since the amalgamation of information is objective and informative.
A must read Biography.
EDIT
My refutation to @v_read's criticism
Maybe I owe the book a re-read, since it has been more than a hot minute since I last read the biography. Criticisms pertaining to the Western lens hold water and point to the fact a lot of our stories and narratives are controlled by cultures not our own. Some, however, miss the mark.
There is nothing that Kanigel wrote that was a speculation of his imagination. There could be critical analysis levied on how Kanigel wrote, but the what of it seems to be no different than any other biographer.
The influence of Carr's book on Ramanujan is not something new and was well observed by not only Ramanujan's earlier biographers but also the people he was surrounded by on a regular basis. Leaving out Carr's Synopsis would greatly disservice the biography, having been a crucial part of his early days. The book even mentions a mathematician observing the role of Synopsis in Ramanujan's life was that of a compass and not something that defined his methods of mathematical deduction. Labelling it "inane" is a mark of personal distaste over a criticism of the book itself.
Ramanujan as we know him does not exist without the actions of Hardy. This is not accepting "colonial charity" but a recognition of the fact the talent of Ramanujan celebrated pan-India was a result of certain events that built up the success story. The reality is, there is no Ramanujan as we know him without the efforts of Hardy, and therefore deserves a place in this unabridged work of Ramanujan’s life and times. Who knows how many such Ramanjuans have gone under the radar due to lack of proper recognition of talent?
Like the previous instance of Carr’s Synopsis, the speculation of Hardy’s homosexuality was not that of Kanigel himself like the criticism leans towards but of his various colleagues and peers. I wonder if Kaniel did not indulge in a little cynical humour by mentioning his sharing a room with R. K. Gaye, as observed by Leonard Woolf, right after introducing this arc. Nevertheless, an arc that must be included for the book while expounding on Hardy’s life for the book to be holistic in nature given his importance in Ramanujan’s life. This is important information for those students in the LGBT spectrum as a life of education without an idol is a demotivating and dark one, doubly true for marginalised folk.
In both cases, Kanigel did not indulge in speculation as insinuated but reproduced information and thoughts of their peers as stated by them. The way Kanigel put it could be up for criticism and can only be personally ascertained after a re-read.
I do share your criticism of not exploring the racism faced by Ramanujan, and this is a topic that is not explored in multiple sources, including Ramanujan The Man And The Mathematician by B Krishnayya, the only other proper biography I could find. Reprints must, in my opinion, contain a section towards the end of the book that is dedicated to exploring not only the personal prejudice endured by Ramanujan but the cultural and economical impact colonisation had on the country and her people, which is ironically not even touched upon in our education. While I did not find “...one Indian biographer noted”, he did mention “but as one biographer noted ”without the race that does not clear his faults but changes the impact of the sentence. The biographer should have been mentioned by name as opposed to a vague pointer.
He mentions the over-representation of Brahmins in civil service, dominating education institutions, restriction and discrimiantion against backward castes and some of the regressive habits present. Like colonisation, it would have been prudent to have someone else (if he was not clear on this topic) give an introduction and brief history of discrimination in the country. I wonder if both these points were completely overlooked or not included on the basis of “editorial wisdom”.
A good chunk of the criticism can be fixed in reprints that add sections providing information on caste, colonisation, racism and discrimination, and the rest are misunderstanding. Any real issue in the review seems to lie in what Kanigel did not add as opposed to what's printed. As far as his writing goes, I enjoyed it as there is no citation of what exactly was "deliberately convoluting" or what made it seem like a "third-grade crime thriller style of narration".
As mentioned above, there is no Ramanujan without Hardy and ignoring their friendship/camraderie/companionship in a time of global catastrophe (World War) cannot be ignored. Robert Kanigels presentation of Hardy being "the saviour" in the prologue is critique-worthy, but the rapport itself is one that is unique and memorable in nature. They weren't friends, they weren't lovers, but they provided each other with a companionship, intellectual and otherwise during a time of calamity (World War). There is no reason Hardy, or his relationship with Ramanujan should stay in the dark in what is a complete biography.
The criticism above does not disqualify the book from being read, since the amalgamation of information is objective and informative.
January 13, 2020
This book has many issues, and none other than Robert Kanigel is himself guilty.
First and foremost, he has continuously maintained a racist undertone in the text. He digs 20 pages deep into inane topics such as exploring the possibility of Hardy being gay or about Carr's book which influenced Ramanujan in his formative years, but does not bat an eye on the racism faced by Ramanujan in 20th century England or the capitalist colonial British Raj in India which had amputated India's growth in all spheres of life. He seems ready to write eulogies for some odd White dude who has something to say about math or Ramanujan or his field of work, but never once does he mention by name the Indian biographers of Ramanujan who have written about the same or his life before Kanigal (whom he had referenced to as well!). Lines like "one Indian biographer noted ..." are scattered throughout the text, which makes the reader wonder why they are not mentioned in the main text or instead relegated to a meager annotation somewhere in the bibliography. I waited till the very last page of the book for Kanigel to condemn the colonial rule or the coloniser West in general, or their structural damages done in India or any other colonial states. He instead seems to be basking in the so-called glory of the Modernisation Theory of the West, which was deeply disheartening.
