4 ms·

Maybe it is just me, but overstating anyone's impact to this extent is disrespectful to that person. "....wealth of ideas that have transformed and reshaped 20

by jeswin 15y ago

Maybe it is just me, but overstating anyone's impact to this extent is disrespectful to that person. "....wealth of ideas that have transformed and reshaped 20th century mathematics" "His work has had a fundamental role in the development of 20th century mathematics" Maybe someone who has delved deeper into math can shine some light here.

microarchitect 15y ago
Not a mathematician, but some references I found after goolging a bit: [1] "The meaning of Ramanujam now and for the future", George E. Andrews. http://www.math.psu.edu/andrews/pdf/274.pdf http://www.math.psu.edu/andrews/pdf/274.pdf [2] "The Ramanujam Journal", http://www.springer.com/mathematics/numbers/journal/11139 http://www.springer.com/mathematics/numbers/journal/11139 Quote from the conclusion of [1]: In his Presidential address to the London Mathematical Society in 1936, G. N. Watson spoke movingly of his emotional response to Ramanujan's achievements. I close by quoting his last few paragraphs [54; p. 80]: "The study of Ramanujan's work and of the problems to which it gives rise inevitably recalls to mind Lame's remark that, when reading Hermite's papers on modular functions, \on a la chair de poule." I would express my own attitude with more prolixity by saying that such a formula as: <snipped formula> gives me a thrill which is indistinguishable from the thrill which I feel when I enter the Sagrestia Nuova of the Capelle Medicee and see before me the austere beauty of the four statues representing Day, Night, Evening, and Dawn which Michelangelo has set over the tombs of Guiliano de Medici and Lorenzo de Medici. Ramanujan's discovery of the mock theta functions makes it obvious that his skill and ingenuity did not desert him at the oncoming of his untimely end. As much as any of his earlier work, the mock theta functions are an achievement sucient to cause his name to be held in lasting remembrance" To me, it's interesting that a community where fairly easy to build web-applications are called transformative and disruptive also has two out of thirteen comments critical of Ramanujam's impact.
- jeswin 15y ago
  Being critical of the article is not the same as being critical of Ramanujan's impact. So, there isn't a need to down vote. I am genuinely interested in knowing what Ramanujan did to "transform and reshape" 20th century mathematics.
  - microarchitect 15y ago
    I was upset by this statement which assumes a priori that the article must be overstating his impact. Maybe it is just me, but overstating anyone's impact to this extent is disrespectful to that person. I don't claim that the article is not overstating Ramanujam's impact, but you seemed to be arguing that there's no way this could be true, so the article must be overstating his impact. Given that even you don't claim to have the background required to objectively evaluate Ramanujam's impact, this seemed to be a prejudiced comment. In retrospect, I might have been a bit trigger-happy with the downvote. Sorry about that.
abhaga 15y ago
Incidentally that was my reaction too after reading the article. No doubt he contributed a lot to the areas he was working in, but you have to consider that his areas were limited. He primarily dealt with Number Theory and analysis. To my mind, the body of work looking into the foundations of mathematics (Russell, Whitehead, Godel etc) which also started around the same time has played a more fundamental role since it changed out very basic ideas of what can and cannot be achieved within the bounds of mathematics.
- intended 15y ago
  Perhaps as a lay observer, We can take your stand. But i would assume practitioners of the art would have a stronger grasp on subtlety and nuance. Some art looks boring while others look vibrant. To the more experienced- the same paintings speak of control and ability while the other evokes childish garishness.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
scythe 15y ago
I suppose Ramanujan doesn't seem important to the layperson, because his major contributions were both very advanced and difficult to explain -- compare Gödel's second incompleteness theorem, that no axiomatic system representing Robinson arithmetic can prove its own consistency: that one is much simpler than a result dealing with mock theta functions -- and they were also in pure mathematics rather than applied mathematics, and the main application of Ramanujan's work has been in some areas of quantum mechanics and string theory, which are themselves a bit beyond a layperson. The partition function does pop up in computing from time to time, though. I've heard of a division of mathematicians into so-called "theory-builders" and "problem-solvers" -- Ramanujan and Hilbert are firmly in the first class, while Erdös, Wiles and Gödel fall into the second. Ramanujan was transformative because he changed the questions that were asked, as well as answering them. If you look at pure mathematics, most in the field will agree that Ramanujan was a -- if not the -- preeminent mathematician of the 20th century. In applied mathematics, that title probably goes to John von Neumann.
nodemaker 15y ago
In public key cryptography ,we use ramanujan's theory about prime numbers to calculate large prime numbers.The fastest algorithm known is based on his work. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramanujan_prime http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramanujan_prime

