John Baez Recounting Ramanujan

 Anecdotes and speculation about anecdotes (the ever-interesting life of Ramanujan):

https://johncarlosbaez.wordpress.com/2022/01/30/hardy-ramanujan-and-taxi-no-1729/

"Magical Genius"

From Quanta Magazine today some puzzles to ponder from that "magical genius" Ramanujan:

https://www.quantamagazine.org/20160714-three-puzzles-inspired-by-ramanujan/

James Propp Explores Ramanujan

"What can you say about a thirty-two-year-old mathematician who died?  That he loved numbers and equations.  That he had a mysteriously intimate understanding of infinite numerical processes..." 
so begins a brand new post from James Propp on Indian savant mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan.

Ramanujan, of course, has been much in the news of late, due to a major motion picture on his life, and also a Ken Ono bio of him; now comes along the best single post I've ever seen on him from Propp, that provider of once-a-month thought-provoking, "enchanting" posts:

https://mathenchant.wordpress.com/2016/06/16/sri-ramanujan-and-the-secrets-of-lakshmi/

This is just a great, succinct compendium of Ramanujan's life and work (if I were you, I'd print it out and keep on hand, just for inspiration!). Not only is there a bit of the wonderful life story in brief, but lots of the math wonderment for which Ramanujan was famous. Jim too goes a little into the mysterious connection between Ramanujan and his family Hindu "Goddess" Namagiri Thayar (who supposedly provided him his math insights), as I did in an earlier post here.

This is a not-to-be-missed post! (with lots of good links and endnotes as well). And next month Jim will be doing a followup specifically on the current film biopic of Ramanujan's life ("The Man Who Knew Infinity"). His take should be very interesting.
Anyway, a great post to take you into the weekend.

Namagiri and the Mysticism of Ramanujan's Math

One of my greatest intrigues of Ramanujan's life (as indicated earlier when I overviewed the new film on his life) was always his claim of receiving mathematical insights, in his dreams, directly from the Hindu Goddess Namagiri. Since the movie was unsatisfactory in further fleshing out that storyline, I searched for a bit more information on the Web:

Ramanujan's parents had prayed to Namagiri to bless the family with a son prior to Ramanujan's birth. It was also Namagiri who purportedly gave permission for Ramanujan to travel to England and work with Hardy.
The brief Wikipedia page for Namagiri has just a few more details of Namagiri 'proposing mathematical formulae' to Ramanujan which he would then "have to verify."  The page offers one dream example from Ramanujan as follows:

"While asleep, I had an unusual experience. There was a red screen formed by flowing blood, as it were. I was observing it. Suddenly a hand began to write on the screen. I became all attention. That hand wrote a number of elliptic integrals. They stuck to my mind. As soon as I woke up, I committed them to writing."

Overall though, I'm surprised by how little I can find about the Namagiri/Ramanujan connection. Given the amazing volume and breadth of Ramanujan's work over his short life, and the claim that so much of it emanated from dreams involving the Hindu Goddess, I would expect there to be more fascinating stories about such.

If anyone out there does know more about the Namagiri connection, or Web links to additional info, please let us know in the comments. Or, can anyone think of any other accomplished mathematician who claimed to gain his/her knowledge in some similarly mystical way (I can't)? [I was asking this same basic question over 3 years ago when "Mathematics Rising" blog touched on the same subject.]