The book is also very poorly written, sometimes even stooping to deliberately convoluting certain ideas expressed by some characters in order to disguise some uncomfortable facts. Unnecessary verbosity and third-grade crime thriller style of narration makes the reading experience massively painful at several junctures of the book. It is also written specifically for the average White American audience; the weather is noted in Fahrenheit, distance in miles, and references are made to American towns for comparisons in area and population. For the same reason, I, an Indian, had to toil myself through the first few chapters where he tries to explain my own culture to me. My primary complaint in this regard is that his sources of information regarding the same were also incompetent. Kanigel seems to have no idea of what being a Brahmin in a deeply caste-based society such as ours entails. The social capital that the Brahmin surname brings along also goes unnoticed in the narrative, and most, if not all, attention was given to how Ramanujan was almost lost into obscurity because of his economic stationing in the early 20th century British ruled Indian society. Kanigel seems to have an opinion on everything, barring racism, colonialism, and Brahminism in India. The silence is deafening.
Finally, in my opinion, Kanigel has misnamed his book. The title of this book claims to present the story of Ramanujan; rather, it is more of a story of Hardy and Ramanujan together. This is not a romantic accident but a serious deviation from the said goal. It would have been a completely different book had it truly been Ramanujan's biography, ie, the story of his life. Instead, this book is deliberately written like a masala flick wherein Ramanujan, a poor Hindu, finds his way into the hallowed halls of Western Academia, recognition, and international fame. The rags-to-riches story of Ramanujan, a fantasy that Americans love to buy, is sold ostentatiously; it seems that it is this version of the narrative that fetched Kanigal's publisher's attention which subsequently motivated Kanigal to write the book in the way he has.
Kanigal does not discount Ramanujan's efforts or his genius in this text. What he fails to do, however, is to build a holistic understanding of Ramanujan himself and his material reality, something that is expected from a biography that wishes to be deemed decent at least.
First and foremost, he has continuously maintained a racist undertone in the text. He digs 20 pages deep into inane topics such as exploring the possibility of Hardy being gay or about Carr's book which influenced Ramanujan in his formative years, but does not bat an eye on the racism faced by Ramanujan in 20th century England or the capitalist colonial British Raj in India which had amputated India's growth in all spheres of life. He seems ready to write eulogies for some odd White dude who has something to say about math or Ramanujan or his field of work, but never once does he mention by name the Indian biographers of Ramanujan who have written about the same or his life before Kanigal (whom he had referenced to as well!). Lines like "one Indian biographer noted ..." are scattered throughout the text, which makes the reader wonder why they are not mentioned in the main text or instead relegated to a meager annotation somewhere in the bibliography. I waited till the very last page of the book for Kanigel to condemn the colonial rule or the coloniser West in general, or their structural damages done in India or any other colonial states. He instead seems to be basking in the so-called glory of the Modernisation Theory of the West, which was deeply disheartening.
The book is also very poorly written, sometimes even stooping to deliberately convoluting certain ideas expressed by some characters in order to disguise some uncomfortable facts. Unnecessary verbosity and third-grade crime thriller style of narration makes the reading experience massively painful at several junctures of the book. It is also written specifically for the average White American audience; the weather is noted in Fahrenheit, distance in miles, and references are made to American towns for comparisons in area and population. For the same reason, I, an Indian, had to toil myself through the first few chapters where he tries to explain my own culture to me. My primary complaint in this regard is that his sources of information regarding the same were also incompetent. Kanigel seems to have no idea of what being a Brahmin in a deeply caste-based society such as ours entails. The social capital that the Brahmin surname brings along also goes unnoticed in the narrative, and most, if not all, attention was given to how Ramanujan was almost lost into obscurity because of his economic stationing in the early 20th century British ruled Indian society. Kanigel seems to have an opinion on everything, barring racism, colonialism, and Brahminism in India. The silence is deafening.
Finally, in my opinion, Kanigel has misnamed his book. The title of this book claims to present the story of Ramanujan; rather, it is more of a story of Hardy and Ramanujan together. This is not a romantic accident but a serious deviation from the said goal. It would have been a completely different book had it truly been Ramanujan's biography, ie, the story of his life. Instead, this book is deliberately written like a masala flick wherein Ramanujan, a poor Hindu, finds his way into the hallowed halls of Western Academia, recognition, and international fame. The rags-to-riches story of Ramanujan, a fantasy that Americans love to buy, is sold ostentatiously; it seems that it is this version of the narrative that fetched Kanigal's publisher's attention which subsequently motivated Kanigal to write the book in the way he has.
Kanigal does not discount Ramanujan's efforts or his genius in this text. What he fails to do, however, is to build a holistic understanding of Ramanujan himself and his material reality, something that is expected from a biography that wishes to be deemed decent at least.
