Comment by rramadass | Hacker News Reader

Comment by rramadass | Hacker News Reader

For people interested in learning more about Ramanujan and his Works;

1) Mathematics Wizard Srinivasa Ramanujan : Some glimpses into his Life and Work by two Indian Mathematicians Narendra Kumar Govil and Bhu Dev Sharma is a good biography with an introduction to his Mathematics and links to further resources. Good complement to Robert Kanigel's book The Man Who Knew Infinity.

2) In order to understand the fascination that Mathematicians have for Ramanujan see this and other lectures by Prof. Ken Ono who credits Ramanujan as his inspiration in becoming a Mathematician; Why Does Ramanujan, "The Man Who Knew Infinity," Matter? - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ynhiZJUMzA

3) Mathologer on Youtube has good walkthroughs of some of Ramanujan's most famous identities (eg. 1+2+3+... = -1/12) - https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=mathologer+rama...

4) All of Ramanujan's published papers and unpublished notebooks can be found online at - http://ramanujan.sirinudi.org/

PS: In the submitted article, George Andrews is wearing a Ramanujan tie :-)

I enjoyed the movie on The Man Who Knew Infinity.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Knew_Infinity

Also see some of Ramanujan biographic documentaries on Youtube, specifically;

The Man Who Loved Numbers - Srinivasa Ramanujan documentary (1988) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqP2c5xNaTU

Srinivasa Ramanujan: The Mathematician and His Legacy (2016) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5jsgBvJMUc

Thank you! Really enjoyed the 2nd one. Haven't had the time for the 1st one yet.

Watch them all including the ones in my first comment :-) There are a few more on Youtube eg. George Andrews' presentation etc.

Watch particularly Prof. Ken Ono's videos where you can literally feel his Admiration and Reverence for Ramanujan. He credits his Career/Repairing relationships with his Father/Family to their shared love of Ramanujan and his Mathematics (his autobiography is named My Search for Ramanujan: How I Learned to Count). I found it highly inspiring and motivating and encourage all students/teachers to watch them.

Also see Ramanujan's wikipedia page which contains lots of details/quotes/links to books/videos/etc. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srinivasa_Ramanujan

Quote:

K. Srinivasa Rao has said, "As for his place in the world of Mathematics, we quote Bruce C. Berndt: 'Paul Erdős has passed on to us Hardy's personal ratings of mathematicians. Suppose that we rate mathematicians on the basis of pure talent on a scale from 0 to 100. Hardy gave himself a score of 25, J. E. Littlewood 30, David Hilbert 80 and Ramanujan 100.'"

Thank you. I'll watch them. It's incredible that Hardy gave Ramanujan a perfect 100, no reserves at all. I guess that only comes due to the close interactions with him.

Another marvelous mathematician story is that of Yitang Zhang. The Newyorker had a good article about him if you haven't seen it yet.

https://web.archive.org/web/20220527042904/https://www.newyo...

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