The Man Who Knew Infinity: A Life of the Genius Ramanujan

The life of Ramanujan is amazing and one is pushed to only awe the limits of mind. Being an Indian, I can see Robert Kanigel has given a comprehensive treatment to all facets of the life of Ramanujan - his boyhood days in small town of Kumbakonam, his obsession with Maths, his seperation from Mother and his wife, his relationship with Hardy and others, his stay in London, and his final days. Kanigel has really done a wonderful job in depicting the Brahmin house-hold of the early 1900s. One could really imagine Ramanujan with a tuft and a religious symbol on forehead, but his mind calculating 10,000 th decimal of pi.

His purely professional relations with Hardy has also been very deftly depicted. How hard the days must have been! Being a Ramanujan's biography its hard to avoid mathematical formulas - and the author justifiably includes them when necessary. But even if you do not understand them - you can just wonder at the string of symbols joined together to purport some meaning.

The narration is truly captivating. It sends an horripulating feeling to the mind, when Hardy describes the first letter of formulas as "These must be true. If they are not, nobody would have the audacity to invent it."

The final days of Ramanujan are indeed sad and emotional and also beautifuly captured in the book. Typical is the life of geniuses - the world has hard time understanding them. This book is really worth in my library.


An excellent book for people who love Science and History   February 24, 1997
11 out of 11 found this review helpful

In each field of science there are many unsung heroes whose stories are all but forgotten. Nevertheless some of these stories are astonishing and in the hands of a good author makes fscinating reading. One such story is that of Ramanujan, who was to Math what Mozart was to music. His genius was almost mystical. This book deals with his life, how came to the attention of Hardy, went to England and became one of the well known mathematicians of his time. But this book also deals with the "mystical" aspects of his genius. Strange, almost unbelievable anecdotes of how from the esoteric shadows of the east came an almost uneducated man who, isolated from the scientific world, rediscovered many of the great mathematical theorems that had been dsicovered over centuries in Europe. The book is written in a superb style. I really enjoyed reading it, and I urge everyone to read it for its sheer entertainment value


Inspiration vs. Education   December 16, 2005
Judd R. Meyers (baxter, mn usa)
6 out of 6 found this review helpful

While an interesting story, what really separates this book from the pack is its probing look at how much we can learn drawing only from the universe, versus sitting in class and having someone tell us what they have been told is known. Ramanujin operating in a social vacuum experienced tremendous sucesses and tremendous failures. He reinvented theorems that were known 100 years earlier, because he did not attend universities that would have saved him such work. On the other side of the equation, he tackled problems sometimes, from a completely unique perspective, having not had his way of thinking "institutionalized" by those same universities. This is the lesson that hits home in this book. Both types of learning are important. Both create stumbling blocks to higher levels of discovery. It seems to me that this is probably true of every discipline to which we have given a name.


Inspirational account of the life of a Mathematical genius   November 26, 2002
5 out of 5 found this review helpful

An Inspirational account of the life of a Mathematical genius

Srinivasa Ramanujan is rightly a member of the Mathematicians' Hall of Fame. From humble beginnings in the small town of Kumbhakaon in Tamil Nadu to the hallowed cloisters of Trinity College, Cambridge, this magnificent book narrates the story of Ramanujan's trails, tribulations and triumphs.

Central to the story are the powerful influences of Ramanujan's mother and the great English Mathematician, Godfrey Harold Hardy. If his mother, Komala shaped the first part of Ramanujan's life, then surely Hardy must take full credit for bringing Ramanujan's prodigious talents to the attention of the world Mathematical community. Other prominent characters also figure in the story - notably Ramanujan's many friends, Narayana Aiyer, Gopalachari, leading lights in the Indian Mathematical establishment, members of the ruling British classes, Sir Francis Spring, the Governor of Madras Presidency, and Cambridge Mathematicians, Neville and Littlewood.

The book presents a touching portrait of Ramanujan the man: an orthodox Vaishav Bhraman, steeped in Hindu culture with all the attendant characteristics of a deeply spiritual outlook, a calm self-assurance about his abilities, and most of all, an obsession with Mathematics. Hardy, his mentor, is also biographed as the passionately atheist, Winchester educated son of a middle class schoolmaster who went up to Cambridge, and at the turn of the 20th century, almost single handed masterminded the rise of English Pure Mathematics.


An enthralling story   March 6, 2001
7 out of 8 found this review helpful

One of the most wonderful things in the story of Srinavasa Ramanujan, the Indian mathematician, is the noble character of G.H. Hardy, the English mathematician. Hardy's character was as remarkable for things that he didn't do as it was for things that he did.

When Ramanujan sent his first letter to Hardy, enclosing valuable mathematical results, Hardy could have laid it aside, unread or undervalued. Other mathematicians did. Instead, Hardy sent an emissary half way around the earth to bring Ramanujan to England. Once Ramanujan arrived in Cambridge, Hardy could have taken credit for Ramanujan's work and seen him off, back to India. Other men have done worse.

Also, one of the worst things that can happen to a brilliant man such as Ramanujan is to have a powerful but duller teacher who can not take second place to a brighter student. Hardy recognized Ramanujan as a far better mathematician and nurtured him without envy. That is one of the most remarkable things about this story.

It is easy to be anachronistic about Hardy and Ramanujan. It's easy to put sneer quotes around Hardy's "discovery" of Ramanujan, now that there are Indian names in most large American telephone books. And it's easy to fault Hardy for failing to enrich Ramanujan's food with vitamin D, years before its discovery. All it takes is to know little or nothing of Ramanujan's times.

To a small extent, the author of this book does the equivalent. Still, this is a deeply interesting story, very well told. Reading it, you'll learn why Ramanujan died so early, tightly constrained by the limitations of his own era. And you'll learn why his early death was such a great loss.

It's a pity that Ramanujan wasn't born later, say in 1927. Read this book and imagine what Ramanujan could have done with a pocket calculator, during a long life.