March 7, 2020
One of the best biographies I've ever read. (The subtitle says it is about Ramanujan, but it is equally about Hardy, that perfect British intellect: more crystalline than Russell, more lofty than Moore, more self-critical than Hare, more fun than anyone, loveable atop it all.) Ramanujan's story is of course maximally moving to anyone with a shred of curiosity or pity. The most moving part of all is an absence, one of the darker thoughts among all thoughts:
His research is patent throughout: he decodes South Indian religion and cuisine, British upper-class slang, and even something of the impressiveness of higher mathematics, while using mere natural language:
Ramanujan himself left a tiny dense literature that we are still decoding:
Many passages raise goosebumps: Kanigel unites the abstract and the bodily, the true and the human all-too-human.
A life-giving book.
How many Ramanujans, his life begs us to ask, dwell in India today, unknown and unrecognized? And how many in America and Britain, locked away in racial or economic ghettos, scarcely aware of worlds outside their own?
His research is patent throughout: he decodes South Indian religion and cuisine, British upper-class slang, and even something of the impressiveness of higher mathematics, while using mere natural language:
Ramanujan's work grants direct pleasure to only a few - a few hundred mathematicians and physicists around the world, perhaps a few thousand. The rest of us must either sit on the sidelines, and, on the authority of the cognoscenti, cheer - or else rely on vague, metaphoric, and necessarily imprecise glimpses of his work.
...mathematics is not best learned passively; you don’t sop it up like a romance novel. You’ve got to go out to it, aggressive, and alert, like a chess master pursuing checkmate.
Ramanujan himself left a tiny dense literature that we are still decoding:
Ramanujan's notebooks formed a distinctly idiosyncratic record. In them even widely standardized terms sometimes acquired new meaning. Thus, an "example" — normally, as in everyday usage, an illustration of a general principle — was for Ramanujan often a wholly new theorem. A "corollary" — a theorem flowing naturally from another theorem and so requiring no separate proof — was for him sometimes a generalization, which did require its own proof. As for his mathematical notation, it sometimes bore scant resemblance to anyone else's.
Many passages raise goosebumps: Kanigel unites the abstract and the bodily, the true and the human all-too-human.
You cannot say much about Ramanujan without resorting to the word self. He was self-willed, self-directed, self-made. Some might conceivably label him selfish for his preoccupation with doing the mathematics he loved without any great concern for the better of his family or his country...
Hardy discovered Ramanujan? Not at all: a glance at the facts of 1912 shows that Ramanujan discovered Hardy.
A life-giving book.
July 3, 2023
"One idea that Ramanujan bruited about dealt with the quantity 2^n - 1 . That , a friend remembered him explaining the primordial God and several divinities. When n is zero , there is nothing ; when n is 1 , the expression denotes unity, the Infinite god. When n is 2 , the expression denotes Trinity, when n is 3 , the expression denotes 7 , the Saptha Rishis and so on."
This explains what he meant when he said: "An equation for me has no meaning unless it expresses a thought of god" If only he had been an occasional writer, one could have understood more about his metaphysical side. I had always thought that a detachment from god is of utmost importance to deal with science. This paragraph or the devotion he had completely breaks that notion I had so far.
This biography was so different from ones that I have read previously. It dwells more on the scenery and the emotions of the characters and the landscape ( banks of Cauvery in Kumbakonam, Cambridge campus, Egmore railway station , etc ) . The biographer is amused by the Indian society, marriage system, and the quarreling between a newly wed wife and a mother -in - law !
Definitely a great read.
This explains what he meant when he said: "An equation for me has no meaning unless it expresses a thought of god" If only he had been an occasional writer, one could have understood more about his metaphysical side. I had always thought that a detachment from god is of utmost importance to deal with science. This paragraph or the devotion he had completely breaks that notion I had so far.
This biography was so different from ones that I have read previously. It dwells more on the scenery and the emotions of the characters and the landscape ( banks of Cauvery in Kumbakonam, Cambridge campus, Egmore railway station , etc ) . The biographer is amused by the Indian society, marriage system, and the quarreling between a newly wed wife and a mother -in - law !
Definitely a great read.
June 27, 2021
Very touching and emotional read about a mathematical genius I knew nothing about. And even though there was a lot of math in this book (obviously) and I genuinely hate math, it didn't take away anything from the enjoyment at all. It was a rather large book but never feelt like it draged out or where to long. Highly recommend!
June 20, 2019
The movie based on the life of Ramanujan sheds some light on to the brilliance of this Indian mathematician, sadly however the producers weren't brave enough to depict him true to his image, rather they glamorised him when in fact Ramanujan was fat, short and had suffered from the effects of smallpox.
The author has endeavoured to make the book readable for all with only occasionally heading off into a mathematical maze and for the most part creates an enjoyable account of these two famous men. Hardy is the typical English scholar, one best described as non-sexual, having no love interest other than mathematics, intellectual associations, cricket and journalism. Ramanujan was a single minded gifted man. His religious beliefs and vegetarianism whilst part of his everyday life in India made his life extremely difficult in cold wet England and stodgy diet. He was an only child and as like in many cultures (still today) was spoilt and waited on by his mother regardless of his tantrums. Because the tantrum child behaviour was never reigned in even as an adult this helped create his difficult and failed academic life in India refusing to tow the line of educational institutions' study and exam rules.
