The Man Who Knew The Infinity
Srinivasa Ramanujan ought be a household name just like Albert Einstein and Isaac Newton, believes Ken Ono, the Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Mathematics at Emory University and vice-president of the American Mathematical Society. Ono would know as he is an expert in number theory and the works of Ramanujan. In fact, he was the mathematical adviser on, and co-producer of, the Hollywood film on Ramanujan, The Man Who Knew Infinity. The film was based on a biography of the same name by Robert Kanigel. “Ramanujan was a gift to mathematics and science. Many of the cryptic formulas he recorded in his shabby notebooks have powered the science of our present and future,” exclaims Ono. Recently, the Royal Society London — Ramanujan became one of its youngest members at 31 — organised a two-day event celebrating the centenary of his election as a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1918, only the second Indian to be granted this honour. The greatest mathematicians of today attended to pay...

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