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

Highly recommended. Plan on a second read this summer. I read a lot of books and this one is one of the best. About history, culture and one of the most remarkable minds of all time.

This book is the story of the life of Srinivasa Ramanujan, the brilliant Indian mathematician who lived a short but productive life around one hundred years ago. I had heard about Ramanujan before, and his collaboration with the renowned British mathematician G. H. Hardy made me want to know more about him. So I read this book and have learned so much about Ramanujan's life in India and England. This is not a technical book about his work per se, but mentions areas of mathematics like number theory on which he worked. It describes his upbringing in Southern India, his passion for exploring mathematics on his own, and his change of fortune when Hardy recognized his genius and the two collaborated in mathematics at Trinity College. Ramanujan was the source of intuition and Hardy the master of rigorous proof of theorems. Eventually, Ramanujan's knowledge caught up with the latest methods in mathematics of the time and he published several of his papers with Hardy's help. He became a Fellow of the Royal Society and obtained the Trinity fellowship despite some racist opposition to it. Hardy was instrumental in Ramanujan's path to fame. Unfortunately, Ramanujan's life came to an early end due to tuberculosis as the likely cause. This book is well-researched and gives a realistic view of what Ramanujan's life must have been like. I even learned some about Hindu deities, history of some buildings and places, and people who shaped the events in Ramanujan's life. The author has a descriptive style of writing that made some sentences too lengthy for me to keep track of what was being expressed, so I had to reread them. Overall, though, it is a complete and informative book.

For Rulers: Priming Political Leaders for Saving Humanity from Itself This is a fascinating book, as recognized by the many reviews. But I suggest a different perspective, namely the challenge posed by the mind of Srinivasa RAMANUJAN to the idea of “super-intelligent robots” which is at the core of what is appropriately called by Ray Kurzweil “Spiritual Machines” and “Singularity.” Ramanujan was more that one of the few persons recognized as “geniuses.” He was a super-genius, “a man who grew up praying to stone deities; who for most of his life took counsel from a family goddess, declaring it was she to whom his mathematical insights were owed; whose theorems would, at intellectually backbreaking cost, be proved true—yet leave mathematicians baffled that anyone could divine them in the first place” (p. 4). All mathematical creativity depends on inspiration and imagination, followed by strict proof. However the mental processes resulting in the radical breakthroughs of Ramanujan, despite his social circumstances and lack of minimal education, are on an unequalled level. This outstanding biography does not even try to explain them, nor do the top mathematicians with whom Ramanujan worked at Cambridge and who continue to draw radically novel ideas from his handwritten notebooks. This brings me to current efforts to spawn robots with artificial general intelligence and, beyond them, robots with super-intelligence. But the phenomenon of Ramanujan (and a few other geniuses) is not only beyond the scales of intelligence, but above the concept of “intelligence” itself. No enhancement of human intelligence opens a door to becoming a Ramanujan; and no algorithm is likely to produce robots with the abilities of Ramanujan. This would require more than super-intelligence namely a quantum leap into what we do not understand and cannot even conceptualize. Artificial intelligence experts will probably respond that progress will be in steps: a somewhat super-intelligence entity will develop a more super-intelligent entity and so on, till “minds” of the quality of Ramanujan are understood, achieved and surpassed. But this is a weak hypothesis as long as the mind of Ramanujan remains totally a black box. Thus Ramanujan posed a critical riddle to the idea of super-intelligent robots, whether with biological or mechanical substrata. Therefore, studying this book and pondering the challenge its subject presents is strongly recommended to philosophers, scientists and technologists working on advanced artificial intelligence and the Singularity hypothesis as a whole. Professor Yehezkel Dror The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Being from India, I have long known the name of Ramanujan, but only now got down to reading this comprehensive biography of this great mathematician. Simply put, this is a keeper for life and I have already recommended this to most of my friends. Being from the South of India, it was absorbing to see how well Robert has captured the day to day cultural details along with the family squabbles that were commonplace. Robert Kanigel has done a wonderful job in researching books, publications and interviews and then building a most compelling tale of a true born genius. He gives the readers a delightfully detailed view of Hardy's and Ramanujan's upbringing overlaid with the overall geopolitical context. The then phenomenally vibrant work that they did together follows and finally ends with the tragically early death (at 32!) of Ramanujan. In conclusion, he asks some very telling questions on why did this have to happen this way and how things could have been different? What is the future of mathematicians in India today? Do not mistake this to be a mathematical book by any stretch, as it is simply one of the most brilliant biographies of a true gift of god to mankind. It will give you a new perspective on things we take for granted. Cheers, SVKR

As a Glasgow University Honours Maths graduate I was very familiar with the background to the discovery of Ramanujan by G.H. Hardy. In fact my Maths professor R. A. Rankin studied under Hardy for his PhD at Cambridge & was co-author of a book detailing all the surviving letters & correpondence between Hardy,Ramanujan,J.E. Littlewood et. all. The author of "The Man Who Knew Infinity"-Robert Kanigel has indeed done justice to this extraordinary piece of Mathematics history & his research & attention to the detailed background & historical accuracy are truly impressive if at times somewhat verbose. A splendid read whether you are into Maths or not.

Una delle più affascinanti storie della Matematica, un libro che potrebbe motivarti a studiare matematica!

Toute la vie d'un génie en mathématiques, hindouiste qui était en relation avec les divinités qui lui inspiraient ses recherches. Les équations qu'il a trouvée sont pratiquement toutes exactes. D'autres n'ont pas été encore démontrées mais sont vérifiées exactes par les ordinateurs.

不思議に人を引きつける天才数学者ラマヌジャン。その生い立ちから詳しく記載されており、１９世紀末の南インドの特殊な条件下でしか、このような天才が生まれえなかったことを納得させられる。巻末の文献リストの多さにも驚かされる。作者（R.Kanigel）のラマヌジャンに対する思い入れがひしひしと伝わって来る。

simply stated, this is one of the best biographies -- one of the best books -- i've ever read. why i read it in the first place is something of a mystery . i know nothing about mathematics -- i have trouble with 2 + 2 =4 -- and never heard of ramanujan. i suppose i wanted some insight into the world of mathematics and, then, i just liked the title --"the man who knew infinity". well, having begun reading it, i could barely put it down. the author does such a wonderful job of making ramanujan's world come alive; such a wonderful job of probing with a surgeon's skill the multifacted nature of ramanujan's personality/psyche; such a wonderful job of attending to certain aspects of actual math without burying the lay reader under a mountain of bewildering detail; such a wonderful job, in short, of treatiung his subject -- not least, the relationship between ramajunam and his english counterpart,g.h.hardy, -- that, if i could afford it, i'd give this book as a xmas present to everyone i know. i realize that this review consists of little more than a series of "ooos" and "ahsss", but it's all i can say at present, except: "thank you, robert kanigel, for enriching my life with your extraordinary biography, of s. ramanujan, "the man who knew infinity."