Why read The Man Who Knew Infinity?

Book cover of The Man Who Knew Infinity

Book description

NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE STARRING JEREMY IRONS AND DEV PATEL!

A moving and enlightening look at the unbelievable true story of how gifted prodigy Ramanujan stunned the scholars of Cambridge University and revolutionized mathematics.

In 1913, a young unschooled Indian clerk wrote a letter to G H Hardy,…

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Why read it?

2 authors picked The Man Who Knew Infinity as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Jonathan Daly

Author

I was amazed at how a complete outsider, Srinivasa Ramanujan, who grew up in relative poverty, could rise to the highest levels of the British academic world through the sheer force of his intellectual genius.

How could this self-taught mathematical prodigy, elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, one of the youngest to win that honor and only the second Indian, make such extraordinary contributions to several areas of mathematics? How lucky for humanity that he was discovered and, though sickly, brought to England!

How many more contributions could he have made had he not died at age 32? How…

From Jonathan's list on individuals who followed their muse and changed the way we see the world.

Gilbert Strang

Author

I think the life and the work of Ramanujan is the most astonishing story of any mathematician. Everybody knows that 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + ... adds to 1. Ramanujan wrote down infinite series like that but of amazing complexity. He was a self-taught and unknown genius in India, who found his way to England. His ideas are still being explored and developed— they go to the heart of mathematics. This book and the movie are simply inspiring.

From Gilbert's list on mathematicians and their lives.