The Man Who Knew Infinity: A Life of the Genius Ramanujan

High Table

Thus far, Ramanujan’s time in England had been a personal success, despite the wartime conditions of Europe at the time. This section provides the first indication that living conditions have begun to take a toll on Ramanujan. Kanigel describes how Ramanujan learned to cook for himself and even went so far as to cook dinner for a newly married Indian couple who were friends of his. When the couple did not ask for additional servings, Ramanujan, embarrassed, fled from his home. He disappeared for four whole days. Once again, the panic brought on by embarrassment made Ramanujan act irrationally, a tendency that would increase during this period of his life. Kanigel then discusses the importance of food in Ramanujan’s life in England. As a practicing Brahmin, Ramanujan was a strict vegetarian. This posed challenges while in England. He developed a distaste for English food, including the way vegetables were prepared: bland and plain. He constantly tried to secure imported food to better suit his tastes. The High Table at Trinity was a gathering place where colleagues and peers gathered to share meals but also to engage in banter unrelated to work. Because of his dislike of the food, Ramanujan was mostly absent from these communal gatherings.

An Indian in England

Ramanujan was not the first Indian to attend Cambridge; Kanigel mentions another famous Indian, Mohandas Gandhi, as proof. Gandhi had attended Cambridge in 1887. Additionally, Cambridge regularly accepted Indian students amounting to roughly 20 a year prior to Ramanujan’s arrival. Although Indian students were an established presence on campus, there still existed cultural barriers, such as the different diets outlined in the previous section. Further contributing to Culture Shock for the Indians, social interaction was much different, as the Indian students were not generally as aloof as many of their English peers. For Ramanujan, a man almost completely absorbed in his work, a social life did not really exist. Nobody really knew him well or knew much about his life in India. This includes Hardy, who worked with Ramanujan nearly every day. Ramanujan began to feel isolated, and his work with Hardy was his only escape.

“A Singularly Happy Collaboration”

This section delves back into discussion of math, specifically a concept referred to as “partitions” that involves determining how many ways numbers can be added up to arrive at the sum. Kanigel describes some of the procedural work conducted by Ramanujan and Hardy in developing formulas designed to figure out partitions. As in other sections of the book, he shows how the personalities of the two men complemented each other rather than clashed. They devised a formula regarding partitions that was not exact but demonstrated that exactness was indeed possible. Twenty years after they published their research in the Quatrieme Congres des Mathematiciens Scandinaves, a mathematician named Rademacher built on this work and removed the errors. As the section concludes, Kanigel hints at a looming problem, namely that Ramanujan’s single-minded focus on math was turning into an unhealthy obsession.

Deepening the Hole

Kanigel probes the nature of Hardy and Ramanujan’s relationship in this section. As a man, Hardy could be at once kind and demanding. He was not particularly empathetic, but this does not mean that he was callous. Much like Ramanujan, his life revolved around his work; interpersonal relationships were not very deep. The description of Hardy’s personality is offered as an explanation for why he never really knew Ramanujan on a personal level. Even when Ramanujan was hospitalized for sickness, Hardy was encouraging only insofar as Ramanujan’s recovery would enable the men to return to work. In some ways, Hardy was representative of the way the English treated Indian immigrants at the time. There was an impersonality that made Indians feel alienated from the larger culture. Ramanujan never fully adjusted to his new environment; instead, he immersed himself entirely in his work.

“All Us Big Steamers”

Kanigel draws attention to the admission book at Trinity where new students would sign their names. As the war raged on, the book developed noticeable gaps where names of incoming students were missing, creating a visual representation of the war’s increasing casualty numbers. Trinity remained open through the war, but enrollment was staggeringly low, with a relatively small number of students actually in attendance. Kanigel then discusses the German submarine blockade against the British Isles in 1916. Economic conditions precipitously declined and food prices shot up, in some cases exponentially. The limited amount of food imported into England directly affected Ramanujan, who had struggled to adapt to English food and depended on imported food to fortify his diet. Ramanujan became malnourished and as a result became sick and was admitted into a nursing home.

The Danish Phenomenon

In the spring of 1917, Ramanujan was stricken with an unknown severe illness. At one point, it was considered that Ramanujan be sent back to India to help in his recovery. However, this was not ideal because of the constant threat posed by German submarines. Instead, he was admitted into the nursing home, but as his friends attested, he was a difficult patient who stubbornly would not follow the advice of doctors. As a means of verifying what Ramanujan was likely suffering from, Kanigel provides an abbreviated explanation of tuberculosis, its history and what it does to the body. Tuberculosis outbreaks had largely been brought under control in the late 19th century, but there was a resurgence across Europe during World War I. Most likely this was due to a sharp decrease in natural vitamin D intake throughout the population. Ramanujan was moved to Mendip Sanatorium and then to Matlock Sanitorium, where he received outdated treatment that included near continuous cold exposure. The belief was that open air, no matter the temperature, was the most effective treatment against tuberculosis. By the fall of 1917, Ramanujan’s health had improved slightly, but not fully. Added onto his physical illness was the emotional stress wrought by problems taking place at home involving his wife and mother.