The Mathematician They Made A Feature Movie About

"Archimedes will be remembered when Aeschylus is forgotten, because languages die and mathematical ideas do not. 'Immortality’ may be a silly word, but probably a mathematician has the best chance of whatever it may mean."
-- G.H. Hardy

Archimedes will be remembered when Aeschylus is forgotten, because languages die and mathematical ideas do not.
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/g/g_h_hardy.html

Archimedes will be remembered when Aeschylus is forgotten, because languages die and mathematical ideas do not.
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/g/g_h_hardy.html

I saw the Ramanujan biopic, "The Man Who Knew Infinity," last night and will just add to the chorus of those recommending it (there are plenty of full, and mostly positive, reviews out there).
It starts off a bit slow, but builds in emotion towards the end. It is fairly heavy, for story-telling purposes, on the relationship between Hardy and Ramanujan, Hardy and his colleagues, and Ramanujan and his home. I would have enjoyed just a tad more on Ramanujan's actual mathematical findings and formulas, but that may have made for a less audience-generating movie -- I just fear that those seeing the film without much prior knowledge of Ramanujan's life, will come away without a full appreciation of the breadth and range of his contributions (still under study!), and how extraordinary they are for someone who died at such a young age (32) and from such an impoverished background.
A deeper exploration/portrayal of Ramanujan's insistence that his 'intuitive' knowledge came in dreams, via a Hindu Goddess, would have been intriguing as well. The movie is essentially almost as much about renowned British professor G.H. Hardy as it is about the titled central character. Still, a fairly powerful hour-and-a-half, despite some blandness along the way.
If you haven't already done so, read the book upon which the movie is based:
http://amzn.to/1Nu1AGA

Will be interesting to see what awards this film might eventually be up for. I suspect there will be one or two Oscar nominations (not necessarily winners) in the future, but I'm no whiz at such prognosticating. In any event just great to see a mathematician and mathematics take center-stage in a major-release movie, though of necessity, so much is left out of his life-story. Still, "Ramanujan," will now deservedly be more of a household name encouraging further attention, instead of a name known primarily only within mathematics circles. Like Archimedes, Pythagoras, Gauss, Newton, and so many others before him, he has gained immortality.
If it comes to your area, don't miss out. (PG-13, small amount of violence, no sex, lots of smoking which I now learn affects rating.)
More info here:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0787524/

The Man Who Almost Defies Comprehension

Ramanujan is much in the news lately with release of the new biopic of his life, "The Man Who Knew Infinity":



Colm Mulcahy newly-reviews the film here:
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/a-math-genius-like-no-other-comes-to-the-big-screen/

...and Stephen Wolfram presents this riveting account of Ramanujan (h/t Steven Strogatz):
http://blog.stephenwolfram.com/2016/04/who-was-ramanujan/

And finally here, Ken Ono speaks briefly about his involvement with the film as a consultant:



If it comes to a theater near you, don't miss it!

Math Is UGLY

....sometimes!

Below is yet another recent article espousing the "math is beautiful" theme, but a bit more original in that it focuses on the link between math beauty and current fMRI research studying "the neural basis of beauty."
What I found even more interesting though comes at the end of the article when it cites the above formula (from Ramanujan) as the equation a consensus of mathematicians deemed the 'most ugly'! (can't say as I blame them... but it still remains beautiful that a human mind could even come up with it!):

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/equations-are-art-inside-a-mathematicians-brain/

Food For Thought, or Over-concern?

A long recent post from "Math Misery" blog on the forthcoming "Man Who Knew Infinity" movie being made on the life of Ramanujan:

http://tinyurl.com/kbolmpp

I assume most of us very much look forward to that film endeavor on an incredible mathematical legacy, but Manan Shah takes a different perspective and worries over how mathematicians might be depicted or stereotyped in the film. His long-read ends with this worrying summation:

"How will mathematicians come out at the end of this movie? More appreciated and admired? Or further pushed to the edges of society understood only as 'smart and odd and somehow necessary for society’s benefit, but their absence wouldn’t be missed because society doesn’t understand how much it relies on mathematics and mathematicians'?

"There are many ways to make this movie an absolute insult to mathematicians and there are many ways to really show one of the most amazing stories of a man whose contributions may never had been able to grace humanity had it not been for another man seeing past the biases of the time and reading the original letter filled with brilliant mathematics the way any person should — with an open and unassuming mind."