Sadly, the English mathematician Hardy it seems didn't really "see the man" until the very end when Ramanujan was extremely ill with TB and it seems that if only some of the English academics had cared a little more for the well being of this brilliant man from India, sourcing his specialised food stuffs for him and orienteering him more to their lifestyles, his life at Cambridge would have been more positive. The weather alone would be enough to try anyone. His brilliance was from natural aptitude but it was Hardy and Littlewood who fashioned him and fought for his recognition amongst the English academia that attributed to his world fame.
The author has endeavoured to make the book readable for all with only occasionally heading off into a mathematical maze and for the most part creates an enjoyable account of these two famous men. Hardy is the typical English scholar, one best described as non-sexual, having no love interest other than mathematics, intellectual associations, cricket and journalism. Ramanujan was a single minded gifted man. His religious beliefs and vegetarianism whilst part of his everyday life in India made his life extremely difficult in cold wet England and stodgy diet. He was an only child and as like in many cultures (still today) was spoilt and waited on by his mother regardless of his tantrums. Because the tantrum child behaviour was never reigned in even as an adult this helped create his difficult and failed academic life in India refusing to tow the line of educational institutions' study and exam rules.
Sadly, the English mathematician Hardy it seems didn't really "see the man" until the very end when Ramanujan was extremely ill with TB and it seems that if only some of the English academics had cared a little more for the well being of this brilliant man from India, sourcing his specialised food stuffs for him and orienteering him more to their lifestyles, his life at Cambridge would have been more positive. The weather alone would be enough to try anyone. His brilliance was from natural aptitude but it was Hardy and Littlewood who fashioned him and fought for his recognition amongst the English academia that attributed to his world fame.
May 30, 2009
This book is a biography of Ramanujan, the Indian genius mathematician.
It's difficult to avoid finding Ramanujan fascinating, even if you have no interest in math. He was born poor in India in 1887, and showed an incredible natural talent for math -- including theoretical as well as arithmetical abilities -- but his poor academic talent in other areas prevented him from moving up in India's educational structure. While working a series of low-level bureaucratic jobs, he continually tried to get prominent mathematicians to recognize his ability -- some seemed unable to understand his work, others seemed to see potential but didn't know how to help Ramanujan. It didn't help that Ramanujan's only experience to theoretical math was very limited -- he had an outdated book of theorems that he started from, and he developed his own notation that was difficult to get used to.
Eventually, a British mathematician (Hardy) responded to a letter asking for help. With Hardy's help, Ramanujan traveled to Cambridge and and began interacting with a larger circle of mathematicians. Ramanujan didn't find the transition easy, but he was successful, achieving the title of Fellow of the Royal Society.
Every bit of Ramanujan's life is more interesting than the short description I've given here. This book does a good job of covering all of it, and there are really only two flaws I can think of. The first is simply a matter of organization. I get the feeling that the author collected a large amount of material, and felt the need to be completist in disclosing it all. Most of it fits fine, and tells the story well, but there are a few chapters, or sections of chapters, that feel tacked on.
The larger issue with this book is always an issue of any book that targets a technical and non-technical audience at the same time. In this case, the author clearly wants to describe a bit of Ramanujan's mathematics, both to give the reader a feeling for the sorts of things he and others were working on, and to let people see a small amount of the order -- beauty? -- that can exist numbers and math. The basic problem is that it's almost impossible to describe technical material in a way that non-technical reads will care about, and at the same time keep it interesting to a technical reader. The worst examples fail on both accounts. This book doesn't fall to that level, but it doesn't exactly succeed, either.
The best thing about this book, besides the good job it does in telling the very facts of the matter, is that it does a good job touching on larger issues that Ramanujan's story brings up, both on a personal level and a larger level. For Ramanujan himself, one is almost forced to ask what he would have accomplished if he had been born in a time or place where he had easier access to a greater range of mathematics in his early age. Would he have been far greater than he really ended up being? Or, perhaps, the barriers he overcame ended up causing only delays, not reductions, in his accomplishments. Or, maybe, he would have found an outlet that let him achieve an easy-enough normal life, and wouldn't have felt the strong force to push him to continue looking for other mathematicians with whom to connect.
On a large scope, Ramanujan's story introduces questions about how societies treat people that have a lot to contribute in a non-traditional way. Ramanujan could have easily gotten frustrated with his initial inability to connect with someone that recognized and could foster his potential, and we would have lost all of his contributions. How much of that is due to where he was born? He eventually found success in England, but he had trouble in all of his non-math academics; I can easily imagine that most educational systems might have trouble dealing with that. And while Ramanujan did eventually find academic success in England, he encountered a huge number of other problems there. I'm sure that part of that was due to the time in which he lived, but I think that even now he wouldn't completely fit in, and would have problems.
Anyone that finds Ramanujan interesting would enjoy reading this book.
It's difficult to avoid finding Ramanujan fascinating, even if you have no interest in math. He was born poor in India in 1887, and showed an incredible natural talent for math -- including theoretical as well as arithmetical abilities -- but his poor academic talent in other areas prevented him from moving up in India's educational structure. While working a series of low-level bureaucratic jobs, he continually tried to get prominent mathematicians to recognize his ability -- some seemed unable to understand his work, others seemed to see potential but didn't know how to help Ramanujan. It didn't help that Ramanujan's only experience to theoretical math was very limited -- he had an outdated book of theorems that he started from, and he developed his own notation that was difficult to get used to.
