foreign-language math texts. P. K. Srinivasan, 106.
left him to do as he pleased. Ibid., 122.
“ingenious and original.” Seshu Iyer, 82.
Professor demanded book’s return. P. K. Srinivasan, 122.
Seshu Iyer “indifferent.” Ibid., 99.
“To the college authorities …” Neville, “Ramanujan” (Nature 149), 292.
went to see the principal. P. K. Srinivasan, 85.
Tuition was thirty-two rupees per term. Hemingway, Tanjore District Gazetteer.
In early August 1905. Family Record.
two-thirds the load, at two-thirds the speed. Hemingway, Tanjore District Gazetteer.
could still take three weeks. Kameshwar C. Wali, Chandra (University of Chicago Press, 1990), 42.
“When you get to the third-class railway carriage …” Compton, 27.
Vizagapatnam. Thurston, 40; Urwick, 83; Imperial Gazetteer, Madras Presidency, 1908.
Fragmentary accounts. The scanty information available about Ramanujan’s flight to Vizagapatnam is drawn from Family Record; Suresh Ram, 10; Seshu Iyer, 83; S. R. Ranganathan, 46, 94; K. R. Rajagopalan, 11. Also, interviews with P. K. Srinivasan and T. V. Rangaswami.
probably by September. Family Record.
Primary exam humiliation. P. K. Srinivasan, 106. Ragami.
he secreted the papers … in the roof of his house. Seshu Iyer and Ramachandra Rao, xii.
“too sorry for his failure.” P. K. Srinivasan, 27.
“An obligatory aspect of shame …” Wurmser, 52.
“wince at ourselves in the mirror …” Ibid., 17.
“Hiding is intrinsic …” Ibid., 29.
a “mental aberration.” Quoted in Nandy, 108
“a temporary unsoundness of mind.” Madras Port Trust. See also Seshu Iyer, who says that “being too sensitive to ask his parents for help” after his failure at Government College, he left for Vizagapatnam.
he breathlessly inquired. S. R. Ranganathan, 77.
Pachaiyappa Mudaliar. Muthiah, 186.
modeled on the Temple of Theseus. Ibid., 185.
arrived at Egmore Station. Interview, T. V. Rangaswami, who says he heard it from Janaki.
“To appear and succeed …” Fuller, 175.
half failed. Fuller, 176.
lived a few blocks … off the fruit bazaar. S. R. Ranganathan, 73.
bout of dysentery. Family Record.
at Pachaiyappa’s College. Ibid., 66, 73.
show how to solve it. S. R. Ranganathan, 65–67.
Singaravelu Mudaliar. Ibid., 65.
Ramanujan’s gifts. “Of the problems given in our textbooks in geometry, algebra, and trigonometry,” recalled a Pachaiyappa’s classmate, Ramayana Ratnakara T. Srinivasa Raghavacharya, “he used to remark, ‘These are all mental sums.’ ” S. R. Ranganathan, 75.
“At the upper left-hand part of the stomach …” Foster and Shore, 17.
“Procure a rabbit.” Ibid., 13.
a big, anesthetized frog. S. R. Ranganathan, 68.
“ … the Digestion chapter.” Ibid., 69.
He’d take the three-hour math exam. P. K. Srinivasan, 119.
December 1906. There is some disagreement here. For example, according to K. R. Rajagopalan, Ramanujan did not take the F.A. examination in December 1906, but only the following year. And the Family Record has him taking an “Intermediate Exam” in 1908. None of which much affects the story: Ramanujan took exams, always failed them, and wound up credentialless.
“fall far short of the multitude.” Compton, 171.
Ramanujan’s cap. P. K. Srinivasan, 117.
Agricultural workers in surrounding villages. See note for chapter 1, page 17.
an old woman … would invite him in for a midday meal. S. R. Ranganathan, 22.
Ramanujan fed dosai. P. K. Srinivasan, 96.
Ramanujan tutors Viswanatha Sastri. Ibid., 89.
Tutor to Govindaraja Iyengar. S. R. Ranganathan, 62.
“In proving one formula, he discovered many others …” Neville, “Ramanujan” (Nature 149) (1942): 292.
a succession of handwritten accounts. This is what I have called the Family Record. “a peculiar green ink.” G. N. Watson, “Ramanujan’s Note Books,” Journal of the London Mathematical Society 6 (1931): 139.
“Two monkeys having robbed an orchard …” Quoted by A. C. L. Wilkinson, “Presidential Address,” Journal of the Indian Mathematical Society, February 1919, 24.
“Every rational integer.” Hardy, in Ramanujan, Collected Papers, xxxv.
