The Thought of God

"An equation for me has no meaning unless it expresses a thought of God" said Ramanujan, who may have come as close as anyone ever has to understanding these thoughts. Almost entirely self-taught, failed by the educational system, cut-off from places where cutting edge mathematics was being invented- or discovered, still he persevered, driven by some inner conviction.

Robert Kanigel presents Ramanujan's biography in "The man who knew infinity", the story of Ramanujan and his collaboration with G.H. Hardy. The writing is almost more poetry than prose. Kanigel has taken real pains to understand the lives of these two disparate men, and the work that they are remembered for. Few people can bring any interest to presenting equations in a biography - like Hawking was advised, an equation would cut down the sales of a book by half. But how could a book about mathematicians mean anything if it didn't touch upon their lives work, no matter how obscure to the common public?

Unlike Newton or Edison, whose discoveries were made with utility in mind, Ramanujan and Hardy pursued mathematics as art rather than science. Beautiful for its own sake, not for the purpose it served. Brought up in entirely different cultures- one a devout Hindu, who believed in astrology, the other an atheist and a man of pure reason, it was only maths that brought them together.

Kanigen presents beautifully, the cultures in which they both grew up. I was deeply impressed and not a little nostalgic for the Madras he presented- not the overcrowded Chennai of today, but the sleepy Madras of my childhood. And Hardy's England, removed by both space and culturep; A culture that was less easily bridged by the shy and vegetarian Ramanujan. His difficulties in maintaining his vegetarianism in the face of almost impossibly odds, remind me of my own difficulties- and this in an age where there are Indian stores, where vegan restaurants are in rage. How much worse would it have been a hundred years ago.

And there was the lovely passage in which Kanigel describes the difference between the utterly open Indian society- where a fellow traveller may share with you their life history within an hour's acquaintance, and the taciturn British- after years of working together, hardy knew little of Ramanujan's life at home.

Equally interesting was the two men's not dissimilar struggles against the established system- for Ramanujan in India against the system that was designed to educate clerks, not scientist- and for Hardy, the Tripos system- one that all of us who had to go through n- entrance exams at the end of school, can appreciate and sympathize with- systems that seem more inclined to sap creativity than encourage it.

In this book, it is as though you live with these men- in their times, share in their struggles, and very nearly, touch infinity.