Insights from the mathematical genius Srinivasa
Ramanujan
“The mathematician
Mark Kac divided all geniuses into two types: “ordinary” geniuses, who make you
feel that you could have done what they did if you were say, a hundred times
smarter, and “magical geniuses,” the working of whose minds is, for all intents
and purposes, incomprehensible. There is no doubt that Srinivas Ramanujan was a
magical genius, one of the greatest of all time. Just looking at any of his
almost 4,000 original results can inspire a feeling of bewilderment and awe
even in professional mathematicians: What kind of mind can dream up exotic gems
like these?”
Emory University mathematician Ken Ono:
“Ramanujan’s work
came through flights of fancy. If he had been asked to explain why he did his
work, he would probably say that he recorded formulas that he found beautiful,
and they were beautiful because they revealed some unexpected phenomenon. And
they’re important to us today because these special phenomena that Ramanujan
identified, over and over again, have ended up becoming prototypes for big
mathematical theories in the 20th and 21st centuries.”
The Great Math Mystery – PBS Nova