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Who Was Ramanujan?

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Re: Who Was Ramanujan?

#31

Post by davros »

johnloeber wrote: post #21
neipfjin239 wrote: post #17

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.

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

Thanks for the link - a nice review of 'a new kind of science'

Re: Who Was Ramanujan?

#32

Post by mseri »

johnloeber wrote: post #15
blt wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can barely tolerate anything he writes. It is hard to understand how a person could reach his position without learning how to express himself tastefully. Funny to read this after reading the Claude Shannon profile posted a few hours ago [1]. An actual giant of 20th century mathematics, and so humble. [1] http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/software/claude-shannon-t...

It is hard to understand, indeed. Wolfram is clearly extremely accomplished by all standards. We all know this . Why in the world does he pump all his written work with insufferable self-promotion? Anyone in a position to make good use of Mathematica has heard of it. I haven't met anyone who doesn't know about WolframAlpha, and I've taught mathematics to high-schoolers. Moreover, it should be obvious to Wolfram that…

I agree with these comments wholeheartedly.

However, there is a surprisingly high amount of high school and science bachelors, including math, that actually does not know about it (or other cas for what matter). Each time I am quite stunned by it, and it does not seem to improve with time.

I should start making a proper survey if next year I teach a first year course.

Re: Who Was Ramanujan?

#34

Post by pjmlp »

willvarfar wrote: post #18

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 ;)

Fully agree with you.

To me, that will never achieve in this life something like Wolfram did or will do, it seems HN is full of people envy of his accomplishments and the only way they can get over it is complaining how much self-promoted he is.

Yes, he did not program all the company products alone and has a team behind it, but someone is needed to steer the ship into good direction.

So, I always enjoy reading his articles, regardless of the self-promotion that might be present.

Re: Who Was Ramanujan?

#35

Post by dsfuoi »

BasDirks wrote: post #27
willvarfar wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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.

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.

Re: Who Was Ramanujan?

#36

Post by jjgreen »

amelius wrote: post #33

There are some nice videos on youtube explaining the 1+2+3+...=-1/12 equation. For example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcKRGpMiVTw

For an in-depth treatment, see Hardy's scandalous "Divergent Series"

Re: Who Was Ramanujan?

#37

Post by harperlee »

andyjohnson0 wrote: post #29
johnloeber wrote: post #6

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 surprise…

"...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 obligator…

It also makes the article more personal, which is something that generally improves communication.

Re: Who Was Ramanujan?

#38

Post by puranjay »

johnloeber wrote: post #15
blt wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can barely tolerate anything he writes. It is hard to understand how a person could reach his position without learning how to express himself tastefully. Funny to read this after reading the Claude Shannon profile posted a few hours ago [1]. An actual giant of 20th century mathematics, and so humble. [1] http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/software/claude-shannon-t...

It is hard to understand, indeed. Wolfram is clearly extremely accomplished by all standards. We all know this . Why in the world does he pump all his written work with insufferable self-promotion? Anyone in a position to make good use of Mathematica has heard of it. I haven't met anyone who doesn't know about WolframAlpha, and I've taught mathematics to high-schoolers. Moreover, it should be obvious to Wolfram that…

Same reason why Kanye West keeps talking about Kanye West even though everyone already knows about Kanye West

Re: Who Was Ramanujan?

#39

Post by [deleted] »

johnloeber wrote: post #6

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 surprise…

[deleted]

Re: Who Was Ramanujan?

#40

Post by enthdegree »

amelius wrote: post #33

There are some nice videos on youtube explaining the 1+2+3+...=-1/12 equation. For example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcKRGpMiVTw

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.

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