Ramanujan: The Man and the Mathematician

by S.R. Ranganathan

This is the moving story of the life of Ramanujan, the great Indian mathematical genius who was born in 1887. The son of a clerk in a cloth merchant's shop, at the age of 13, Ramanujan had mastered Loney's Trigonometry and calculated the length of the Earth's equator. Before he was 23 and in spite of poverty and unemployment, Ramanujan had filled a whole notebook with hundreds of mathematical theorems and results. In Cambridge, he was acknowledged to be the most remarkable mathematician of the times and was elected a Fellow of the Trinity College of Cambridge and a Fellow of the Royal Society at the early age of 30. The book contains the reminiscences of several surviving contemporaries of Ramanujan. It highlights his penetrating intuition and childlike simplicity. He was a 'Seer' in mathematics, and though agnostic in arguments, he was ever conscious of the immanence of God.

138 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2009

Reviews

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you know a little about Ramanujan, you've probably already heard most of what is in this book. There were a few things I really enjoyed. Ranganathan, who worked at the University of Madras, was preparing a biography of Ramanujan after his death. During his research he learned about a notebook of Ramanujan's, but he couldn't find it. While in England he contacted G. H. Hardy and mentioned if he had known about the notebook. Hardy was in possession of the notebook, Ranganathan said perhaps it is best kept with you as he didn't want to offend Hardy who may me using it for research or editing it for publication. Hardy replied "Ramanujan belongs to your country. The proper place for this notebook is your own University Library." (pg 56) Hardy mentioned he was too busy to go through the notebook as he was doing his own research. To try and prove and edit all of the formulas for publication would take a lifetime. Ranganathan promised to make a copy of the book and sent it to Hardy.The entire conversation can be found on pages 56-57. Other anecdotes I liked were that Ramanujan was often so absorbed in thought that he would forget to eat. (pg 90) That he would write his mathematics on slate with chalk and use his elbow as an eraser, his elbow became very coarse and black because from this. (pgs 25-26) Lastly, when it was too hot in India during the day to concentrate, he would get up past midnight to work on math. (pg 90) I read the hardcover from 1967, I hope the pages match with the reprint.

[Aryan Prasad · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book does justice to Ramanujan the Man, but Ramanujan The mathematician seems lacking. Will have to read for that.