Eventually, a British mathematician (Hardy) responded to a letter asking for help. With Hardy's help, Ramanujan traveled to Cambridge and and began interacting with a larger circle of mathematicians. Ramanujan didn't find the transition easy, but he was successful, achieving the title of Fellow of the Royal Society.
Every bit of Ramanujan's life is more interesting than the short description I've given here. This book does a good job of covering all of it, and there are really only two flaws I can think of. The first is simply a matter of organization. I get the feeling that the author collected a large amount of material, and felt the need to be completist in disclosing it all. Most of it fits fine, and tells the story well, but there are a few chapters, or sections of chapters, that feel tacked on.
The larger issue with this book is always an issue of any book that targets a technical and non-technical audience at the same time. In this case, the author clearly wants to describe a bit of Ramanujan's mathematics, both to give the reader a feeling for the sorts of things he and others were working on, and to let people see a small amount of the order -- beauty? -- that can exist numbers and math. The basic problem is that it's almost impossible to describe technical material in a way that non-technical reads will care about, and at the same time keep it interesting to a technical reader. The worst examples fail on both accounts. This book doesn't fall to that level, but it doesn't exactly succeed, either.
The best thing about this book, besides the good job it does in telling the very facts of the matter, is that it does a good job touching on larger issues that Ramanujan's story brings up, both on a personal level and a larger level. For Ramanujan himself, one is almost forced to ask what he would have accomplished if he had been born in a time or place where he had easier access to a greater range of mathematics in his early age. Would he have been far greater than he really ended up being? Or, perhaps, the barriers he overcame ended up causing only delays, not reductions, in his accomplishments. Or, maybe, he would have found an outlet that let him achieve an easy-enough normal life, and wouldn't have felt the strong force to push him to continue looking for other mathematicians with whom to connect.
On a large scope, Ramanujan's story introduces questions about how societies treat people that have a lot to contribute in a non-traditional way. Ramanujan could have easily gotten frustrated with his initial inability to connect with someone that recognized and could foster his potential, and we would have lost all of his contributions. How much of that is due to where he was born? He eventually found success in England, but he had trouble in all of his non-math academics; I can easily imagine that most educational systems might have trouble dealing with that. And while Ramanujan did eventually find academic success in England, he encountered a huge number of other problems there. I'm sure that part of that was due to the time in which he lived, but I think that even now he wouldn't completely fit in, and would have problems.
Anyone that finds Ramanujan interesting would enjoy reading this book.
September 19, 2018
The Man Who Knew Infinity: A Life of the Genius Ramanujan , is a heart wrenching, tragic life story of great Indian Mathematician. If you are an Indian student you must have seen him on many Math academic book cover pages. Had Ramanujan something extraordinary to offer the world? What was the nature and extent of his genius, if genius it was? This book has answered all these questions well enough, only drawback I feel is, its pretty hard to follow the sequence of the events.
He was so seduced by higher mathematics lost interest in everything, even failing in school. Poverty, conservative family, drawbacks of the poor education system and lack of access to modern books were some of the challenges he faced. It’s unfortunate that none of the India mathematicians properly understood him, that he’d not be able to find there the expertise and encouragement he needed, that he should instead write to Cambridge, or elsewhere in the West, for help.
G.H. Hardy was the first mathematician to discover his talent, and while he collaborated extensively with Ramanujan who he “treated supremely well professionally” in Cambridge, he never quite grew to be a close friend or confidante of the young Indian mathematician.
The day after Ramanujan died, his doctor Subramanian Chandrasekhar wrote in his diary: "If he had been allowed to follow my instructions, this double tragedy need not have taken place. The neglect of Ramanujan during his early phase—perhaps partly due to the ignorance of his contemporaries, as well as his relatives’ (mother’s and wife’s) contributory (I almost feel like using the stronger word “criminal”) negligence have contributed to this double tragedy—a tragedy which is too deep for tears" .
He was so seduced by higher mathematics lost interest in everything, even failing in school. Poverty, conservative family, drawbacks of the poor education system and lack of access to modern books were some of the challenges he faced. It’s unfortunate that none of the India mathematicians properly understood him, that he’d not be able to find there the expertise and encouragement he needed, that he should instead write to Cambridge, or elsewhere in the West, for help.
G.H. Hardy was the first mathematician to discover his talent, and while he collaborated extensively with Ramanujan who he “treated supremely well professionally” in Cambridge, he never quite grew to be a close friend or confidante of the young Indian mathematician.
The day after Ramanujan died, his doctor Subramanian Chandrasekhar wrote in his diary: "If he had been allowed to follow my instructions, this double tragedy need not have taken place. The neglect of Ramanujan during his early phase—perhaps partly due to the ignorance of his contemporaries, as well as his relatives’ (mother’s and wife’s) contributory (I almost feel like using the stronger word “criminal”) negligence have contributed to this double tragedy—a tragedy which is too deep for tears" .
April 21, 2020
It takes a significant effort to read this biography but it is so worth it.
December 5, 2022
Very detailed by my standards. Perhaps if I hadn't read it I would've known him as nothing more than a genius; this work grounds him well.
