The letter that revealed Ramanujan's genius

Ramanujan was a self-taught Indian mathematician who travelled to England to work with professor G H Hardy after sending him a letter describing some of his remarkable ideas. In this video we take a look at that letter and at Hardy's initial response.

Further reading/watching:
A recent movie about Ramanujan is 'The man Who Knew Infinity' directed by Matthew Brown

0:00 - Intro
1:03 - Ramanujan's letter
8:56 - Hardy's reply
11:22 - Patron Cat of the Day

Hardy's reply letter is taken from 'Ramanujan, letters and commentary' - Bruce C. Burndt & Robert A. Rankin. Ramanujan's original letter is from the Cambridge University Archive.

End music: Gymnopedie - Satie
✨ Music: Reconcile - Peter Sandberg

[tibees]

Timestamps: 1:03 - Ramanujan's letter, 8:56 - Hardy's reply, 11:22 - Patron Cat of the Day 🐱

[tawny-scott]

He died at a very young age, I always imagine how much he would have contributed if he lived longer😔, huge inspiration for me

[ViralKiller]

He was a perfect example of natural genius, struggled to prove the answer, but it was indeed correct...he just got their using raw intuition

[ColinRobinson]

That Hardy took the letter seriously enough to reply says a lot about him. Most professors would have had a good laugh and binned it, especially considering the era.

[alexjbriiones]

Over the weekend, I saw the movie: "The man who knew infinity." It's about the mathematician Ramanujan and it was wonderful. Two things struck me that I was not expecting: one, the amount of effort and loyalty that Hardy exhibited over Ramanujan, and two, that Ramanujan was being told, almost as a medium the great knowledge of the universe through the god Namagiri.

[xinfuxia]

His English is flawless even without a college degree. His math insight is among the top minds in human history

[Rrdd]

“The Man Who Knew Infinity” outstanding film about this genius.

[nehamaty]

Not only a genius, he is a humble and extremely polite man, we are missing people like you nowadays. RIP Ramanujan

[neweins]

Ramanajun was one man army in Maths, rediscovered maths discovered by others in centuries and continued on. All this in just 32 years of life. :)

[dcterr]

In my opinion, Ramanujan was one of the greatest mathematical geniuses of all time. I'm still amazed at what he was able to accomplish without any formal mathematical training. It's a good thing Hardy was able to appreciate his genius and provide him with formal training. One can only wonder what else he would have accomplished if he'd lived a longer life. Great video!

[brokerhenry]

This guy is one of my heroes. I came across his work in the Series section of Calculus. Numbers spoke to that guy.

[dryym]

Just watched 'The Man Who Knew Infinity' no words pure genius

[danielkanewske]

My favorite Ramanujan anecdote is the following. Hardy went to visit Ramanujan in the hospital. Ramanujan was was dying. Hardy told Ramanujan that he just arrived from taxi 1729 and that is the most uninteresting number. Ramanujan immediately corrected him and said, "Oh on! 1729 is the integer which is the sum of 2 different cubes 2 different ways." 1, 12 and 9, 10

[navaneethkrishna.b]

Your voice should be given as an option for google assistant...
It's wonderful tbh

Edit: thanks for the likes!

[abe]

His handwriting is also as good as his mathematics. Like little gems and so fluent.

[QuestionEverythingButWHY]

“One glance at a book and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for 1, 000 years. To read is to voyage through time.”
― Carl Sagan

[Pinto_]

A natural genius he was. He was fortunate to have found Prof Hardy, who made no mistake in recognizing his genius and provided Ramanujam the opportunity.

[ohammouda]

The best type of genius you could possibly encounter is this humble type.

[KyleKabasares_PhD]

It's so amazing to me that still to this day, scientists and mathematicians alike are finding new ways to apply Ramanujan's work. I've read some stuff saying that some of his theorems and equations are being applied to better understand black holes and string theory! Even though he lived a short life, his work and contributions to mathematics are timeless.

[jdsgotninelives]

If I've got this right, the really extraordinary thing is that he was progressing to the really groundbreaking equations using equations that, unknown to him, were already widely in use. In other words, he was using equations that he didn't realise were already discovered. In his reaction to Hardy's correspondence on all of this, he didn't indulge in self-congratulation. Instead, he was relieved that what he had discovered was provable. That's humility and it's also Feynman-level genius.