Sunday Afternoon Reading

just passing along a few things from the last week:

1) A nice little introduction to Cantor, for any who need it, from Curious Wavefunction over at Scientific American:

http://tinyurl.com/a4u5n8r

2) Another bit of interesting Ramanujan biography here:

http://tinyurl.com/b44jgyk

3) For educators especially, Dan Meyer brings up a discussion of 'pattern matching' as it may apply to Khan Academy (this relates back to the subject of Benny's Rules which I've written about previously):

http://tinyurl.com/agoyxyn

(be sure to read the comments as well)

4) and lastly, for sheer entertainment (more chemistry than math, but really general scientific literacy), this Wikipedia page came across my Twitter feed, originally I think from Alexander Bogomolny, on the "dihydrogen monoxide hoax":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dihydrogen_monoxide_hoax 

(be sure to read the "Public Efforts..." section... and weep)

accompanying photo here:

https://twitter.com/CutTheKnotMath/status/295265488156622848/photo/1

 

Catching Up On a Few Thangs

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

An eclectic potpourri of links to get 2013 underway….

1) Last week, American Radioworks had a wonderful (hr.-long) show on the varieties of online higher education (not restricted to math education, but in general), entitled "Keyboard College." A highly worthwhile listen, if you missed it:

http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/tomorrows-college/keyboard-college/

2) The Indian prodigy mathematician Ramanujan continues to amaze long after his death. Fascinating piece on mystical deathbed conjectures the young Indian made (inspired by a Hindu goddess) that have been proven true 90 years later:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2254352/Deathbed-dream-puzzles-renowned-Indian-mathematician-Srinivasa-finally-solved--100-years-died.html

...also, apparently a film of Ramanujan's life, "The Genius of Ramanujan" is due for release next March.

3) For William Thurston fans (of which there are many), a quite long read here on Thurston and the Haken conjecture:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=getting-into-shapes

4) The below site, I only recently learned of, may appeal to young math problem solvers and contestants out there:

http://blog.brilliant.org/

It offers up (level-appropriate) 'challenging' problems to participants on a weekly basis. Be sure to read the "FAQ," "How It Works," and "Blog" sections.

5) I remember Tom Lehrer as a satirical singer-songwriter in the 1960s when I was growing up. A recent post from another blog though reminds/informs? me that Lehrer was actually a professional Harvard-trained mathematician before he found entertaining on a stage more lucrative.
Anyway, as a victim of the 60's 'New Math,' this is how I remember him:



6) I haven't posted a puzzle on the blog for awhile, but here's a beautiful geometry one recently posted at "Futility Closet":

http://www.futilitycloset.com/2012/12/23/belt-loop/

7) And, in case that was too easy for you (though I doubt it) you can always download this PDF to learn about "the hardest logic puzzle ever" (originally stemming from Raymond Smullyan, and involving asking questions of gods):

http://www.snsanalytics.com/ask7y0


...and next up will be the first brand-spanking Math-Frolic interview of 2013... introducing someone most of you likely don't know.

The Ever-Intriguing Ramanujan

University of Illinois professor explores the work of Ramanujan:

http://www.thehindu.com/life-and-style/society/article2134518.ece

“In some ways, it is fortunate that Ramanujan didn't have formal training in math. If he had had to undergo the European kind of math training, he would have had to spend time proving his results vigorously, and would consequently have discovered far less,” says Prof. Berndt. “Some of Ramanujan's math is simply startling. If he had not discovered them, nobody would ever have. These equations make connections between entities you would never have supposed to have connections.”

The Ramanujan Journal

Image via Wikipedia

You can't very well write any sort of self-respecting math blog without at some point posting something about the incredible Indian mystical mathematician Ramanujan.  I won't quite do that now, but will note a journal I only recently came across that is specifically dedicated to Ramanujan's contributions to math, "The Ramanujan Journal," linked to below (and you can follow links on upper right of page to sample free content therefrom):

http://www.springer.com/mathematics/numbers/journal/11139

(There are any number of good books and Web pages out there devoted to Ramanujan as well.)