by jeswin 15y ago

microarchitect 15y ago

Not a mathematician, but some references I found after goolging a bit: [1] "The meaning of Ramanujam now and for the future", George E. Andrews. http://www.math.psu.edu/andrews/pdf/274.pdf http://www.math.psu.edu/andrews/pdf/274.pdf [2] "The Ramanujam Journal", http://www.springer.com/mathematics/numbers/journal/11139 http://www.springer.com/mathematics/numbers/journal/11139 Quote from the conclusion of [1]: In his Presidential address to the London Mathematical Society in 1936, G. N. Watson spoke movingly of his emotional response to Ramanujan's achievements. I close by quoting his last few paragraphs [54; p. 80]: "The study of Ramanujan's work and of the problems to which it gives rise inevitably recalls to mind Lame's remark that, when reading Hermite's papers on modular functions, \on a la chair de poule." I would express my own attitude with more prolixity by saying that such a formula as: <snipped formula> gives me a thrill which is indistinguishable from the thrill which I feel when I enter the Sagrestia Nuova of the Capelle Medicee and see before me the austere beauty of the four statues representing Day, Night, Evening, and Dawn which Michelangelo has set over the tombs of Guiliano de Medici and Lorenzo de Medici. Ramanujan's discovery of the mock theta functions makes it obvious that his skill and ingenuity did not desert him at the oncoming of his untimely end. As much as any of his earlier work, the mock theta functions are an achievement sucient to cause his name to be held in lasting remembrance" To me, it's interesting that a community where fairly easy to build web-applications are called transformative and disruptive also has two out of thirteen comments critical of Ramanujam's impact.

jeswin 15y ago
Being critical of the article is not the same as being critical of Ramanujan's impact. So, there isn't a need to down vote. I am genuinely interested in knowing what Ramanujan did to "transform and reshape" 20th century mathematics.
- microarchitect 15y ago
  I was upset by this statement which assumes a priori that the article must be overstating his impact. Maybe it is just me, but overstating anyone's impact to this extent is disrespectful to that person. I don't claim that the article is not overstating Ramanujam's impact, but you seemed to be arguing that there's no way this could be true, so the article must be overstating his impact. Given that even you don't claim to have the background required to objectively evaluate Ramanujam's impact, this seemed to be a prejudiced comment. In retrospect, I might have been a bit trigger-happy with the downvote. Sorry about that.

abhaga 15y ago

Incidentally that was my reaction too after reading the article. No doubt he contributed a lot to the areas he was working in, but you have to consider that his areas were limited. He primarily dealt with Number Theory and analysis. To my mind, the body of work looking into the foundations of mathematics (Russell, Whitehead, Godel etc) which also started around the same time has played a more fundamental role since it changed out very basic ideas of what can and cannot be achieved within the bounds of mathematics.

intended 15y ago
Perhaps as a lay observer, We can take your stand. But i would assume practitioners of the art would have a stronger grasp on subtlety and nuance. Some art looks boring while others look vibrant. To the more experienced- the same paintings speak of control and ability while the other evokes childish garishness.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

scythe 15y ago

I suppose Ramanujan doesn't seem important to the layperson, because his major contributions were both very advanced and difficult to explain -- compare Gödel's second incompleteness theorem, that no axiomatic system representing Robinson arithmetic can prove its own consistency: that one is much simpler than a result dealing with mock theta functions -- and they were also in pure mathematics rather than applied mathematics, and the main application of Ramanujan's work has been in some areas of quantum mechanics and string theory, which are themselves a bit beyond a layperson. The partition function does pop up in computing from time to time, though. I've heard of a division of mathematicians into so-called "theory-builders" and "problem-solvers" -- Ramanujan and Hilbert are firmly in the first class, while Erdös, Wiles and Gödel fall into the second. Ramanujan was transformative because he changed the questions that were asked, as well as answering them. If you look at pure mathematics, most in the field will agree that Ramanujan was a -- if not the -- preeminent mathematician of the 20th century. In applied mathematics, that title probably goes to John von Neumann.

nodemaker 15y ago

In public key cryptography ,we use ramanujan's theory about prime numbers to calculate large prime numbers.The fastest algorithm known is based on his work. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramanujan_prime http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramanujan_prime