The Indian Clerk
2 journalers for this copy...
For those of you who love Mathematics, and Reading, this is the book for you!
Since I studied Mathematics in University and I do love reading I couldn't pass this book up when judysh brought it to our meetup. Thanks judysh and lovely to see you and your husband.
I love those instances of synchronicity discovered through reading.
Until I read this book I had never heard of mathematician Ramanujan and certainly never heard of his contributions to mathematics.
This is despite studying mathematics for my Bachelor of Science major.
And then, within a week of finishing the book I ran across mention of him in this article from Nature: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03229-4
I suppose the story of a mathematics genius from India who was brought to England by some of the greatest minds of the early 20th century would not appeal to everyone but I was quite fascinated by it. Not only do we learn about Ramanujan and his mentor, Hardy, but we get a glimpse of pre-war England especially as it was experienced in the halls of Cambridge. Names such as Rupert Brooke and Bertrand Russell and John Maynard Keynes pop up at parties and dinners. Many of them belong to the Apostles Club, a discussion group of current and former Cambridge students. It appears that many of the members were homosexual according to this book. Certainly G. H. Hardy is portrayed as one. Women play an important part in this story although their position in society at that time was certainly subservient to men. There is the married woman, Mrs. Chase, who is the mistress of one of Hardy's collaborator; there is Hardy's unmarried sister; and there is Mrs. Norton, wife of another mathematician. It is Mr. and Mrs. Norton who meet Ramanujan in India and persuade him to come to England where they host him at their house for some months. Ramanujan is a strict vegetarian and Mrs. Norton special meals for him, although they don't seem to be to Ramanujan's taste and certainly are not liked by Hardy and the other guests. In the process Mrs. Norton becomes infatuated with Ramanujan but he does not return her attention. When Ramanujan moves out into rooms at the college he cooks for himself possibly giving himself lead poisoning from the cookware he uses. Leavitt doesn't definitively say that lead poisoning was the cause of Ramanujan's early death but it seems as good a theory as any. While Ramanujan did not prove the Reimann Hypothesis that fascinated Hardy (in fact it still remains unproven) but he did contribute to the fields of number theory, infinite series and continued fractions. For someone who had no formal training in mathematics that was miraculous. It may have been that lack of formal training that allowed him to branch out into new approaches and achieve the breakthroughs that he did.
Truly a fascinating portrayal.
Until I read this book I had never heard of mathematician Ramanujan and certainly never heard of his contributions to mathematics.
This is despite studying mathematics for my Bachelor of Science major.
And then, within a week of finishing the book I ran across mention of him in this article from Nature: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03229-4
I suppose the story of a mathematics genius from India who was brought to England by some of the greatest minds of the early 20th century would not appeal to everyone but I was quite fascinated by it. Not only do we learn about Ramanujan and his mentor, Hardy, but we get a glimpse of pre-war England especially as it was experienced in the halls of Cambridge. Names such as Rupert Brooke and Bertrand Russell and John Maynard Keynes pop up at parties and dinners. Many of them belong to the Apostles Club, a discussion group of current and former Cambridge students. It appears that many of the members were homosexual according to this book. Certainly G. H. Hardy is portrayed as one. Women play an important part in this story although their position in society at that time was certainly subservient to men. There is the married woman, Mrs. Chase, who is the mistress of one of Hardy's collaborator; there is Hardy's unmarried sister; and there is Mrs. Norton, wife of another mathematician. It is Mr. and Mrs. Norton who meet Ramanujan in India and persuade him to come to England where they host him at their house for some months. Ramanujan is a strict vegetarian and Mrs. Norton special meals for him, although they don't seem to be to Ramanujan's taste and certainly are not liked by Hardy and the other guests. In the process Mrs. Norton becomes infatuated with Ramanujan but he does not return her attention. When Ramanujan moves out into rooms at the college he cooks for himself possibly giving himself lead poisoning from the cookware he uses. Leavitt doesn't definitively say that lead poisoning was the cause of Ramanujan's early death but it seems as good a theory as any. While Ramanujan did not prove the Reimann Hypothesis that fascinated Hardy (in fact it still remains unproven) but he did contribute to the fields of number theory, infinite series and continued fractions. For someone who had no formal training in mathematics that was miraculous. It may have been that lack of formal training that allowed him to branch out into new approaches and achieve the breakthroughs that he did.
Truly a fascinating portrayal.
