My Search for Ramanujan [electronic resource] : How I Learned to Count /
Ono, Ken.author.
Aczel, Amir D.author.
"The son of a prominent Japanese mathematician who came to the United States after World War II, Ken Ono was raised on a diet of high expectations and little praise. Rebelling against his pressure-cooker of a life, Ken determined to drop out of high school to follow his own path. To obtain his father’s approval, he invoked the biography of the famous Indian mathematical prodigy Srinivasa Ramanujan, whom his father revered, who had twice flunked out of college because of his single-minded devotion to mathematics. Ono describes his rocky path through college and graduate school, interweaving Ramanujan’s story with his own and telling how at key moments, he was inspired by Ramanujan and guided by mentors who encouraged him to pursue his interest in exploring Ramanujan’s mathematical legacy. Picking up where others left off, beginning with the great English mathematician G.H. Hardy, who brought Ramanujan to Cambridge in 1914, Ono has devoted his mathematical career to understanding how in his short life, Ramanujan was able to discover so many deep mathematical truths, which Ramanujan believed had been sent to him as visions from a Hindu goddess. And it was Ramanujan who was ultimately the source of reconciliation between Ono and his parents. Ono’s search for Ramanujan ranges over three continents and crosses paths with mathematicians whose lives span the globe and the entire twentieth century and beyond. Along the way, Ken made many fascinating discoveries. The most important and surprising one of all was his own humanity.".
Description based upon print version of record.
Prologue -- Part I: My Life Before Ramanujan -- Tiger Boy -- My roots -- My childhood -- An Unexpected Letter -- My escape -- Part II: The Legend of Ramanujan -- Little lord -- A creative genius -- An addiction -- Goddess -- Purgatory -- Janaki -- I beg to introduce myself -- These formulas defeated me completely -- Permission from a Goddess -- Together at last -- Culture Shock -- Triumph over racism -- English malaise -- Ramanujan's homecoming -- The tragic end -- Part III: My Life Adrift -- I believe in Santa -- Out of the frying pan and into the fire -- Erika -- The Pirate Professor -- Growing pains -- Part IV: Finding my way -- My teacher -- Hitting bottom -- A miracle -- My Hardy -- Hitting my stride -- Bittersweet reunion -- I count now -- The idea of Ramanujan -- My spirituality -- Epilogue -- My pilgrimages -- Face to Face with Ramanujan -- My search goes on -- Afterword -- Two Questions -- Fermat's Last Theorem and the Tokyo-Nikko Conference -- Mathematical gems -- Ramanujan's 1729 Taxicab number -- Approximations to p -- Highly composite numbers -- Euler's partition numbers -- Rogers-Ramanujan identities -- Ramanujan's tau-function.
"The son of a prominent Japanese mathematician who came to the United States after World War II, Ken Ono was raised on a diet of high expectations and little praise. Rebelling against his pressure-cooker of a life, Ken determined to drop out of high school to follow his own path. To obtain his father’s approval, he invoked the biography of the famous Indian mathematical prodigy Srinivasa Ramanujan, whom his father revered, who had twice flunked out of college because of his single-minded devotion to mathematics. Ono describes his rocky path through college and graduate school, interweaving Ramanujan’s story with his own and telling how at key moments, he was inspired by Ramanujan and guided by mentors who encouraged him to pursue his interest in exploring Ramanujan’s mathematical legacy. Picking up where others left off, beginning with the great English mathematician G.H. Hardy, who brought Ramanujan to Cambridge in 1914, Ono has devoted his mathematical career to understanding how in his short life, Ramanujan was able to discover so many deep mathematical truths, which Ramanujan believed had been sent to him as visions from a Hindu goddess. And it was Ramanujan who was ultimately the source of reconciliation between Ono and his parents. Ono’s search for Ramanujan ranges over three continents and crosses paths with mathematicians whose lives span the globe and the entire twentieth century and beyond. Along the way, Ken made many fascinating discoveries. The most important and surprising one of all was his own humanity.".
Number theory.
Mathematics.
History.
Number Theory.
History of Mathematical Sciences.
History of Science.