Trouble Back Home

Ramanujan felt stressed over the lack of correspondence from Janaki, which Kanigel attributes to the overbearing nature of his mother, Komalatammal. As part of the Indian marriage ritual, the bride was often in a subservient relationship not only with her husband, but also with her mother-in-law. With Ramanujan in England, Komalatammal imposed her will on Janaki and intercepted letters she wrote to Ramanujan. As time went on, Ramanujan began to develop anxiety over this, believing that Janaki was purposely not writing to him and taking it personally. At long last, Janaki was able to send him a letter surreptitiously, while attending her brother’s wedding in a different town. Hardy had no idea that any of this was happening, nor did he know much about Ramanujan’s family life at all. Hardy and Ramanujan were friends only as it related to their work; they were not friends who shared their personal lives with each other.

The Nelson Monument

Working with Ramanujan was not Hardy’s only occupation. In fact, he was tremendously busy, and not just with work in math. He was also an influential leader at Trinity, and he found himself in the middle of the rift between pro-war and anti-war voices on campus. Negotiating the political ramifications was complicated, and while Hardy was anti-war, he was less vociferous about it than other colleagues, who suffered consequences such as expulsion. On more than one occasion, Hardy came to the defense of intellectuals who had expressed opposition to the war effort. He was indeed a very busy man. That Hardy was not at all times available to Ramanujan was another explanation for why the two men were really only colleagues and not friends. Kanigel also asserts that Hardy’s aloofness on interpersonal matters contributed to this. He once again discusses how the cultural gap between the two men kept their friendship from deepening.

Ramanujan, Mathematics, and God

Another factor that kept the two men at arm’s length was Ramanujan’s devout religious beliefs. Ramanujan believed that his mathematical intuitions were divinely inspired. Hardy, on the other hand, was a rationalist and an avowed atheist. Ramanujan never strayed far from his foundational beliefs in the divine, even though he spent his days in the world of rational thought and science. If anything, his continuous insight into mathematics almost served as reinforcement for his religious faith. By contrast, Hardy recognized the role of the subconscious in how insight is gained, but for him it was an issue of psychology that had not yet been adequately explained but would be eventually. The gap in how the two men viewed religion created a very lonely world for Ramanujan. He really had nobody with whom he could be himself or in whom he could truly confide.

Singularities at X = 1

While Ramanujan’s success with Hardy in math continued, his personal state did not reflect it. Elapsed time seemed to sink Ramanujan further into a state of depression and anxiety. He was in a precarious state of mind, yet it seemed that a fellowship at Trinity was forthcoming. The promise of this stabilized his mood somewhat, and his work with Hardy resumed in earnest, even though Ramanujan was nowhere near fully recovered from his illness, which would intermittently continue to cause him health problems. Eventually, Ramanujan was denied fellowship at Trinity, an outcome that caused him great emotional suffering. As Kanigel pointed out in previous chapters, Ramanujan was not a man readily equipped to handle failure. Instead, he internalized it and felt tremendous shame. Coupled with the ongoing struggle with physical health, Ramanujan was increasingly at risk for a catastrophe. This is precisely what happened. In 1918, Ramanujan attempted suicide by jumping in front of an oncoming train. Fortunately, the conductor saw Ramanujan jump and was able to brake the train in time to avoid running him over. Ramanujan was never quite the same after this event. Hardy and Littlewood had been working to have Ramanujan accepted into the Royal Society. His tuberculosis returning, Ramanujan was again placed into a sanatorium. His health further deteriorated. He was admitted into the Royal Society, but because of his ailing health, he was unable to attend the ceremony.

Slipped from Memory

Littlewood this time, at the behest of Hardy, advocated for Ramanujan to join Trinity as a fellow. This time, with his acceptance to the Royal Society, Hardy believed that he was a slam dunk; after some deliberation and some push back from a few racist Trinity members, Ramanujan was granted fellowship. Toward the end of 1918, after a tumultuous year, Ramanujan was once again publishing papers. He had revisited his work on partitions, and Kanigel outlines some of the other projects Ramanujan had been occupied with, including work on congruences. Also, at long last, the war had ended with the armistice of November 11, 1918. Without the threat posed by open naval warfare and German submarine attack, the idea of Ramanujan’s return to India was reconsidered.