A conversation about mathematics inspired by a taxicab. Presented by Katie Steckles and Peter Rowlett.
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Mathematical Objects: A taxicab
You're reading: Posts Tagged: Srinivasa Ramanujan
Continued fractions
This is a guest post by David Benjamin.
Mathematical genius: extrapolate from your own experience?
The BBC biography series Great Lives covered in its most recent episode Srinivasa Ramanujan. In the closing minutes of the programme, host Matthew Paris said this, which I found quite interesting (or at least, interestingly expressed):
I’m so far from understanding the mind of a mathematical genius that it’s simply inconceivable that you could tell a person an apparently random number and he could intuit or deduce the kind of fact that he deduced about that taxi license number. I mean, I can’t run a four-minute mile, but I once ran a five-minute mile, and I can extrapolate from my own experience, in a way understand how someone might just be a lot better than me at something that, in an inferior way, I can also do. But Ramanujan isn’t like that. It’s as though this man were a different species, not just a superior example of the same species. Can you learn to do this kind of thing? Could I, if I had applied myself? Or is it that goddess again, is it really just genius?
Answers on a postcard!
The Man Who Knew Infinity trailer
Here’s an official trailer for the long-awaited Ramanujan biopic, The Man Who Knew Infinity, starring Dev Patel and Jeremy Irons.
Looks good! IMDB reckons it’ll be out on the 8th of April. It’s taken long enough – we first reported on this film just over two years ago.
Carnival of Mathematics 129
The next issue of the Carnival of Mathematics, rounding up blog posts from the month of November, and compiled by the team at Ganit Charcha to celebrate the birthday of Srinivasa Ramanujan, is now online at Ganit Charcha.
The Carnival rounds up maths blog posts from all over the internet, including some from our own Aperiodical. See our Carnival of Mathematics page for more information.
Maths movie round up
You wait and wait for a movie about a mathematical genius, and then three come at once. I’ve got Turing, I’ve got Ramanujan, I’ve got Erdős.
An infinite series of blog posts which sums to -1/12
Many of you who are aware of the internet will have noticed that some mild controversy has surrounded a recent Numberphile video, posted last week:
[youtube url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-I6XTVZXww]