
Who Was Ramanujan? - thepoet
https://backchannel.com/who-was-ramanujan-83b4d5b05665?source=linkShare-1b4595cbd64d-1461823459
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willvarfar
A very nice article.

Personally I'm not bothered by the "self-promotion" others perceive in
Wolfram's posts. The criticism in the comments here are all very repetitive
and tiresome. I presume many read anything written by Wolfram with the hope of
finding something they can point out as self-promotion ;)

~~~
dang
Correct, and it's time for HN to let go of it. Think of it as a test for this
community: can we focus on what's interesting in what the man says and resist
being trolled by the rest.

[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=wolfram%20derangement%20syndro...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=wolfram%20derangement%20syndrome&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=comment)

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dimino
Is there a meta-syndrome, wherein all submissions of Stephen Wolfram content
end up discussing how unfortunate it is we're all preoccupied discussing his
self promotion?

~~~
dang
That's a secondary infection.

~~~
taneq
Maybe more like an autoimmune / allergic response?

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phasmantistes
I was lucky enough to see The Man Who Knew Infinity this past weekend at the
San Francisco International Film Festival. And I'd just like to say that it is
a truly beautiful film, and I encourage everyone to go see it.

After the showing, there was a panel discussion with the director, composer,
producer, two actors (Stephen Fry!), and three consulting mathematicians who
helped the production. One of the topics that came up was the recent
(finally!) interest in Hollywood for making movies about technical people.
Since the dawn of cinema, we've made movies about artists, writers, and poets.
But it is only recently that we've started making movies about scientists
(Stephen Hawking) and mathematicians (Alan Turing).

In my opinion, this movie puts both _The Theory of Everything_ and _The
Imitation Game_ to shame. It is much more moving and beautiful than both, and
it doesn't fall into the either the trap of overly simplifying the math, nor
of overly dramatizing his life. If you have any interest in math, science, or
computer science (much of which is underpinned by his work in number theory),
I highly encourage you to go see this film.

~~~
wil421
We have been making films about technical people for a while. _A Beautiful
Mind_ comes to mind first I am sure I can find some more.

Takedown, and Pirates of Silicon Valley are some others.

Funny as I search for more about actual people, a lot of fictional movies were
created around the time the dot com bubble burst.

~~~
phasmantistes
_A Beautiful Mind_ isn't as long ago as you think: less than 15 years. In the
space of cinema (which was producing films about famous artists at least as
early as the '30s) that's not very long. _Takedown_ and _Pirates of Silicon
Valley_ are also a bit different: hacking has been part of "pop culture" since
the mid 90s at least, and _Pirates_ is a documentary anyway.

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_navaneethan
I am very proud that I am sharing the same native place [Erode]

I happened to read about his life story before quite sometime. It was full of
wonders. During his life-period, He used to go to some calm place(temple) with
few notebooks and after few minutes having his eyes closed, would start to
write solving problems in his notebooks. Those periods the opportunities for
exploring was very difficult. Since, the people were very conservative to
accept him for being unique(different from others). Because, he was very
genius in mathematics unlike other subjects. The society where he belongs did
not acknowledge( _unable to understand his works_ ) him for what he was
deserved. He could not get even the normal job to survive. His family became
upset for his incomplete qualification(in terms of degree). So, he absconded
from his place. In fact he tried to commit suicide too. Later period
fortunately few people came to understand the value of his efforts few bits.
With help of few elite members in society, he put the letter to Mr Hardy which
was the turning point for all mathematician's life which gave full of
challenges to understand his work. He was moved to UK. There his health was
not supportive, then he died very early.

P.S: If he was given _full freedom to function himself_ in earlier times, The
maths society would have gotten more and more theorems and evolution would
have been quite speedy.

 _Whatta truly inspiring life he lived._

[Erode]
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erode](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erode))

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neipfjin239
The (sadly all too predictable) comments about Wolfram's self-promotion and
product placement give me an idea.

Someone should create a blog called "Wolfram minus Wolfram" (in the vein of
the excellent "Garfield minus Garfield") which exists solely to republish
Wolfram's (often very interesting) writings, minus the references to his own
products and his own past achievements. I think it would be popular.

~~~
johnloeber
Republishing? I suspect you would immediately find yourself in boiling water
with Wolfram's lawyers. See this nice story:
[http://bactra.org/reviews/wolfram/](http://bactra.org/reviews/wolfram/)

~~~
wglb
Subtitled _A Rare Blend of Monster Raving Egomania and Utter Batshit Insanity_

~~~
77pt77
Before opening the link I thought you were joking.

Surprisingly you weren't.

That's actually the subtitle.

------
johnloeber
Mixed feelings about this article:

1\. A fine easy read about Ramanujan and Hardy. It was well-summarized and
nicely written, with excellent pictures that I had not seen before.

