The Conjuror’s Revenge

Q. How many tricks does the conjuror play? What are they?
Ans. The conjuror was a skilled magician and knew how to entertain his
audiences. The first trick performed by him was the cloth trick, then came the
Hindostanee rings trick which was followed by extraction of seventeen eggs
from the hat. Thus he was a perfectionist of his art and made the audience awe
struck.
Q. ‘He-had-it-up-his-sleeve’. Who says it and what is its impact?
Ans. It is said by the Quick man after every time the conjuror plays a trick. The
lines made a false impression in the audiences (which were quite gullible) that
the conjuror had performed all the tricks nearly by conceiving the object in his
sleeves. Thus slowly after slowly the audiences watch the tricks with suspicion
as if everything is fake and this ruins the reputation of the magician along with
the fact that all this is a disgrace to his art.

Q. What is the Japanese trick that the conjuror plays? What was the quick
man’s reaction to it?
Ans. The Japanese trick played by the conjuror’s was the first of the many trick
performed by him to take his revenge from the Quick man. He asks for the
golden watch of the Quick man live in front of the audience, puts in into
mortar and smashed it with a sledge hammer. To his surprise the Quick man
again said “he-slipped-it-up-his-sleeve”.
Q. ‘This thing beats me’. Who is ‘me’ here and how was he beaten?
Ans. ‘Me’ here is the Quick man. After his interruption of the conjuror’s trick,
the conjuror was now starting to take his revenge by taking the Quick man’s
personal items (his watch, handkerchief, hat etc.) and destroying them one by
one in front of him. To this the Quick man was puzzled what had actually
happened to him and could not believe what the conjuror had done to him. It
was simply indigestible and non-understandable for him (as these tricks were
not conceived up the sleeve of the conjuror).
Q. How did the Conjuror end his show?
Ans. The Conjuror at the end had the last laugh. He clearly told the audiences
the he had performed all his tricks with the Quick man and if he(Quick man)
wanted him to perform more tricks on his belongings he would be delighted
and if not then the show was over. Thus it was made clear that there were
some tricks that were done up the conjuror’s sleeve.
Q. If you were the conjuror, how would you react to what the Quick man did
during the performance?
Ans. “There is a limit of everything” as by the famous quote .I would have
definitely kept my patience as the conjuror had kept so as not to ruin the show
and the experience for audiences. But after a certain threshold limit of my
head I too would have done the same as he did but not by ruining the Quick
man’s personal belongings rather asking him simply to leave the show . In a
sense what the conjuror did was absolutely right at his part as his reputation
and art was on the line but in my opinion destroying one’s personal items may
not be so appropriate.
 Hardy and Ramanujan

Q. How did Hardy discover Ramanujan? Who helped him in this discovery?
Ans. Hardy one morning early found a large untidy envelope decorated with
Indian stamps. It had old sheets of paper with mathematical symbols written
all over it. At first he ignored it but somehow all over the day he could not stop
thinking about it. Then after the dinner at night he along with his friend
Littlewood , not very long, found that the paper was written by a mathematical
genius and thus he discovered Ramanjuan.
Q. What was Hardy’s day’s routine? What were Keynes’ views on Hardy?
Ans. Hardy’s routine began with him reading The Times newspaper over his
breakfast. Then from about nine to one, unless giving a lecture, he worked on
his own mathematics. Then he took the lunch meal at the hall, then played
tennis in the university court. In the evening back into his room. Keynes’ view
on Hardy was that if he had read stock exchange quotations half an hour each
day with some concentration as brought to the cricket scores, he would have
been a rich man.
Q. Why did Ramanujan visit England? How was money arranged for him?
Ans. Ramanujan visited England on Hardy’s suggestion to bring him over to
Trinity so that more work could be done and published along with this natural
mathematical genius. Ramanujan was visiting in hope of publishing his papers
with Hardy about his mathematical discoveries. Money was not a problem as
Hardy knew that Trinity had been good at supporting unorthodox talent.
Q. Ramanujan’s mother would not normally allow her son to cross the river.
Why wouldn’t she? How did she allow him in the end?
Ans. Ramanujan’s mother didn’t allow her son to go as she they belonged to an
orthodox Brahmin family and she feared that if he went West then he too
would become and adopt the Western culture and ideas. One morning his
mother made a startling announcement that the goddess Namakkal had asked
her not to stand in the path of Ramanujan fulfilling his life’s purpose and
therefore she granted him the permission to go Trinity.
Q. In what ways was life in England awarding for Ramanujan?
Ans. Life was awarding as Ramanujan could now work with Hardy to publish his
results (which they did), five high quality papers were published by them.
People around him started behaving better and better. The greatest givcen to
him was the fellowship of The Royal Society and in the same year, Trinity too
elected him as a fellow.
Q. Why Ramanujan did consider 1729 an interesting number?
Ans. When Hardy came to visit Ramanujan at the hospital, he took a taxi and
the taxi’s number which he took was 1729. He said to Ramanujan that it was a
dull number but Ramanujan told him that it was a very interesting number as it
was the smallest number that could be expressed as sum of two cubes in two
different ways(1729= 12^3+1^3 or 1729= 10^3+9^3). Later this number came
to be known as Hardy-Ramanujan number.