The Man Who Knew Infinity: A Life of the Genius Ramanujan by Robert Kanigel (PDF)

Description

NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE STARRING JEREMY IRONS AND DEV PATEL! A moving and enlightening look at the unbelievable true story of how gifted prodigy Ramanujan stunned the scholars of Cambridge University and revolutionized mathematics.In 1913, a young unschooled Indian clerk wrote a letter to G H Hardy, begging the preeminent English mathematician’s opinion on several ideas he had about numbers. Realizing 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 toll: he died at the age of thirty-two, but left behind a magical and inspired legacy that is still being plumbed for its secrets today.

User’s Reviews

Editorial Reviews: About the Author Robert Kanigel is the author of six previous books. He has been the recipient of numerous awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Grady-Stack Award for science writing. His book The Man Who Knew Infinity was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. His work has appeared in numerous publications, including The New York Times Magazine, The New York Times Book Review, Harvard Magazine, and Psychology Today. He has just retired as Professor of Science Writing at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts and now lives in Baltimore.

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐This is a fascinating book, as recognized by the many reviews. But I suggest a different perspective, namely the challenge posed by the mind of Srinivasa RAMANUJAN to the idea of “super-intelligent robots” which is at the core of what is appropriately called by Ray Kurzweil “Spiritual Machines” and “Singularity.” Ramanujan was more that one of the few persons recognized as “geniuses.” He was a super-genius, “a man who grew up praying to stone deities; who for most of his life took counsel from a family goddess, declaring it was she to whom his mathematical insights were owed; whose theorems would, at intellectually backbreaking cost, be proved true—yet leave mathematicians baffled that anyone could divine them in the first place” (p. 4).All mathematical creativity depends on inspiration and imagination, followed by strict proof. However the mental processes resulting in the radical breakthroughs of Ramanujan, despite his social circumstances and lack of minimal education, are on an unequalled level. This outstanding biography does not even try to explain them, nor do the top mathematicians with whom Ramanujan worked at Cambridge and who continue to draw radically novel ideas from his handwritten notebooks. This brings me to current efforts to spawn robots with artificial general intelligence and, beyond them, robots with super-intelligence. But the phenomenon of Ramanujan (and a few other geniuses) is not only beyond the scales of intelligence, but above the concept of “intelligence” itself. No enhancement of human intelligence opens a door to becoming a Ramanujan; and no algorithm is likely to produce robots with the abilities of Ramanujan. This would require more than super-intelligence namely a quantum leap into what we do not understand and cannot even conceptualize. Artificial intelligence experts will probably respond that progress will be in steps: a somewhat super-intelligence entity will develop a more super-intelligent entity and so on, till “minds” of the quality of Ramanujan are understood, achieved and surpassed. But this is a weak hypothesis as long as the mind of Ramanujan remains totally a black box.Thus Ramanujan posed a critical riddle to the idea of super-intelligent robots, whether with biological or mechanical substrata. Therefore, studying this book and pondering the challenge its subject presents is strongly recommended to philosophers, scientists and technologists working on advanced artificial intelligence and the Singularity hypothesis as a whole.Professor Yehezkel DrorThe Hebrew University of Jerusalem

⭐A Mathematician Would Enjoy This Book.A good read. A sad read. It gives a detailed life history, the struggles of Srinivasa Ramanujam to be socially acceptable, to prove his genius.Apart from Ramanujam, the character i loved are:G.H.Hardy : Born and brought not with a golden spoon. He loves his family. He loves cricket. And he loves mathematics.Ramanujam had the talent. Had the brains. Had the insight. Had the intuition. But G.H.Hardy found Ramanujam. G.H.Hardy showed Ramanujam to the world. And the genuine struggles he took in bringing Ramanujam to England. A compassionate human being.Neville: The guy who first saw Ramanujam as a genius. Read the book to find out why he travelled to India in the first place. Am sure everyone would be impressed as I am.Littlewood: A cute guy who competed with Ramanujam with regard to prime numbers. But the first guy who so untiringly went through all of Ramanujam’s papers to give a positive impression of Ramanujam to the skeptic mind of G.H.Hardy.Sir Francis Spring: Wow….A Not An Indian Guy….who recognized Ramanujam’s talent when Ramanujam was working as a clerk in the Madras Port.Ramanujam: He now is a genius. But before that….A brahmin guy. A Vaishnavite. A boy who flunked all his exams except Maths. A boy who loves food. A mother’s boy who loved the brinjal curry. A college student who never made it to the board exams. A married man who didn’t know if he is doing the right thing in pursing maths.A simple man.A humble man.A Man who saw god in every equation he wrote.Of all qualities, A guy who wrote to his parents, family, wife, friends 3 or 4 times a month from England giving them up-to-date information about his mathematical progress, how he held to his vegetarianism….My mom once said that, “Man is a Social Being….He/She cannot be alone”. When writing this, I ponder of how true this is.Ramanujam was a genius…But took so many people outside his family to bring him to light. But in most cases the friends, family that helped them are never ever mentioned…But the author did a great job in going over the minute details of each and every single person who made Ramanujam as the person we see him today. Hats off to Robert Kanigel.The happiest moments of Ramanujam’s life must have been the ones he stayed in Cambridge along with G.H.Hardy going after his leisure activity, “Mathematics” (as Ramanujam put it).I love the book..In the last pages of the book there is too much mathematics which I didnt enjoy reading much as I didn’t understand them (probably thatz why 3 Stars).Am impressed with the amount of information the author collected in trying to know why a particular place is named, “Triplicane”, “Rameshwaram”, “Nammakal”.A Big Wow : in the first 2 decades of 20th century…..The ticket price from Kumbakonam to Madras by train : Rs.3The ticket price from Madras to Cambridge by ship : Rs.400AV.

⭐This is a very frustrating book. On the one hand the tale is incredible; on the other, the telling of it is annoying. As others have noted, the book rambles uncontrollably: a decent attempt at editing might have helped. Moreover, the many mathematical formulae are illegible in the Kindle edition. The book itself suffers from a lack of attention to detail: for example, the small town near Cambridge is Chesterton, not Chestertown; posh is not an acronym of Port Out Starboard Home; and the UK is not up near the Arctic Circle. Lastly, the I found the overall American bias off-putting.

⭐You don’t need to understand advanced number theory to be moved and intrigued by this story. Beyond a moving personal story it gives a devastating insight into the suffering of one deprived of his whole culture and family support. No-one in England really understood poor Ramanujan, although his brilliant mind won so many followers. His genius was closely connected to his spiritual life, but that was ignored- so sad – and remains a real lesson in how we treat strangers.

⭐It is about Indian culture, English culture, lives of various mathematicians, almost a history book. Very informative but sometimes too much with a very american feel.

⭐i thought it would explain how he got so skilled but the book made the premise that he just knew what he knew. Nothing about his development.

⭐Very humbling and tenacious demonstration of commitment by an individual.

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