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Srinivasa Ramanujan
(22 Dec 1887 - 26 Apr 1920)
Indian mathematician who displayed a natural ability in mathematics at an early age. His talent was recognized by G. N. Hardy, who arranged for him to be a student at Cambridge University. In the following few years, before an early death at age 32, Ramanujan produced an exceptional output in mathematical analysis, number theory, infinite series and continued fractions.
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Science Quotes by Srinivasa Ramanujan (2 quotes)
Replying to G. H. Hardy's suggestion that the number of a taxi (1729) was “dull”: No, it is a very interesting number; it is the smallest number expressible as a sum of two cubes in two different ways, the two ways being 13 + 123 and 93 + 103.
— Srinivasa Ramanujan
Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society (26 May 1921).
An equation means nothing to me unless it expresses a thought of God.
— Srinivasa Ramanujan
Quoted in Clifford A. Pickover, A Passion for Mathematics (2005), 1; but with no footnote to primary source.
Quotes by others about Srinivasa Ramanujan (5)
I remember once going to see him when he was lying ill at Putney. I had ridden in taxi cab number 1729 and remarked that the number seemed to me rather a dull one, and that I hoped it was not an unfavorable omen. “No,” he replied, “it is a very interesting number; it is the smallest number expressible as the sum of two cubes in two different ways.”
Quoted in G.H. Hardy, Ramanujan; Twelve Lectures on Subjects Suggested by his Life and Work (1940, reprint 1999), 12.
No mathematician should ever allow him to forget that mathematics, more than any other art or science, is a young man's game. … Galois died at twenty-one, Abel at twenty-seven, Ramanujan at thirty-three, Riemann at forty. There have been men who have done great work later; ... [but] I do not know of a single instance of a major mathematical advance initiated by a man past fifty. ... A mathematician may still be competent enough at sixty, but it is useless to expect him to have original ideas.
In A Mathematician's Apology (1941, reprint with Foreward by C.P. Snow 1992), 70-71.
Plenty of mathematicians, Hardy knew, could follow a step-by-step discursus unflaggingly—yet counted for nothing beside Ramanujan. Years later, he would contrive an informal scale of natural mathematical ability on which he assigned himself a 25 and Littlewood a 30. To David Hilbert, the most eminent mathematician of the day, he assigned an 80. To Ramanujan he gave 100.
In The Man who Knew Infinity: A Life of the Genius Ramanujan (1975), 226.
Srinivasa Ramanujan was the strangest man in all of mathematics, probably in the entire history of science. He has been compared to a bursting supernova, illuminating the darkest, most profound corners of mathematics, before being tragically struck down by tuberculosis at the age of
33... Working in total isolation from the main currents of his field, he was able to rederive 100 years’ worth of Western mathematics on his own. The tragedy of his life is that much of his work was wasted rediscovering known mathematics.
In Hyperspace:A Scientific Odyssey through Parallel Universes, Time Warps, and the Tenth Dimension (1994), 172.
The seeds from Ramanujan's garden have been blowing on the wind and have been sprouting all over the landscape.
[On the stimulating effects of Ramanujan's mathematical legacy.]
[On the stimulating effects of Ramanujan's mathematical legacy.]
From lecture, the Ramanujan Centenary Conference, University of Illinois (2 Jun 1987), 'A Walk in Ramanujan's Garden', collected in Selected Papers of Freeman Dyson (1996), 198.
See also:
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22 Dec - short biography, births, deaths and events on date of Ramanujan's birth. -
Large color picture of Srinivasa Ramanujan (800 x 850 px)
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The Mystery of Srinivasa Ramanujan's Illness - was it tuberculosis or something else?
The Man Who Knew Infinity, by Robert Kanigel. - book suggestion.
At the heart of science is an essential balance between two seemingly contradictory attitudes--an openness to new ideas, no matter how bizarre or counterintuitive they may be, and the most ruthless skeptical scrutiny of all ideas, old and new. This is how deep truths are winnowed from deep nonsense. -- Carl Sagan