May 7, 2016
I'm torn between rating this two or three stars, but decided to round up to three.
The difficulty here was figuring out whether the writing or the story was more important, and in the end I went with story. However, here are some problems I had with the book:
1. Flowery descriptions that were in some places completely ridiculous and in some others just wrong
2. Lots of irrelevant detail (I don't care about the author of the book that was read by Ramanujan, or the boat he traveled to England in)
3. A lack of personal detail that would have made the people written about fully realised and fleshed out
There were some others, but in the end, my main problem was that I came away with a good idea of Ramanujan as a mathematician but very little idea of him as a man.
The difficulty here was figuring out whether the writing or the story was more important, and in the end I went with story. However, here are some problems I had with the book:
1. Flowery descriptions that were in some places completely ridiculous and in some others just wrong
2. Lots of irrelevant detail (I don't care about the author of the book that was read by Ramanujan, or the boat he traveled to England in)
3. A lack of personal detail that would have made the people written about fully realised and fleshed out
There were some others, but in the end, my main problem was that I came away with a good idea of Ramanujan as a mathematician but very little idea of him as a man.
November 29, 2012
As someone who grew up in Southern part of India, I knew about Ramanujam and some his stories since childhood. The Author has definitely done his research and he is right about almost everything that he mentions in this book. I can clearly see that someone who has never heard about this Mathematician before would enjoy this book far more than I did since I vaguely knew his stories. Nevertheless, if you are interested in Maths, you should probably read this book.
February 25, 2014
This is a very well researched and wonderfully written biography of two great mathematecians S.Ramanujan and G.H.Hardy. The author goes into a lot of details about ramanujan's early life and his struggles in south india and after his "discovery" by hardy, the author goes into the aspects of his life in cambridge.The only disappointment in this book is how little of ramanujan's work in mathematics is present in it.
even though i wish there was more math in it,this is still an excellent book.
even though i wish there was more math in it,this is still an excellent book.
July 15, 2018
The story of the life and academic career of the pioneer Indian mathematician, Srinivasa Ramanujan, and his friendship with his mentor, Professor G.H. Hardy.
A movie was made based on this book with Dev Patel, Jeremy Irons, Malcolm Sinclair
A movie was made based on this book with Dev Patel, Jeremy Irons, Malcolm Sinclair
November 16, 2020
Number theory, and the curious beauty of primes, have a tendency to attract amateur attention. There is even a Crackpot Index (adapted from John Baez's original). "10 points for stating that your ideas are of great financial, theoretical and/or spiritual value. 20 points for each of the following conjectures that you purport to have solved: Goldbach's conjecture; twin prime conjecture; Riemann Hypothesis, Fermat's Last Theorem; primes of the form n²+1..." In G.H. Hardy's day such cranks existed too:
There are precedents, as Kanigel, a professor of science writing at MIT, traces in this confident and well-researched biography. Jacobi had written Legendre on elliptic functions and been instantly discovered. Sophie Germain had written Gauss on number theory and done the same. On the other hand, when Abel sent Gauss his proof of the non-existence of roots for quintic equations, he discarded it without reading it, saying "here is another one of those monstrosities". Ramanujan's outsider status was greater as an Indian. He had no access to the European mathematical tradition and suffered racial prejudice in England (when he was a candidate for Fellowship at Trinity College, one of the governors said he "wouldn't have a black man as Fellow"; he was turned down). And he understood mathematics in an abstract, spiritual way, tinged by his relationship with the Hindu goddess Namagiri. Kanigel doesn't skimp on the mystical aspects of Ramanujan's thought, including the misgivings he had as a pious Brahmin about traveling across the sea to England. There were other Indian academic superstars, such as C.V. Raman and S.N. Bose, but unlike them Ramanujan had had no formative Western influence.
The book serves equally as a biography of Hardy, who awakened English mathematics from its dogmatic slumber - obsessed with the contrived complexity of the "Tripos" - that had ignored the continental revolution in analysis, the work of people like Cauchy, Weierstrass and Dedekind, who had developed a coherent theory of continuous functions and infinitesimals (a somewhat high-level summary is here). Hardy's championing of Ramanujan got the mathematical world to listen to him, but Kanigel is sensitive to the psychological dynamic in their friendship. Hardy was reserved and very critical, and it is unlikely that Ramanujan would have felt comfortable discussing with him his loneliness and ill health that drove him to an early death. Kanigel speculates that Vitamin D deficiency may have worsened his fatal tuberculosis. The accepted treatment at the time was maximum exposure to the elements, inspired by the fresh-air-mad Germans. "A hut on top of a hill, there was no door, no glass in the windows; the wind and the rain blew through." For someone used to the tropical climes of Chennai (then Madras), this could not have helped.
If there is a villain in the book it is Ramanujan's mother Komalatammal, who embodied the stereotype of the domineering Indian mother-in-law, terrorising his wife Janaki, intercepting her letters and keeping her sequestered from her husband. (There were astrological omens involved.) Kanigel implies that Ramanujan's loneliness and attempted suicide in England might have been averted were she less controlling, but also acknowledges her love for her son and desire to do what was best for him. At the time of Ramanujan's death, under Hardy's influence, there was a consensus that having started late and died young he had not fulfilled his potential, but over time his esteem has risen within the mathematical community. He seems to have been one of those rare mathematicians who are guided not by proofs but by a vision of the Platonic world of mathematics, with an astonishing familiarity with numbers ("every integer was his personal friend" someone said of him) and an instinct for what was true, letting others find the proofs.