“from which most of us would shrink.” Lecture notes, B. M. Wilson. Trinity College.
William Thackeray. Madras Civil Servants (London: Longman, Orme, Brown, and Co., 1839).
“very proper that in England.” Quoted in Chopra et al., vol. 3.
“into the icy water.” Bell, 330.
to well-worn paths. For a kindred instance, consider Weierstrass: “The creative ideas with which he fertilized mathematics were for the most part thought out while he was an obscure schoolteacher in dismal villages where advanced books were unobtainable… .Being unable to afford postage, Weierstrass was barred from scientific correspondence. Perhaps it is well that he was; his originality developed unhampered by the fashionable ideas of the time. The independence of outlook thus acquired characterized his work in later years.” Bell, 416.
“the carefree days.” Neville, “Ramanujan” (Nature 149): 293.
Ramanujan warned the parents of a sick child. S. R. Ranganathan, 85.
“the primordial God and several divinities.” P. K. Srinivasan, 92.
Satyapriya Rao. S. R. Ranganathan, 85; P. K. Srinivasan, 90. “He was a sturdy strong man and he taught the students native exercises—‘Dandal,’ ‘Baski,’ etc.” Centenary Celebration Souvenir.
Theory of Zero and Infinity. S. R. Ranganathan, 82.
“spoke with such enthusiasm.” Ibid., 83.
he’d drop by the college. Ibid., 61.
legs pulled into his body. Ibid., 62.
“the Indian character has seldom been wanting.” Hindu, 11 February 1889.
“a blank and vacant look.” Bharathi, 51.
“that time-tested Indian psychotherapy.” Nandy, 109.
CHAPTER THREE
Ramanujan’s marriage. Ragami; P. K. Srinivasan, K. R. Rajagopalan, 1718; Nandy; Suresh Ram; S. R. Ranganathan. Interviews with Janaki, Mr. and Mrs. T. U. Bhanumurthy.
The family had once been better off. Interview, Janaki.
would not so much as glimpse his face. In an interview, Janaki confirms this standard practice.
Father’s response to word of son’s marriage. Interviews, Janaki, Mr. and Mrs. T. S. Bhanumurthy.
a family in Kanchipuram. Family Record.
ever sensitive to local custom. Compton, 117.
Mysore ban. Ibid., 119.
six months’ income. Fuller, 143.
local usurers. Marvin, 102.
a double wedding. Interview, Janaki. Family Record.
for three years. Family Record.
Hydrocele. Interview, Jacek Mostwin.
Dr. Kuppuswami volunteered to do the surgery for free. P. K. Srinivasan, 100; K. R. Rajagopalan, 19; Family Record.
As chloroform administered. Seshu Iyer, 82.
the wound began to bleed. P. K. Srinivasan, 100.
he would often have to depend. Interview, T. V. Rangaswami.
more than a week’s pay. Compton, 27, puts the third-class fare (in 1904) at about a farthing per mile. A farthing was one-quarter of a penny, and a penny equaled an anna. Thus, a trip to Madras, about a four-hundred-mile round-trip from Kumbakonam, would have been about a hundred annas, or six rupees. Ramanujan’s father made twenty rupees per month. Plainly, getting around South India during this period must have represented a real financial burden to Ramanujan and his family.
at the house of a friend. S. R. Ranganathan, 87.
he stayed with Viswanatha Sastri. P. K. Srinivasan, 90.
on the sufferance of two old Kumbakonam friends. S. R. Ranganathan, 69.
Narasimha squeaked by. P. K. Srinivasan, 108.
One day probably soon after this. S. R. Ranganathan, 74.
“incorrigible idler.” Neville, “Ramanujan” (Nature 149): 292.
had made him marry. S. R. Ranganathan, 24.
“Like regiments we have to carry our drums.” Chaudhuri, 101.
never amount to anything. P. K. Srinivasan, 123.
“so friendly and gregarious.” Ramaseshan, 4.
“He would open his notebooks.” P. K. Srinivasan, 123.
“such a simple soul.” S. R. Ranganathan, 61.
puppet shows. P. K. Srinivasan, 97.
“knew nothing of mathematics.” S. R. Ranganathan, 22.
Sometime late in 1910 … S. R. Ranganathan, 23; P. K. Srinivasan, 99; Family Record.
Everyone called him “Professor.” K. G. Ramanathan, 20.
“I was struck by the extraordinary mathematical results.” P. K. Srinivasan, 129.
Not seen one another since 1906. Seshu Iyer, 83.
“I was not big enough.” P. K. Srinivasan, 102.
