“The man who knew infinity” is a biography of an Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan whose mathematical brilliance and ingenuity was appreciated by mathematicians all over the world. Ramanujan died at an age of 32, but not before his mathematical prowess was acknowledged by Cambridge and other universities around the world through his notebooks. There are many biographies of him written by Indian as well as Foreign authors. I picked up this book written by Robert Kanigel based on the ratings given by other readers. The book captures in detail the life of Ramanujan and the people surrounding him who helped him come from the shadows of anonymity to the hall of mathematical fame. Before I write my points of view of the positives and negatives of the book, it is important to recognize the difficulty of writing a biography of an artist and specially, if the art is esoteric in nature. One cannot completely appreciate the work of a painter without an eye for that art, one cannot appreciate the work of a musician without the knowledge of the music. Mathematics is no different and understanding the work of Ramanujan in the fields of mathematics that he worked on mainly in the areas of number theory and infinite series is very difficult even for a person with advanced knowledge in that field, let alone the readers who know mathematics mostly at the University level.
The author has beautifully touched upon some of Ramanujan’s theorems without going into rigor of the mathematics involved. It may not appeal to purists, but the book garners mass appeal by giving the glimpses of the work of this great mathematician of India’s pre-independence era. The author has beautifully captured the life of Ramanujan from the Sarangapani Temple street in Kumbakonam to Port Trust in Chennai to Trinity College in Cambridge. There is an important element of culture and external influences in shaping up a person and the author has captured it well by giving accounts of his friends, family and others who helped him by recognizing the genius in him. It is also a story of how a person who could not get a college degree because of his lack of interest in subjects other than mathematics went on to get a degree by research in Cambridge University. Somewhere, it also poses a question on the educational system in the country then and even today, that question is not completely irrelevant. The story of his mathematical talents being recognized by G H Hardy of Trinity and their joint work leading to his talent being made known to the world at large was very interesting read. The patronage that Ramanujan received at the Cambridge by Hardy and his colleagues was very instrumental in advancing his mathematical contributions. The book also beautifully highlights the difference in approaches; like the intuition used by Ramanujan versus the rigorous proofs as used by western mathematicians. The period of Ramanujan’s stay in England also coincided with WW1 and the life at the time of war was also well portrayed in the book. There are good number of pictures in the book as well.
Regarding some of the negative points in my humble opinion, I felt the book was stretched by almost 70 pages. There is no doubt in the role of the G H Hardy in bringing the mathematical gifts of Ramanujan to the world, and so it makes perfect sense to understand the life of Hardy as well to some extent. But the book went into great details about Hardy, his life, his preferences and his life in detail (almost to an extent of a biography on him). Lesser details on him could have shortened the book and helped maintain better connect with the readers in chapters in between.
To sum up the review, the book is a good read to know about the life of one of the mathematical genius from India who impressed mathematicians all over the world. There is a connection of mathematics as science to the God that Ramanujan was able to visualize as mentioned in some places in the book. That is a vast and interesting topic in itself and requires detailed study and reflection.
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