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I don't understand what you mean. He couldn't have just come up with that huge equation on the page out of thin air? Surely there would be a method for coming

I don't understand what you mean. He couldn't have just come up with that huge equation on the page out of thin air? Surely there would be a method for coming up with such assertions (maybe only known to him though)

shmerl 6y ago
According to him it wasn't a method, but an insight. So if you like to phrase it that way, you could say it he came up with it "out of thin air".
dharma1 6y ago
"Ramanujan said that, throughout his life, he repeatedly dreamed of a Hindu goddess known as Namagiri. She presented him with complex mathematical formulas over and over, which he could then test and verify upon waking. Once such example was the infinite series for Pi: Describing one of his many insightful math dreams, Ramanujan said: "While asleep I had an unusual experience. There was a red screen formed by flowing blood as it were. I was observing it. Suddenly a hand began to write on the screen. I became all attention. That hand wrote a number of results in elliptic integrals. They stuck to my mind. As soon as I woke up, I committed them to writing...""
- emmanueloga_ 6y ago
  Reminds me of TempleOS, "created by American programmer Terry A. Davis, who developed it alone over the course of a decade after a series of prophetic episodes that he later described as a revelation from God."
- laichzeit0 6y ago
  I think this kind of explanation irritates many people for some reason. As if things just can't be that way, there must be a repeatable, reproducible recipe that someone else could follow, and if they did, they would get the same results as Ramanujan. I think maybe because it flies in the face of everyone that claims 10x developers are not possible. Or that some people are just genetically gifted and there's nothing you could possibly do that would get you within a hundred yards of them no matter how much hard work you put in, or how good your teachers were, etc. (thinking about John von Neumann here). It's sort of depressing to think that there's almost a different species of man amongst us. It's undeniable though.
  - PartiallyTyped 6y ago
    There have been quite a few such people in history. It's really humbling to know that Galois did what he did at just 20, Gödel was just a year older than me when he broke PM, Neumann could solve problems faster than what it took a person to write a program on the computer to solve the problem and the computer running. While genetics play a huge role, nurture plays a large role as well [1]. [1] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/articles/200507/the-grandmaster-experiment https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/articles/200507/the-grand...
  - maaaaattttt 6y ago
    I for one find the fact that such people existed very exciting. It means that some possible configuration of our physiology allows for amazing capabilities. Maybe nurturing has to do with it too, but the point is that it is possible. Maybe one day (in a distant future most likely) the general population will have access to such mental prowess. This would then be another kind of singularity!
  - psychoslave 6y ago
    > I think this kind of explanation irritates many people for some reason. As if things just can't be that way, there must be a repeatable, reproducible recipe that someone else could follow, and if they did, they would get the same results as Ramanujan. Oh, there is an easy recipe : just emulate the universe as it was back then and observe Ramanujan. As we know, having a recipe doesn’t mean we have the resources to implement it. There are several movies on Ramanujan as well as biographic books. Apart from the tragic path of is life, these material also depict him not only as gifted but as a compulsively working his maths. So that’s no wonder he would even dream about it. And of course, you can model that as the result of unconscious thoughts throwing the result of problems that were fed to the mind during awaken time. So, the magic recipe is practice, practice, and practice even more. > I think maybe because it flies in the face of everyone that claims 10x developers are not possible. On what metrics? The ability to be able to throw impressive "magical" code and being able to work efficiently with the rest of a team will not necessarily come together, for example. > Or that some people are just genetically gifted and there's nothing you could possibly do that would get you within a hundred yards of them no matter how much hard work you put in, or how good your teachers were, etc. “Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.” is generally attributed to Oscar Wilde. Every life is genetically gifted, but not all lives encounter the environment that enables to thrives this gift – unfortunately. Also no one is perfect. Many aspect of human life are not only dependent on how performant you are individually, so being really "too ahead" can be actually a severe handicap – at least if it doesn’t come with equal excellence into convincing other to trust you. And so depression is not something you can expect to be out of the realm of gifted evoked here.
- texteller 6y ago
  Recently visited the "Ramanujan Museum" in India which showcases his original works: * Where we could see his family goddess - Sri Namakkal Namagiri Thayaar who he credited for his works: http://casualwalker.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Ramanujan_Museum_Srinivasa_Ramanujan_00023.jpg http://casualwalker.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Ramanujan... * His desk where he made his early mathematical findings: http://casualwalker.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Ramanujan_Museum_Srinivasa_Ramanujan_00273.jpg http://casualwalker.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Ramanujan... * Check the full photo coverage about Ramanujan and his fascinating works at: http://casualwalker.com/museum-for-the-man-who-knew-infinity-ramanujan-museum-royapuram-chennai-travel-guide http://casualwalker.com/museum-for-the-man-who-knew-infinity...
- inglor_cz 6y ago
  Another famous mathematician, Paul Erdős, took Ritalin and Benzedrine and when he stopped for a month (to win a bet), he complained like this: "Before, when I looked at a piece of blank paper my mind was filled with ideas. Now all I see is a blank piece of paper."