Audiobook note: the narrator (Humphrey Bower) is an Australian, a somewhat distracting choice (Kanigel is from Brooklyn), and mispronounces some words (e.g. Gonville and Caius college).
it was the strangeness of Ramanujan’s theorems that struck him first, not their brilliance. The Indian, he supposed, was just another crank. He was forever getting bizarre manuscripts from strangers that...pretended to prove the prophetic wisdom of the Great Pyramid, the revelations of the Elders of Zion, or the cryptograms that Bacon had inserted in the plays of the so-called Shakespeare.The amazing thing about Srinivasa Ramanujan was that he was that rare self-taught, obsessive crank who was the real deal. Out of step with modern mathematics, basing himself on a mediocre textbook that was out of date when it was new, he produced a universe of theorems, some of which were wrong, some trivial, but many so brilliant and so original that a whole journal today is dedicated to puzzling them out. He was "another Euler, another Jacobi".
There are precedents, as Kanigel, a professor of science writing at MIT, traces in this confident and well-researched biography. Jacobi had written Legendre on elliptic functions and been instantly discovered. Sophie Germain had written Gauss on number theory and done the same. On the other hand, when Abel sent Gauss his proof of the non-existence of roots for quintic equations, he discarded it without reading it, saying "here is another one of those monstrosities". Ramanujan's outsider status was greater as an Indian. He had no access to the European mathematical tradition and suffered racial prejudice in England (when he was a candidate for Fellowship at Trinity College, one of the governors said he "wouldn't have a black man as Fellow"; he was turned down). And he understood mathematics in an abstract, spiritual way, tinged by his relationship with the Hindu goddess Namagiri. Kanigel doesn't skimp on the mystical aspects of Ramanujan's thought, including the misgivings he had as a pious Brahmin about traveling across the sea to England. There were other Indian academic superstars, such as C.V. Raman and S.N. Bose, but unlike them Ramanujan had had no formative Western influence.
The book serves equally as a biography of Hardy, who awakened English mathematics from its dogmatic slumber - obsessed with the contrived complexity of the "Tripos" - that had ignored the continental revolution in analysis, the work of people like Cauchy, Weierstrass and Dedekind, who had developed a coherent theory of continuous functions and infinitesimals (a somewhat high-level summary is here). Hardy's championing of Ramanujan got the mathematical world to listen to him, but Kanigel is sensitive to the psychological dynamic in their friendship. Hardy was reserved and very critical, and it is unlikely that Ramanujan would have felt comfortable discussing with him his loneliness and ill health that drove him to an early death. Kanigel speculates that Vitamin D deficiency may have worsened his fatal tuberculosis. The accepted treatment at the time was maximum exposure to the elements, inspired by the fresh-air-mad Germans. "A hut on top of a hill, there was no door, no glass in the windows; the wind and the rain blew through." For someone used to the tropical climes of Chennai (then Madras), this could not have helped.
If there is a villain in the book it is Ramanujan's mother Komalatammal, who embodied the stereotype of the domineering Indian mother-in-law, terrorising his wife Janaki, intercepting her letters and keeping her sequestered from her husband. (There were astrological omens involved.) Kanigel implies that Ramanujan's loneliness and attempted suicide in England might have been averted were she less controlling, but also acknowledges her love for her son and desire to do what was best for him. At the time of Ramanujan's death, under Hardy's influence, there was a consensus that having started late and died young he had not fulfilled his potential, but over time his esteem has risen within the mathematical community. He seems to have been one of those rare mathematicians who are guided not by proofs but by a vision of the Platonic world of mathematics, with an astonishing familiarity with numbers ("every integer was his personal friend" someone said of him) and an instinct for what was true, letting others find the proofs.
Audiobook note: the narrator (Humphrey Bower) is an Australian, a somewhat distracting choice (Kanigel is from Brooklyn), and mispronounces some words (e.g. Gonville and Caius college).
November 18, 2015
Wonderful biography of Srinivasa Ramanujan, one of the most "romantic" figures of the history of mathematics and science - born relatively poor, no contact with universities, shut out due to an extremely rigid system, no training in mathematics, a pure autodidact who somehow managed to come up with novel and outstanding results but was seen as a bit of a crank, then was invited to the UK by Hardy to finally come in contact with the greats of mathematics, finally got recognition, published a slew of highly original mathematics, but then he caught TB and died at age 33.
The book doesn't come close to his genius, but that's something that baffled even his contemporaries. Since Ramanujan died so young his great contemporary and benefactor G. H. Hardy takes up quite a lot of space in the book; I'd wager 40% of the book focuses more on Hardy than Ramanujan.
The book itself is sometimes too American for my taste - Indian and British life explained with examples from baseball or horse-races. A rather uncomfortable 20 pages or so speculating about Hardy's sexual orientation (who cares?).
