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Note On Film
Note On Film
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February 2016
because, if they were not true, no one would have had the
imagination to invent them. Finally (you must remember
that I knew nothing whatever about Ramanujan and had
to think of every possibility) the writer must be completely
honest, because great mathematicians are commoner than
thieves or humbugs of such incredible skill.
Hardy arranged for Ramanujan to come to England in
1914. The resulting collaboration transformed much of
number theory. In 1918, Ramanujan became very ill. In
1919, his health improved somewhat, and it was felt that
he might benet from a return to India. Unfortunately his
health then deteriorated, and he died in 1920.
Hardy, in his Twelve Lectures on Ramanujan [2, p. 1],
begins by describing the diculty in unraveling the
mystery of Ramanujan:
The nale of the movie chooses to emphasize Ramanujans triumphs. Prior to his return to India, he was elected
a Fellow of the Royal Society and a Fellow of Trinity
College. Ramanujans premature death after returning to
India is handled softly with Hardy receiving the tragic
news in a letter. I found these choices for the ending
of Ramanujans life to be exactly right. It would have
been easy to dwell on Ramanujans slow demise back in
India, and this would have been an unnecessarily jarring
conclusion.
Since I am writing this article for mathematicians, many
of whom will know much of Ramanujans story, I must
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180
George E. Andrews
References
[1] G. E. Andrews and B. C. Berndt, Ramanujans Lost Notebook,
Parts IIV, Springer, New York, 2005, 2009, 2012, 2013 (Part V
in preparation).
[2] G. H. Hardy, Ramanujan, Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge, 1940 (Reprinted: Chelsea, New York, 1962).
[3] R. Kanigel, The Man Who Knew Innity, Scribners, New York,
1991.
[4] P. A. MacMahon, Collected Papers, Vol. 1, G. E. Andrews ed.,
MIT Press, Cambridge, 1978.
[5] S. Ramanujan, The Lost Notebook and Other Unpublished
Papers, Narosa, New Dehli, 1988.
Editors Note: See also the story about Ken Onos experiences helping with the lm, as told by Adriana Salerno in
the AMS blog PhDPlus: blogs.ams.org/phdplus/2014/
09/01.