The Man Who Knew Infinity: A Life of the Genius Ramanujan Paperback – Illustrated, April 26, 2016

I bought this book after seeing the film, although I have always been fascinated by the Ramanujan story.The problems of adapting to postgraduate study, the culture shocks and the complex personality of Ramanujan are well portraited. However I would have wanted to read more on his work - the book is written very much for non-mathematicians.The character of Hardy is beautifully developed. Indeed, the book is almost as much about Hardy as about Ramanujan. I am not sure if Hardy tamed Ramanujan or if he just canalized his inmense genius and energy to problems and fields where work could be jointly developed and published. To his great credit, Hardy also gave him critical support at difficult times. In any case it is hard to see what else could have been done. Without Hardy we would never have learned of Ramanujan, which speaks volumes about the Indian educational system and society at the time.I hope that many elementary and secondary school teachers get to read this book. While most of the world is struggling to get children to learn the basics of mathematics, we cannot forget how important it is to detect and develop early talent. How many Ramanujans are today sitting in a classroom, thoroughly bored with elementary arithmetic taught by an unmotivated teacher?I recommend anybody interested in this book to pick Hardy's "A Mathematician's Apology" as well.

I had read Kanigel's book on Ramanujan way back in college and therefore, to refresh my memory after watching the recent movie and to get a more mature understanding of the story, I read it again. The book achieves the rare distinction of being an evocative picture of both early 20th century southern India and Cambridge, as well as a marvelous exposition of the pursuit of pure mathematics at its highest level by two of its most exalted practitioners. I found it remarkable that Kanigel manages to explain concepts like partitions, modular forms and generating functions in a book that assumes literally no knowledge of math.Ramanujan's cultural, religious and family background is described with empathy and in detail. So much of his success was due to sheer chance; he was recognized by the right people at the right time even after many others had ignored him, and his caste made up for his poverty and lack of connections. Slide the needle of destiny a little to the right or left, and he might have languished in obscurity forever. G. H. Hardy's background and the the culture of Tripos examinations, public school and Cambridge elites is similarly described in vivid terms. Hardy was a singular thinker who enjoyed pure math precisely because of his uselessness (his book "A Mathematician's Apology" is eminently readable for the pride it takes in the pursuit of useless but beautiful ideas). The contrast between the two worlds and the two men could not be more stark, and yet somehow mathematics bridged the very unlikely gap between them; the book is thus even more of a human story than a mathematical one. Even today it's impossible to understand how Ramanujan could derive and prove everything that he did, but it's clear that obsessive hard work combined with a fearless creative streak played an important role in his discoveries.Kanigel also talks about how these discoveries have kept entire schools of mathematicians busy for decades. Ultimately Ramanujan's story is that of a blazing comet which burned bright and quick, guided by the gravitational pull exerted by his own intellect and Hardy's kinship. More than anything else, the story makes the expedience of making sure that other Ramanujans in remote places don't fall through the cracks woefully clear.

Robert Kanigel's biography of Ramanujan is a well researched and well written book about the all-too short life of a man who remains largely unknown outside of the world of mathematics. Ramanujan was born of poor parents in Southern India in the late 1880s. His only interest outside of his religion was mathematics and he was unable to complete a formal university education. After several attempts to attract the attention of prominent British mathematicians he finally became the protégé of G.H. Hardy, a prominent mathematician at Cambridge. Hardy brought Ramanujan to Cambridge based on some of his preliminary work and was surprised to find that his protégé's thinking was far in advance of the then, and possibly current, state of mathematics.Publication of many joint papers resulted in Ramanujan's election to the Royal Society.Unfortunately he had by this time contracted tuberculosis and he died in 1920 shortly after his return to India. Even today Ramanujan's theorems are still being studied and he is ranked among the world's greatest mathematical thinkers hence the book's subtitle.This book not only provides a valuable insight into a great mind but it also gives us a penetrating glimpse of the culture of Southern India in the early 20th century.The contrast between Hardy's British public(i.e. private) school background and Ramanujan's Indian schooling makes the collaboration between the two even more interesting.This is a fascinating read that leads one to speculate how many more similar sparks of genius remain undiscovered.