2\. A disgusting vein of self-promotion runs throughout the article. Much has
been said about Stephan Wolfram's occasionally self-centered behavior, and
many of his writings have a self-aggrandizing tone to them. Thus, I was
pleasantly surprised to find the piece start out with little self-reference by
the author, until:

> The other, slightly more famous, track — less austere and less
> mathematically oriented — was Eton and Oxford, which happens to be where I
> went.

How is that relevant in an article titled _Who was Ramanujan?_ It got worse a
few paragraphs later, as Wolfram began discussing numeric approximations, and
engaging in what was effectively product placement for WolframAlpha and
Mathematica. There I was, trying to read about Ramanujan, and Wolfram kept
interjecting with comments about his computation engine and his
implementations of Ramanujan's formulae.

Toward the end of the article, after the biography of Ramanujan was complete
and Wolfram turned to discussing expansions of Ramanujan's results, such
topics were fair game. "What if Ramanujan had had Mathematica?" is a valid
question. Discussing cellular automata and Wolfram's principle of
computational equivalence, etc., etc. was fine at that point, since these are
valid expansions to the topic at hand.

Nonetheless, the blatant product placement and continuous breaking of the flow
of the text to push some function implemented in WolframAlpha on the reader
was extraordinarily annoying, and, frankly, deeply disappointing. If Wolfram
sets out to write _the unlikely tale of a mysterious letter, and its place in
the history of mathematics_ , as advertised by the subtitle, then I would have
hoped that he could leave his egregious self-advertising to the end of the
article -- or better yet -- to a separate one altogether.

~~~
andyjohnson0
_"...Eton and Oxford, which happens to be where I went"_

I prefer to be charitable and assume that he wrote this for the purposes of
disclosure and to qualify his knowledge of those institutions. I don't think
he was drawing a comparison between himself and Ramanujan.

Yes - Wolfram has a tendency for self-promotion, and this can be a bit
tiresome. But, like others who have commented here, I find the seemingly
obligatory condemnation of him to be tiresome too. The difference between
Wolfram and his detractors on HN is that Wolfram (as well as clearly being
very smart) invariably has something interesting to say.

~~~
aws_ls
Agree. I read the article from another source, and came to HN expecting that
very criticism. Its so tiresome. They didn't even consider that this article
by Wolfram took a rare effort to go into lot of Math of Ramanujan. And the
core insight of experimental (Ramanujan style) Math vs formal proof oriented
(Hardy style) Math and its parallels i.e. the former approach is definitely
enabled by Wolfram Mathematica, is very convincing.

And to miss all that, and just harp on _self promotion_ by Wolfram is
disingenuous or a very stereotypical comment. And its the top HN comment.

~~~
eggy
Yes I read it at first, and enjoyed the article in full before seeing these
comments too. Reading through some of the points in the negative, I am not
sure I get it. He remarks he went to a school mentioned in the article. So?
And he uses Mathematica in the article to highlight some math points. Does
anyone expect him to ignore the software and company he founded, and do manual
calcs, or better yet, use an iPython notebook (which took the best of
Mathematics - the notebook), so as to avoid any chance of 'Oh, he's self
promoting again.' I like Mathematica, I enjoy Stephen Wolfram's articles, and
I can easily overlook the points that are always mentioned. I look forward to
the movie even more after having read Stephen Wolfram's article. OT: I was
browsing a CNC manual written in Bahasa Indonesia just 2 days ago, when I saw
Wolfram Carbide, and did a double take. Wolfram means tungsten in Indonesian!

~~~
mangamadaiyan
The name Wolfram (for the metal) is of German origin, IIRC. Indonesia having
been a Dutch colony probably got it from the Dutch language, if I might hazard
a guess.

~~~
eggy
Thanks for the source. I was just using Mathematica and seeing the 'Wolfram'
in the Indonesian text just popped for me. Having a Wolf as a PL mascot for
Wolfram Language is pretty cool too!

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amelius
There are some nice videos on youtube explaining the 1+2+3+...=-1/12 equation.

For example:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcKRGpMiVTw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcKRGpMiVTw)

~~~
enthdegree
This is the best video on the topic I have seen.

Many other ones I have seen often revert to using properties that don't work
for ill-behaving series, like rearranging terms.

~~~
camperman
I just discovered this guy's channel the other day - and now I'm completely
addicted! Help!

~~~
goldenkey
Me too! Ive started learning math. It seems like math is taught as number
crunching but is really the philosophy and study of computation and operations
on objects. Higher level math seems fundamental to CS and all the other
sciences. Im now on my journey to understand the syntax and basic ideas.
Wikipedia is great. And this video series is amazing:

[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CMWFmjlB8v0](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CMWFmjlB8v0)

~~~
camperman
Thank you kindly - subscribed.

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manav
One thing that really stood out to me was that Ramunajan got lost in the
traditional system of Academia which persists even now. There could have been
(and may still be) so much talent out there that may never get a chance.

I also really wish the letters were more legible. I think it would be
interesting to read some of these older mathematics texts.

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lispython
Last year, I had a talk with Stephen Wolfram, he said that, for him, the most
important secret helping him solve problems is "some version of confidence or
arrogant". That make him never fear any difficulty, but this arrogant
inevitably behave in some other aspects of his life, and affect people's
impression of him.

Then, his writing style never bother me again.

