2013 December 22nd was the 125th birth anniversary of Srinivasa Ramanujan. He was a genius whose early death, owing to a multitude of factors not entirely in his control, was a tragedy too profound for tears, as someone said.

That mathematicians are trying to come to terms with his papers and notebooks to this day, is a testimony to his originality. There was a news about his last notebooks on mock modular forms being proven just last month.

This biography by Robert Kanigel is a work of outstandin More...

Ramanujam is considered one of the best mathematicians of all times, in the same league as a Jacobi or Euler.Even though his work is well known within the mathematical community, outside of it, he is virtually an unknown quantity. Robert Kanigel has put in a lot of effort researching material to write such a comprehensive biography of a genius from a century ago.
Ramanujam was born in a poor Tamil brahmin family and had little access to formal education. He had an unnatural flair for mathematics More...

The Man Who Knew Infinity by Robert Kanigel explores the uprbining of legendary math genious Ramanujan. The book starts in his earliest upbrinings through childhood. He grew up in the small slums of Madras, where class and and religious segregation defined societys laws. A devout muslim, Ramanujan's wore traditional clothing, was a strict vegetarian, and reguarly attended the temple. His high school was rundown, and deprived in American standards, however for the rural area, where most teenagers More...

This book is a biography of Ramanujan, the Indian genius mathematician.

It's difficult to avoid finding Ramanujan fascinating, even if you have no interest in math. He was born poor in India in 1887, and showed an incredible natural talent for math -- including theoretical as well as arithmetical abilities -- but his poor academic talent in other areas prevented him from moving up in India's educational structure. While working a series of low-level bureaucratic jobs, he continually tried to get More...

A wonderful book.
The author paints a very complete portrait of the life of Ramanujan. He also gives enough of a taste and explanation of the mathematics so as not to stray too far from the central genius of the figure of Ramanujan - without driving away a general audience, which this book is intended for. The book goes into detail about all the external settings and stimuli that Ramanujan encountered. This includes India - specifically the towns and areas where Ramanujan lived, Hardy, Cambridge More...

This book describes the life of Srinivasa Ramanujan. He was an Indian mathematician of early 20th century.
The book is written beautifully. The author gives all the relevant information like local customs, religion, geography, and family dynamics at appropriate places while describing the life of Mr. Ramanujan. The friendship between two great mathematicians, G. H. Hardy and S. Ramanujan is narrated in great details and makes a very important part of this book. Those two men were as different as More...

Eye-opening account on a great mathematician. I give the author kudos for writing a book about someone important in a subject matter that most people only know/practice on a very basic level. He does a pretty good job explaining what Ramanujan was trying to figure out, so it's relatively easy to understand.
Makes me feel mostly sad for Ramanujan, who was systematically starved of emotional support/friendship during most of his young adult life while he was working on all his great theorems. Auth More...

This is the best biography I have ever read. The author's writing was brilliant. He evoked the characters of Ramanujan and Hardy, and the feeling of India and England and their relationship at that time. He provided a sense of World War I, and some of the importance of Ramanujan for India and the rest of the world during his lifetime as well as after his death. The depth he achieved in this biography is an uncommon accomplishment. In addition, it is difficult to provide a sense of the mathematic More...

The book gives you a fascinating insight into Srinivasan Ramanujan's life. Interested in mathematics from early on, Ramanujan overcame all barriers, including a complete lack of formal mathematical training, to become one of the greatest mathematicians of the 20th century. The book explores Ramanujan's mind, which worked very differently from an average 'great' mathematician. Focused on intuitive reasoning rather than rigorous proof, Ramanujan was often disregarded, only to be discovered later B More...

Life is a wily merchant and in his shop everything is for sale for the right price. This book convinced me that Mr. Ramanujam paid that price and gave the merchant a healthy tip while at that.

How else would you explain that when you find out that he worked on mathematics in the hospital bathroom when he was hospitalized for Tuberculosis only to be later awarded an FRS for the same? None better than nod your head and say that the two gentlemen; Life and Mr. Ramanujam made a fair deal.

Mr. Kanige More...

Tamil Nadu:
This book is a biography of an autodidact from India, and one of the deepest mathematicians of the twentieth century, with magical powers of intuition. Srinivasa Ramanujan was born in 1887 Tamil Nadu in Tamil Nadu in Southern India. He excelled at mathematics from an early age, but was unable to obtain a college degree, because he refused to study subjects that did not interest him. Some scholars in India helped foster his talent, but none could understand his results.

Hinduism:
Ramanu More...

A fascinating account on the short but outstanding life of the enigmatic and extraordinary Ramanujan.

From a young, unschooled Indian clerk to an exemplary mathematician, his journey albeit he died at the mere age of 32, is nevertheless awe-inspiring. Even in his final days, he never left his slate and continued to give prominent contributions. Such was his love for Mathematics. He failed in everything else but scored high in Mathematics. But it just wasn’t enough to clutch him a degree. So he w More...

What can one say about a man who defied all odds to become one of the best mathematicians of the world having done rigorous research for less than 5 years? That too, when you come know that such a man originated from India (in early twentieth century) which was then enslaved by the British, the achievement becomes even more special. He had to survive the period in England in the extreme conditions of the first world war, his own ill-health notwithstanding. The man, Ramanujan, is really a genius More...

An excellent biography of this enigmatic mathematician. The book thoroughly explores the life and times of Ramanujan, and helps dispel the 'idiot savant' disreputation that had existed in certain quarters. Here the author firmly roots Ramanujan's early life and his gift for mathematical thinking to intellectural traditions in his family, and traces his struggles for acceptance in the West. Much remains mysterious about the source of Ramanujan's inspiration--I have looked in awe at the old 'cyclo More...

