"It has not the simplicity and the inevitableness of the very greatest work; it would be greater if it were less strange. One gift it shows... profound and invincible originality. He would probably been a greater mathematician if he could have been caught and tamed a little in his youth; he would have discovered more that was new, and... of greater importance. On the other hand he would have been less of a Ramanujan, and more of a European professor, and the loss might have been greater than the gain... the last sentence is... ridiculous sentimentalism. There was no gain at all when the College at Kumbakonam rejected the one great man they had ever possessed, and the loss was irreparable..."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
G. H. Hardy, in Ramanujan: Twelve Lectures on Subjects Suggested by His Life and Work (1940) Ch. 1 The Indian Mathematician Ramanujan, p. 7.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Srinivasa_Ramanujan
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Srinivasa Ramanujan
Srinivasa Aiyangar Ramanujan (Tamil: ஸ்ரீனிவாஸ ஐயங்கார் ராமானுஜன்) (22 December 1887 – 26 April 1920) was an Indian mathematician and autodidact, noted for his extraordinary achievements in the field of mathematical analysis, number theory, infinite series, and continued fractions. In his uniquely self-developed mathematical research he not only rediscovered known theorems but also produced brilliant new work, prompting his mentor G. H. Hardy to compare his brilliance to that of Euler and Gauss.
37 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Srinivasa Ramanujan →
Related Quotes
"Sir, an equation has no meaning for me unless it expresses a thought of GOD."
"I beg to introduce myself to you as a clerk in the Accounts Department of the Port Trust Office at Madras... I have n…"
"Ramanujan lived in a tiny hut in India. No formal education, no access to other works. But he came across an old math…"
"Paul Erdős has passed on to us Hardy's personal ratings of mathematicians. Suppose that we rate mathematicians on the…"
"He began to focus on mathematics at an early age, and, at the age of about fifteen, borrowed a copy of G. S. Carr's S…"
"At about the time Ramanujan entered college, he began to record his mathematical discoveries in notebooks... Ramanuja…"
"After Ramanujan died, Hardy strongly urged that Ramanujan's notebooks be edited and published. By "editing," Hardy me…"
"Ramanujan's approach to the theory of theta functions does not appear to have been influenced by any other writer."
"He was sent at seven to the High School at , and remained there nine years. ...His biographers say ...that soon after…"
"If n is any positive quantity shew that \frac 1{n} > \frac 1{n+1} + \frac 1{{(n+2)}^2} + \frac 3{{(n+3)}^3} + \frac {…"