An insight into the book-'The man who knew infinity'

 Part-1:

Recently , I started reading this book - 'The man who knew infinity', which is a fascinating biography of the brilliant, self-taught Indian mathematician, Srinivasa Ramanujan authored by a westerner, Robert Kanigel. Later, a very successful Hollywood film was also made based on this book. But sadly, when a film on an Indian genius was made by the British, literally no one in India knew and it barely was released in one or two cities in India...! 

Though it's the biography of a mathematician , the author has done some incredible reasearch about the life of Hindus in South India in the late 1800's and the way culture was preserved here. It is also a history of the astonishing fruitful cross-cultural collaboration between this young genius and his mentor at Cambridge University, G.H.Hardy - a relationship that turned the world of mathematics upside down. 

It also introduces you to some of the most exciting discoveries of Ramanujan, easily digestible to laymen. In telling this extraordinary tale, Robert assess the legacy of a man whose work contains some of the most beautiful ideas in the history of Science, and whose major papers are still being plumbed for their secrets today! Though he was considered a pure mathematician, after about a century, some of his theorems are now used to study black holes.

With intuition playing a major role in his discoveries, Ramanujan once said "An equation for me has no meaning until it expresses a thought of God." 

Until High school, he managed to strike a balance between all the subjects though it were all numbers that mattered to him the most. After entering college, he deliberately lost interest in everything other than Math. For instance, on an exam covering the digestive system , Ramanujan simply wrote "Sir, this is my undigested product of the Digestion chapter."(He was witty too!) He failed in English and his scholarship was withdrawn which made him to be a financial burden to his rather poor family. He then consecutively failed for another 4 years ( always topped math ) and was looked upon as a degree-less and a job-less man for the next five years of his life and was under immense financial and societal pressure!

The fact that the Indian education system failed to find a place for a genius like him is obvious due to the reason that William Thackeray , an Englishman once wrote in his report "We donot want generals,statesman and legislators ; we want industrious husbandmen. It (India's education system) was designed , after all , to churn out bright, well-rounded young man who could help their British masters run the country not the restless and ambitious spirits" 

And for centuries today, we still follow the same system which was meant to train servants for the British ! It also reminded me of Lord McCauley's words - " I do not think we would ever conquer this country, unless we break the very backbone of this nation (it's culture and ancient educational system)"

The real worth of Ramanujan was known to the world when he met Prof.Hardy in England , the chapter which I'm yet to complete! It was then his glory and simultaneously hardships began...it was for that four years of his life before his death that the world has acknowledged his work. A century later, mathematicians are still working on exploring his papers and I can't wait to explore this book too!

Part 2:

"I beg to introduce myself...."

Ramanujan began to write letters to almost all the famous Western mathematics requesting them to give him an opportunity to showcase his work. He was rejected, not because he wasn't worthy but obviously because they weren't worthy enough to assess the legacy and forethought of such a prodigy. The acceptance finally came from a fellow at Trinity College, Cambridge - Prof.G.H.Hardy who desperately wanted Ramanujan to come to London. Coming from an extremely orthodox Tamilian family, where entering a foreign land is considered to be a sin, Ramanujan managed to set off to London in 1913 with major support given by the Indian Mathematical Society, leaving behind his mother and wife.

The most amazing thing about this book is that it's not just about Ramanujan and his biography. It has insights into many of his mathematical inventions and the back stories of everyone who sacrificed their everything just because they had strong belief in his brilliance. It's fascinating because I could, with difficulty, understand most of his mathematical expressions due to the way they're presented in this book. I feel the most impeccable quality of Ramanujan which made him one of the greatest of all times is his perspective! Ramanujan was centuries ahead of his times. His thinking is simply out of the box and no mathematician had ever thought that such theorems and formulae could exist and they would have practical applications after decades.

His theorems were raw and different from the conventional way of expression because he didn't have professional formal education. The theorems just came to him through intuition. The first thing Hardy did was to prove all his theorems in a language that the world would understand and published them.

In London, Ramanujan had to face the English chill and a lot more coming his way- Racism, World war-1, Tuberculosis, isolation and what not. When Hardy wanted Ramanujan to be a fellow at the Trinity, one of the members outrightly said that Black men can't be accepted! The World war broke out in 1914 and London was in turmoil. Ships to India were cancelled and he was stranded in the chaos. He was diagnosed with Tuberculosis at the later stages and was left isolated in a Sanitoriom. His mental stability was questioned at the Cambridge after he had attempted suicide. When his name was on the verge of not being taken into consideration for being the fellow of Royal Society, Hardy requested the jury saying that he don't want it to be conferred on him 'posthumously'. 

But his unconditional zeal and his world of Math just remained unaffected. Surprisingly, his most famous theorems were formulated after he returned to India while lying on his death bed. 

And the question comes- Hardy discovered Ramanujan? Not at all- a glance at the facts shows it's Ramanujan who discovered Hardy for him to be discovered by the world. And it's only Hardy who saw Ramanujan beyond his mathematical abilities just like a true friend and an intellectual companion. Hardy gave him the freedom to do as he wished , to be left alone to think and to lose himself in a world of his own making. Hardy lived for almost three decades after Ramanujan, acknowledging his genius. 

The book concludes with slight insights into Hardy's lecture at the Harvard University's Three-hundredth anniversary which witnessed half a million people celebrating it on the banks of River Charles and most importantly, the august gathering of intellectuals from all over the globe including no fewer than eleven Nobel prize winners! There, Hardy, with his memory still afresh of the day a quarter century before when an envelope stuffed with formulae arrived in the mail from Madras, began to tell about his dear friend, Ramanujan!