Book Review: The Man Who Knew Infinity

I had heard about Ramanujan before, but not enough to know his name, just that his case was used in arguments to show that the education system is a failure and that genius can come from anywhere.  I agree that genius can come from anywhere, but this book puts paid to the fact that it is a failure of the education system.  At one point the question is asked, are there other Ramanujan's out there.  The book points out that Ramanujan's brilliance is a once in a life time, or century.  That with all of the success of the Western European educational system a genius like Ramanujan only rises occasionally.

There is a question in science, and I suppose other fields, that talks about the effect of the genius.  In this book there is a person who states the differences in genius.  There is the regular genius who is very good at doing the normal things.  When he shows you what he did you can understand it, you just realize that the genius is just very much better than you are.  Then there is the magician, when the magician shows you what he or she did you still can't understnad how they did it.  Magicians change they way the world sees itself.  Magicians are men like Kepler who sees that orbits are eliptical, or Einstien and brownian motion, and Newton and gravitational force.  Not anyone could see what they saw, but once they point the way the world is a better place.

According to this book that is Ramanujan who kept notebooks, three of them, during the years when only he believed in himself, but which are still being studied and proved many years after his death.

This book is also about the other type of genius G. H. Hardy who was a mathematician that Ramanuhan wrote to who recognized his genius and nutured it and brought Ramanujan to the attention of the world.  Some would say that anyone could have discovered Ramanujan but Hardy is the third mathmatician that Ramanujan wrote and the other two didn't discover him.  From the book it said that since Ramanujan didn't have a lot of formal training his notation was hard to understand.  Not wrong just different and it takes some time to see what he was actually saying.  The book said it was like instead of saying "Penny wise and dollar foolish." you say "Quater wise and two dollars and fifty cents foolish"  Same thing but doesn't ring right.

Fascinating book about two fascinating men.  Very good read.