Ramachandra Rao. Bhargava, Who’s Who in India; Who’s Who in Madras, 1934. Ramachandra Rao meeting. P. K. Srinivasan, 86; Ramachandra Rao; S. R. Ranganathan, 24, 74; Family Record; Seshu Iyer, 83. Neville, “The Late” (Nature 106): 66.
he probably didn’t “work it out.” Richard Askey supplied this insight.
Fermat’s leisure. Bell, 59.
fifth-largest city in the British Empire. After London, Calcutta, Bombay, and Liverpool. Lewandowski, 51.
Origins of name. Thurston, 2; Krishnaswami Nayadu, 1.
History of Madras. See Slater, Southern India; Urwick; Steevens; Lewandowski; Srinivasachari; Lanchester.
more than fifty feet above sea level. Lanchester, 90.
“hutments.” Srinivasachari, 292.
the city had expanded horizontally. Lewandowski, 46.
large rural tracts. Singer, 142.
“Madras is more lost in green.” Steevens, 299.
a Brahmin-run restaurant. Bharathi, 50.
spin occult stories. S. R. Ranganathan, 16.
a refreshing Gangasnanam. Ibid., 67.
Public works projects in Madras. Srinivasachari, 298.
a letter from Ramaswami Iyer. Journal of the Indian Mathematical Society 11 (April 1919): 42–44.
Indian mathematics. See, for example, Eves, 161–183; M. S. Rangachari, “The Indian Tradition in Mathematics,” Journal of Indian Institute of Science (Ramanujan Special Issue 1987): 3–9.
“a mixture of pearl shells and sour dates.” Eves, 171.
“Ramanujan’s first love.” Letter, Bruce Berndt to author.
Ramanujan had stumbled on Bernoulli numbers. Madras Port Trust Archives, in Askey.
“Some Properties of Bernoulli’s Numbers.” Ramanujan, Collected Papers, 1–14.
By one reckoning. K. Srinivasa Rao, “Srinivasa Ramanujan: His Life and Work,” in Nagarajan and Soundararajan, 4.
“Mr. Ramanujan’s methods were so terse and novel.” Seshu Iyer, 83.
“by no means light.” P. K. Srinivasan, 131.
“numerical evidence as sufficient.” Mordell, Nature (1941); 645.
“they call you a genius.” S. R. Ranganathan, 25.
“a piece of thin string.” Bharathi, 50.
on paper already written upon. S. R. Ranganathan, 76.
prevailed on him to copy it over. S. R. Ranganathan, 58. Here, “during this period” means between early 1911, when Ramanujan first came under Ramachandra Rao’s influence, and early 1913, when he left for England.
“Paper, The Great Immortalizer.” Bharathi, v.
For about a year. Neville, “Ramanujan” (Nature 149), 292.
grew to bother him. S. R. Ranganathan, 26. “It was Ramanujan, unwilling to be longer a burden, who brought to an end his dependence” by taking the Port Trust job: Neville, Reading Manuscript.
a temporary job in the Madras Accountant General’s Office. Family Record. Srinivasan, 176, puts the dates of the job as January 12 to February 21, 1912, but there is some reason to doubt this. Conceivably, it was the previous year.
“a clerkship vacant.” P. K. Srinivasan, 31.
“quite exceptional capacity in Mathematics.” Ibid., 49.
The port of Madras. See Thurston; Urwick; Srinivasachari; Lanchester; The Port of Madras: Past, Present and Future; gazetteers. Interview, V. Meenakshisundaram.
his own motorcar. Muthiah, 183.
Sir Francis Spring. See The Port of Madras: Past, Present and Future, 8.
Narayana Iyer. Interviews with his family in Madras.
Sir Francis relied on him heavily. “Whatever Narayana Iyer said,” says S. Sankara Narayanan, “he agreed.”
“the most convenient dress.” Hindu, 24 April 1896.
late in 1912. P. K. Srinivasan, 172. Family Record.
a third of the city’s population. Lewandowski, 46.
three rupees per month. Interview, Janaki.
“sinecure post.” Ramachandra Rao, 87. Bharathi, 47.
“running to his office.” Bharathi, 50.
Ramanujan’s Port Trust routine. Interview, Janaki. “Since a year [after taking his job at the Port Trust] Ramanujan still found his clerkship a bondage from which he craved release, he must have been applying himself conscientiously to duties which his patron did not for a moment intend him to take seriously”: Neville, Reading Manuscript.
establishing cash balances. Interview, T. V. Rangaswami.
“pilotage fund clerk.” Internal memo, 11 February 1913, Madras Port Trust.
