The Man and his Math ;

The man and his math

Submitted by krp on Thu, 03/31/2011 - 5:11pm.

Intrigued by the foresight of SrinivasaRamanujan and his relevance today , Director DevBenegal is working on his biopic ".Beyond the Numbers " ;;

This extract is from The HINDU METROPLUS Hyderabad Tuesday March 22 , 2011 ;

Director DevBenegal fascinated by the journey of SrinivasaRamanujan from Kumbakonam , Tamil Nadu to Cambridge University , believes that we are as a nation what we are today because of the works of the greatest mathematician that the country ever produced ; { Q: i believe it ; but , how i wonder ? }

We are reminded of a story about Ramakrishna Paramahamsa ( RK ) ; M ( there is no expansion to M ) says RK asked him ( M ) to teach him ( RK ) Math ( RK must have sensed { dic_ sense v be vaguely aware of } his lack of understanding of Math is a deficiency { dic_ deficiency a lack or shortage } ) ; but , when M tried to teach him Math , RK lost interest and was looking askance { dic_ askance adv look askance at , regard with suspicion } at M ; what must have happened is that M must have been giving Money-changing examples for elementary Math and RK had an allergy { dic_ allergy extreme sensitivity to a substance } for Money { ! } ;

Kronecker said “ numbers are created by God : all else is the work of man “ ; Ramanujan’s study of numbers is not about market place numbers ( which incidentally however is the concern of the significant field of study , Economics ) but about sacred numbers created by God ;

DevBenegal's picture " Sacred Numbers " is multi-lingual, as he says " we Indians speak three languages at the same time and make perfect sense " ; Benegal believes that the story is relevant to-day ; " our ATM-s work on the principle of Ramanujan's Partition theory ; His conjecture is the basis of our Google and Wikipedia ; Ramanujan also expressed his desire to be able to access all the world's libraries at the click of a button. Today we are doing precisely that " { ! } ;

The movie concentrates on the biography of SrinivasaRamanujan -- " Sacred Numbers " -- not market place numbers ; The movie is an attempt to look at what inspired Ramanujan -- Ramanujan himself said it was Goddess Nammakkal who inspired him , i rem(ember) ;

We know Ramanujan went to Cambridge in dire { dic_ dire adj disastrous , urgent or terrible } circumstances ; The reviewer describes Ramanujan's relationship with his wife as one of the greatest love stories of our times ; it is a pity even in our times wives are not only not respected but even abused ; The reviewer of DevBenagal's picture , says the film explores Ramanujan's life at an emotional level -- this is what he probably implies -- we have to learn to respect our wives ; My mother said Ramanujan's wife Janakiammal died recently about 10 years ago and if Ramanujan lived he would have been a venerable old man a.midst us until recently ;

We all know the story of 10cube + 9cube = 1729 = 1cube + 12cube ; It is the smallest number which can be expressed as sum of two cubes in two different ways ; If a^3+b^3 = aprime^3+bprime^3 , then a larger solution , by multiplying through out by n^3 , can be seen from ( n.a )^3+( n.b )^3 = ( n.aprime )^3+ ( n.bprime )^3 ; It seems Hardy asked if there is a solution for the corresponding analogous problem for fourth power ; and , Ramanujan after a little thought said he can't find any ; and , if any it must be very large ; Let us pause to understand two things ; Mathematics is both experimental and logical ; if Ramanujan armed with a slate could not find a solution for the fourth powers , it must indeed be a very rare phenomenon ;

Douglas R. Hofstadter’s “ Gödel , Escher, Bach : an Eternal Golden Braid “ Vintage Books A Division of Random House – New York ( p 564 ) gives the solution to the analogous problem for the 4th powers ---

.>>.>>[ ]635318657 = (134)^4th power + (133)^4th power = (158)^4th power +(59)^4th power ;

Some thoughts are relevant and recorded below ---

{+}{aside}begin
deepest of thoughts are numbers for all humanity at large ;
end{aside}{+}

{+}begin
Properties of thought can be understood mathematically <= Ramanujan ;
end{+}

Rem: numbers don’t move and are beyond Space-Time even though the beads of Abacus move ; so are Computer programs even though the trace of a program is in Space-Time ;

Some references are given below :

“ ‘ I think some people really are a few steps beyond where the rest of us live ‘ There is much more to Ramanujan than his mathematics , says Robert Kanigel “ , THE HINDU MONDAY DECEMBER 26 , 2011.;

MONDAY , DECEMBER 26 , 2011 THE HINDU RAMANUJAN @ 125 A celebration of mathematics , The legacy of Srinivasa Ramanujan - His work has a fundamental role in the development 20th century mathematics ; M. RAM MURTY and V. KUMAR MURTY ;

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