shmerl 6y ago

According to him it wasn't a method, but an insight. So if you like to phrase it that way, you could say it he came up with it "out of thin air".

dharma1 6y ago

"Ramanujan said that, throughout his life, he repeatedly dreamed of a Hindu goddess known as Namagiri. She presented him with complex mathematical formulas over and over, which he could then test and verify upon waking. Once such example was the infinite series for Pi: Describing one of his many insightful math dreams, Ramanujan said: "While asleep I had an unusual experience. There was a red screen formed by flowing blood as it were. I was observing it. Suddenly a hand began to write on the screen. I became all attention. That hand wrote a number of results in elliptic integrals. They stuck to my mind. As soon as I woke up, I committed them to writing...""

emmanueloga_ 6y ago
Reminds me of TempleOS, "created by American programmer Terry A. Davis, who developed it alone over the course of a decade after a series of prophetic episodes that he later described as a revelation from God."
laichzeit0 6y ago
I think this kind of explanation irritates many people for some reason. As if things just can't be that way, there must be a repeatable, reproducible recipe that someone else could follow, and if they did, they would get the same results as Ramanujan. I think maybe because it flies in the face of everyone that claims 10x developers are not possible. Or that some people are just genetically gifted and there's nothing you could possibly do that would get you within a hundred yards of them no matter how much hard work you put in, or how good your teachers were, etc. (thinking about John von Neumann here). It's sort of depressing to think that there's almost a different species of man amongst us. It's undeniable though.
- PartiallyTyped 6y ago
  There have been quite a few such people in history. It's really humbling to know that Galois did what he did at just 20, Gödel was just a year older than me when he broke PM, Neumann could solve problems faster than what it took a person to write a program on the computer to solve the problem and the computer running. While genetics play a huge role, nurture plays a large role as well [1]. [1] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/articles/200507/the-grandmaster-experiment https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/articles/200507/the-grand...
- maaaaattttt 6y ago
  I for one find the fact that such people existed very exciting. It means that some possible configuration of our physiology allows for amazing capabilities. Maybe nurturing has to do with it too, but the point is that it is possible. Maybe one day (in a distant future most likely) the general population will have access to such mental prowess. This would then be another kind of singularity!
- psychoslave 6y ago
  > I think this kind of explanation irritates many people for some reason. As if things just can't be that way, there must be a repeatable, reproducible recipe that someone else could follow, and if they did, they would get the same results as Ramanujan. Oh, there is an easy recipe : just emulate the universe as it was back then and observe Ramanujan. As we know, having a recipe doesn’t mean we have the resources to implement it. There are several movies on Ramanujan as well as biographic books. Apart from the tragic path of is life, these material also depict him not only as gifted but as a compulsively working his maths. So that’s no wonder he would even dream about it. And of course, you can model that as the result of unconscious thoughts throwing the result of problems that were fed to the mind during awaken time. So, the magic recipe is practice, practice, and practice even more. > I think maybe because it flies in the face of everyone that claims 10x developers are not possible. On what metrics? The ability to be able to throw impressive "magical" code and being able to work efficiently with the rest of a team will not necessarily come together, for example. > Or that some people are just genetically gifted and there's nothing you could possibly do that would get you within a hundred yards of them no matter how much hard work you put in, or how good your teachers were, etc. “Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.” is generally attributed to Oscar Wilde. Every life is genetically gifted, but not all lives encounter the environment that enables to thrives this gift – unfortunately. Also no one is perfect. Many aspect of human life are not only dependent on how performant you are individually, so being really "too ahead" can be actually a severe handicap – at least if it doesn’t come with equal excellence into convincing other to trust you. And so depression is not something you can expect to be out of the realm of gifted evoked here.
texteller 6y ago
Recently visited the "Ramanujan Museum" in India which showcases his original works: * Where we could see his family goddess - Sri Namakkal Namagiri Thayaar who he credited for his works: http://casualwalker.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Ramanujan_Museum_Srinivasa_Ramanujan_00023.jpg http://casualwalker.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Ramanujan... * His desk where he made his early mathematical findings: http://casualwalker.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Ramanujan_Museum_Srinivasa_Ramanujan_00273.jpg http://casualwalker.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Ramanujan... * Check the full photo coverage about Ramanujan and his fascinating works at: http://casualwalker.com/museum-for-the-man-who-knew-infinity-ramanujan-museum-royapuram-chennai-travel-guide http://casualwalker.com/museum-for-the-man-who-knew-infinity...
inglor_cz 6y ago
Another famous mathematician, Paul Erdős, took Ritalin and Benzedrine and when he stopped for a month (to win a bet), he complained like this: "Before, when I looked at a piece of blank paper my mind was filled with ideas. Now all I see is a blank piece of paper."