It also concentrates on the absolute layman as the audience, so you may be bored when the author starts to explain (for example) factorials. Then again, this is a hard decision to make as the author - do you make it very simple and get a general audience or do you assume some knowledge and alienate many?
Edit 2015-11-18: Looks like a movie based on this book is screening in cinemas now: IMDB page, Wikipedia.
The book doesn't come close to his genius, but that's something that baffled even his contemporaries. Since Ramanujan died so young his great contemporary and benefactor G. H. Hardy takes up quite a lot of space in the book; I'd wager 40% of the book focuses more on Hardy than Ramanujan.
The book itself is sometimes too American for my taste - Indian and British life explained with examples from baseball or horse-races. A rather uncomfortable 20 pages or so speculating about Hardy's sexual orientation (who cares?).
It also concentrates on the absolute layman as the audience, so you may be bored when the author starts to explain (for example) factorials. Then again, this is a hard decision to make as the author - do you make it very simple and get a general audience or do you assume some knowledge and alienate many?
Edit 2015-11-18: Looks like a movie based on this book is screening in cinemas now: IMDB page, Wikipedia.
May 17, 2012
This book describes the life of Srinivasa Ramanujan. He was an Indian mathematician of early 20th century.
The book is written beautifully. The author gives all the relevant information like local customs, religion, geography, and family dynamics at appropriate places while describing the life of Mr. Ramanujan. The friendship between two great mathematicians, G. H. Hardy and S. Ramanujan is narrated in great details and makes a very important part of this book. Those two men were as different as they can get. Hardy was an atheist, outgoing, loved cricket, tennis, and was methodical; Ramanujan was on the other hand an orthodox Brahmin, shy, introvert and his mathematics lacked proper systematic steps and was devoid of proofs. Yet, they became the best of friends and enriched each other’s lives. They completed each other. I am glad that the author has included some mathematics in the book. It is not so much that the reader may get distracted and lose the link in the story.
Mr. Kanigel is very right when he says that in India, even decades after independence, many potential Ramanujans are ignored. Also, India recognizes the talent of her own people only after the west does. Time and again, people have witnessed this phenomenon.
I believe this is a very nicely written biography of a very remarkable man.
The book is written beautifully. The author gives all the relevant information like local customs, religion, geography, and family dynamics at appropriate places while describing the life of Mr. Ramanujan. The friendship between two great mathematicians, G. H. Hardy and S. Ramanujan is narrated in great details and makes a very important part of this book. Those two men were as different as they can get. Hardy was an atheist, outgoing, loved cricket, tennis, and was methodical; Ramanujan was on the other hand an orthodox Brahmin, shy, introvert and his mathematics lacked proper systematic steps and was devoid of proofs. Yet, they became the best of friends and enriched each other’s lives. They completed each other. I am glad that the author has included some mathematics in the book. It is not so much that the reader may get distracted and lose the link in the story.
Mr. Kanigel is very right when he says that in India, even decades after independence, many potential Ramanujans are ignored. Also, India recognizes the talent of her own people only after the west does. Time and again, people have witnessed this phenomenon.
I believe this is a very nicely written biography of a very remarkable man.
October 14, 2013
First of all kudos to ROBERT KANIGEL to come up with such fascinating facts about one of the indigenous prodigy "Ramanujan" with such ease and effortless storytelling which is rare to be seen without using much mathematical jargons that would make this book certainly *romantic affair* for the readers ! The way all threads are connected with such sumptuous details in chronological events-order ,perhaps it keeps your intrigue alive through-out ! The way Hardy's idiosyncrasies and peculiar thinking are portrayed , Trinity's legacy and its unique system is unleashed , the way Kumbhkonam's contour is designed in texts , and the way Ramanujan's beautiful mind and his work are explained, make your all senses flabbergasted !
The adversaries in which Ramanujan nourished his intellectual thirst and came up with such masterpiece theorems -in his own exposition *by treading on the grooves* - without solidifying them with *Rigor* makes him unique among all F.R.S of all times and probably ,the best fertile mathematician of his time..
Thanks Robert for such a deep account ,which was not discovered in any other Biographies of such a genius..
The adversaries in which Ramanujan nourished his intellectual thirst and came up with such masterpiece theorems -in his own exposition *by treading on the grooves* - without solidifying them with *Rigor* makes him unique among all F.R.S of all times and probably ,the best fertile mathematician of his time..
Thanks Robert for such a deep account ,which was not discovered in any other Biographies of such a genius..
February 25, 2012
The book gives you a fascinating insight into Srinivasan Ramanujan's life. Interested in mathematics from early on, Ramanujan overcame all barriers, including a complete lack of formal mathematical training, to become one of the greatest mathematicians of the 20th century. The book explores Ramanujan's mind, which worked very differently from an average 'great' mathematician. Focused on intuitive reasoning rather than rigorous proof, Ramanujan was often disregarded, only to be discovered later By Cambridge mathematician G.H.Hardy. Together until his very early demise, Ramanujan and Hardy performed some of the most exciting mathematics ever.
If you're a fan of scientific biographies, you NEED this in your collection.
If you're a fan of scientific biographies, you NEED this in your collection.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 521 reviews