~~~
p4wnc6
Why doesn't that bother you? It reminds me a little of the giant middle finger
that Bezos recently gave to his workers via his letter to shareholders, in
which he effectively said that he knew the workplaces he fostered at Amazon
were unhealthy, toxic, soul-crushing graveyards, but basically that he didn't
plan on changing it and didn't give a shit if people didn't like it or even if
it was demonstrably unhealthy for them.

Saying "I've become successful" (or in Wolfram's case, very marginally
successful) "because of some arrogance" is not some redeeming, insightful
virtue. In fact, in many ways the person is saying, "I took the lazy way of
using my laurels and status to treat others badly and act entitled to my
asshole tendencies."

Instead of working hard to succeed _with class_ , Wolfram, like so many other
tedious and unremarkable people that pinch up some minor bit of fame for a
while, is just excusing his own laziness.

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hellofunk
Plain and simple, Ramanujan was the Mozart of mathematics. Seemingly god-like
insight into numbers that even he could not completely explain. There are
excellent anecdotes about his life in the book Music of the Primes.

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tetromino_
50% of the text is the fascinating story of Ramanujan. Unfortunately, the
other 50% is a series of shameless product placements for the author's
software and boasts about the author's personal and intellectual
accomplishments. The story, the boasts, and the ads are all mixed together, so
reading the thing all the way to the end was seriously painful.

~~~
Dawny33
True. Maybe, skimming through the article without bothering about the
hyperlinks would be so much better.

He went to the extent of hyperlinking the words `Madras` and `Sanskrit` to
their WolframAlfa search links :/

~~~
willvarfar
So you mean google employees should put bing links in their blog posts rather
than google links?

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BasDirks
They should not put any links to a damn search engine in such texts. If people
want to Google "Sanskrit", I'm sure they will manage.

~~~
dsfuoi
So according to your logic, link to this article should be removed and anyone
wanting to find it should _manage_.

I also find it delightfully ironic that you used the term _to Google
"Sanskrit"_. and not _to WolframAlpha "Sanskrit"_.

Hypocrisy is oozing out of your comment.

~~~
BasDirks
I was not very careful in phrasing my previous comment.

I was thinking of a situation where a Google employee puts links in the actual
copy of an article not primarily about search engines. I find it more
permissible in the case of WolframAlpha, because it calls itself a knowledge
engine, and provides carefully curated content. Google is a more generic
beast, and I just don't think it makes sense to litter a text with hyperlinks.
If I see a link, I will presume that the author wants me to click it and read
it. If it is very general "further reading", I prefer having these presented
after the main material. A lot of preferences and assumptions on my part.

My gripe with OP is how it integrates the product into the text. I like
hyperlinks, but I prefer separation of copy and generic resources.

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tunesmith
It's worth noting this was originally a blog post on Stephen Wolfram's
personal blog, where you'd expect an author's voice to permeate the content
(although that didn't stop people from complaining about his other blog
entries). I personally appreciate authors dropping their own biographical
details when they write about something else, it gives it a more personal
voice. Plus, Mathematica is relevant. It's not as if he's doing product
placement for Purina Puppy Chow, which is a great way to feed your growing
puppy and give him all the nutrients he needs.

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abc_lisper
Very nice write-up. As an Indian, I grew up hearing about stories of
Ramanujan, but never understood what it is that he did, or how he did it. I
think Wolfram is perfect person to show us behind the curtain. For example, I
remember hearing that Ramanujan stated some theorems that people in the west
are still trying to prove. I didn't know what to make of it. Wolfram nicely
showed the iterative (and approximate) approaches Ramanujan took to achieve
this.

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my_first_acct
For personal reasons, I was pretty interested by one of the digressions: the
origins of the phrase “mathematics… is a young man’s game”, and a discussion
of whether it is still (or ever was) true (focusing on the age question, not
the gender bias, of course).

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daemonk
Nice read. Product placements didn't really bother me. I just skipped them.

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sachkris
Towards the end, it reminded me of the book "Gödel, Escher, Bach".

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pinkskip
That handwriting tho woah!

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tempodox
Amita? I thought everyone knew her.

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sriram_malhar
I haven't even begun to read the article and I'm fascinated already. Stephen
Wolfram speaking of someone who is not called "Stephen Wolfram". Woooah!

Edit: Finished reading the article, and after blocking out all self-
references, I must grudgingly admit I had a good time. This was a nice quick
narrative, and I appreciated the insight about the exploratory style of
Ramanujam's mathematics (rather than lemma-theorem-corollary style)

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cbd1984
This article is blatantly incorrect.

------
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