Ramanujan’s regular job was as a “bill clerk.”
prowling for packing paper. S. R. Ranganathan, 76.
sternly regarding his aide. Ibid., 27.
slates propped on their knees. Bharathi, 48.
“You must descend to my level.” Ibid.
Ramanujan as diamond. P. K. Srinivasan, 172.
The British Raj and the Indian Civil Service. See Worswick and Embree; Fuller; Compton.
“treason to our trust.” Quoted in Worswick and Embree, 140.
two-thirds those of the British. Fuller, 276.
“Plato’s ideal rulers.” Worswick and Embree, 142.
“awakened by responsibility.” Fuller, 276.
“regarded with awe, not affection.” Urwick, 55.
“the English official is an incomprehensible being.” Ibid.
An Englishman typically had his own washerman. Compton, 190.
brush and fold his clothes. Ibid., 246.
steward stooped to serve him tea. Ibid., 207.
“no assimilation between black and white.” Ibid., 247.
Narasimha had introduced him to E. B. Ross. Family Record.
E. W. Middlemast recommendation. P. K. Srinivasan, 49.
“cunning and contentious in argument.” Compton, 40.
“you can polish the Hindu intellect.” Ibid., 171.
“constantly disconcerted.” Fuller, 179.
“hardworking, docile and enduring.” Urwick, 50.
at Ramachandra Rao’s behest. Family Record refers to a letter from Ramachandra Rao to Griffith on 3 November 1912. See also Neville, Reading Manuscript.
“You have in your office.” P. K. Srinivasan, 50.
“If his genius is so elusive.” Ibid., 51.
“He gives me the impression of having brains.” Ibid., 52.
“I think I was right in writing to Prof. Hill.” Letter, Griffith to Spring, 28 November 1912. Madras Port Trust.
Ramanujan had fallen into some pitfalls. P. K. Srinivasan, 53.
“evidently a man with a taste for mathematics.” Letter, Griffith to Hill, 7 December 1912. Madras Port Trust.
Many had advised Ramanujan to write to England. S. R. Ranganathan, 70; P. K. Srinivasan, 91.
as long as two weeks. Compton, 178.
letters drafted with the help. Hardy (�
��Obituary,” 494) reports that Ramanujan told him the personal introduction had been written by “a friend.” And S. R. Ranganathan, 32, argues that the letter was “largely worded for him by the seniors who had helped him,” Ramanujan presumably being too shy and humble to write anything so boastful. Plainly, Ramanujan got help. But as I argue later, I don’t think he was as humble as some think.
In Ramanujan’s letter to Hardy of January 22, 1914, he claims that “all letters written to you, except this one [and one other], did not contain my language. Those were written by the superior officer mentioned before, though the mathematical results and handwriting were my own.” But there is reason to believe (see chapter 5) that Ramanujan was dissembling. Besides, Ramanujan was always scrupulous about acknowledging the help of others and may have deemed any help from his friends to mean that the language was not his “own.” Finally, even this letter, the letter he acknowledges as his own, was not so dramatically different from the rest. In short, I believe there was invariably a large chunk of Ramanujan in any letter that bore his signature.
Baker and Hobson said no. Snow, Apology foreword, 33–34: “I mentioned that there were two persons who do not come out of the story with credit. Out of chivalry, Hardy concealed this in all that he said or wrote about Ramanujan. The two people concerned have now been dead, however, for many years, and it is time to tell the truth. It is simple. Hardy was not the first eminent mathematician to be sent the Ramanujan manuscripts. There had been two before him, both English, both of the highest professional standard.” But Snow went no further. In Alternative Sciences, 146–147, Nandy reports that Littlewood identified them as “Baker and Popson.” In “Ramanujan—A Glimpse,” 78, Bollobás corrects the error. In a letter to Bruce Berndt, Indian mathematician K. Venkatachaliengar dismisses the assertion that Baker was among those who ignored Ramanujan. But he seems to do so solely on the basis that anyone who would, as Baker at one point did, recommend not an Englishman but an Indian, C. Hanumantha Rao, to a position at an Indian university could scarcely have spurned Ramanujan. Baker, writes Venkatachaliengar, was “a very sincere man of upright conduct… . [He] would have acknowledged his error if it were so to [Ramanujan] direct or through Hanumantha Rao.” This assertion, however, is not enough to undercut our confidence in what comes down to us directly through Littlewood who, according to Bollobás (“Ramanujan—A Glimpse,” 78), “often chuckled over the embarrassment of his colleagues who failed to recognize a genius.”
The Man Who Knew Infinity Page 49