This is a biography of the self-taught Indian mathematical genius Srinivasa Ramanujan. Ramanujan was a number theorist par excellence. Many of the results that he defined in his famous 'Ramanujan's notebook' were analyzed many decades after his death and proved by mathematicians interested in the subject.
The book chronicles the extraoridinary fortune of Ramanujan when Prof.Hardy in England responds to a letter of his containing some mathematical results. Those were the days of colonial India and More...

one of the three major non-academic mathematician biographies i haven't read, along with the man who only loved numbers and turing: the enigma. hopefully i'll get to all three this summer. More...

I'm a huge fan of Ramanujan and for long time was looking for a book that can give me an insight in the life of this great man. Robert Kanigel has done excellent job here. For a person who loves and understands mathematics this is an amazing journey. From his childhood, going through his struggles and his recognition in London is an amazing journey. Author has understood that to make the book a complete work it is necessary to include some of the Ramanujan's work, and he has done this beautifull More...

A very interesting person. Clearly a genius. As a book, however, I found it difficult to maintain attentiveness through the entire chapters devoted to flowery and verbose tangents to his mathematical genius. If he was a larger public figure, the author could hold the readers attention during these tangents because readers would be inquisitive. As an author, I just don't think you can get away with writing in such extreme detail about a non-famous person as it ends up being largely unrelated to t More...

It is interesting to note that much of the work of Ramanujan is still not understood, and it might be another 100 years before we could even begin to unravel the way he thought. A superb proof of the power of one mind, and a warning to everyone to take care not to summarily discard that which we do not understand.

A superb book. It will appeal to anyone interested in the triumph of excellence over great obstacles. No math background is needed to read this book.

I picked this up on vacation in Europe when I ran out of my books and started reading my computer geek husband's books. Although I love biographies, I would not have chosen this biography of an Indian mathematician. However, the book was fascinating-- both as a window into this amazing genius as well as a window into turn of the century India and Britain. Very enjoyable and I learned some math as well!

One of the best books I have ever read... The author writes like he is an iyer from Kumbakonam rather than an american from New York.. The math is mind boggling and way over my head but there are some fantastic statements there --- viz -- a lot of people confuse arithmetic ability for mathematical ability!!!! and another gem - The Indian father typically raises his children in absentia...

Not quite done with this one but I'll go ahead and review it. About a third of the book is actually about Hardy, who is almost as interesting as Ramanujan. Kanigel also gives readers a fascinating portrait of Cambridge culture in the early 20th century.

Hardy and Ramanujan didn't really understand each other except through the shared language of mathematics. I found this interesting, since the two men had profound respect for each other. As Kipling said, "East is East, and West is West, and never More...

A mixture of everything one could desire in a book: math, a tour of Madras, Anglo-Indian relations, Cambridge intellectual society, triumph, and tragedy. All very well-written, of course. Anyone would profit from this fascinating tome, and it is one of the few that I have read more than once. In fact, a read every few years is needed to polish the soul and give this amateur mathematician some inspiration.

I haven't ever figured out why I find biographies of mathematicians and physicists* so compelling: perhaps it's the juxtaposition of the ethereal, crystalline world of their minds with the messy, mundane details of their everyday life?

This is yet another book I now want to re-read: I still remember just being gobsmacked, years ago, at his story. An apparently self-taught prodigy who invented his own mathematical language, he was yoinked out of Madras into what must have been the almost alien wor More...

I believe there is a "math world" which I go into when I really get into a proof or equation or whatnot. For me, like many others I imagine, it is a foreign land wherein I don't speak the language fluently nor know the local customs. Ramanujan, however, seemed to be native to it and preferred being there.

This book provides a decent portrait of the individual: he was a normal man who had his share of misfortunes, troubles, and difficulties but who also had joys and epiphanies - oh, and happened t More...

Perhaps the Best biography book that I have ever read. It goes much beyond illustrating the trials and tribulations of the great genius - attempts to take a deep dive into his mind and thought process, gives the wholesome picture of the cultural and social mileu in which he grows up and and also stirs up questions about life, goals and means, God etc.

Extremely well researched, very well written. This is a story that can so easily spiral into an East vs West mess.

I say this because I was unlucky enought to read "An Indian Clerk" by David Leavitt. He says that this is fictionalized: the only thing recognizable is the names of the characters, the rest is like a soap opera.

In "The Man Who Knew Infinity" however, he indian details in the Ramanujan part of the story are spot-on: the orthodox brahmin family, the rituals, the emphasis on education a More...

Yikes, what a thorough biography of a mathematical genius so smart I don't really understand what he is so famous for. I found parts interesting, parts fascinating, and parts boring. This is one of those that is so thorough they spend lengthy amounts of time on other people who influenced him. I kind of liked the little mini math lessons, they reminded me just how cool math could be. But I'm glad I listened, I think this would have been a hard one to finish in print mostly because of its length. More...

The best biography I have read so far. Steve Jobs comes close too. While the story of this genius is widely known the author must be commended for provinding a fascinating account of the life in South India during the british rule. He has provided an indepth psycho analysis of Ramanujan and even Hardy. The incidents relating to ramanujan running away at the slightest affront were very revealing. A true genius whose life was tragically too short but whose fame will last forever.

Many pages were dedicated to Prof G.H .Hardy from his childhood his siblings, school , his cricket interest but i felt it could have been much better if author had focused less on Hardy's life as it is fully dedicated to S. Ramanujan. Though it was a good book about the great mathematician of our country .. Jai Hind