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Who Was Ramanujan?

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Re: Who Was Ramanujan?

#101

Post by tomsmeding »

cbd1984 wrote: post #100
dang wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct, and it's time for HN to let go of it. Think of it as a test for this community: can we focus on what's interesting in what the man says and resist being trolled by the rest. https://hn.algolia.com/?query=wolfram%20derangement%20syndro...

So accepting blatant advertising is a test for the community? And blatantly incorrect spam at that. Oh, and calling it a derangement syndrome is both denigrating to those of us with real mental problems and a cheap way to duck the charges of spamming.

You can also not read it, if you don't want to.

Re: Who Was Ramanujan?

#103

Post by wil421 »

phasmantistes wrote: post #99

I was lucky enough to see The Man Who Knew Infinity this past weekend at the San Francisco International Film Festival. And I'd just like to say that it is a truly beautiful film, and I encourage everyone to go see it. After the showing, there was a panel discussion with the director, composer, producer, two actors (Stephen Fry!), and three consulting mathematicians who helped the production. One of the topics that c…

We have been making films about technical people for a while. A Beautiful Mind comes to mind first I am sure I can find some more.

Takedown, and Pirates of Silicon Valley are some others.

Funny as I search for more about actual people, a lot of fictional movies were created around the time the dot com bubble burst.

Re: Who Was Ramanujan?

#104

Post by boulos »

phasmantistes wrote: post #99

I was lucky enough to see The Man Who Knew Infinity this past weekend at the San Francisco International Film Festival. And I'd just like to say that it is a truly beautiful film, and I encourage everyone to go see it. After the showing, there was a panel discussion with the director, composer, producer, two actors (Stephen Fry!), and three consulting mathematicians who helped the production. One of the topics that c…

Huh. I was at the same showing and didn't care for it much. The movie only rarely touched on the mathematics and instead focused on his life and personal troubles. At least Theory of Everything and Imitation Game actually showed a bit of work happening. The closest we get in this movie is a bit of argument about primes and then a little of his partitions work (at an extremely consumable level, so much so it was boring). I kept thinking "Hmm, I wonder why they felt hiding mathematics and making it a personal biopic was better than getting people interested in the actual math?".

In my opinion, Carl Sagan's books remain a much better "popular interest in X" method. Explain things to people, sometimes slowly or incompletely, but avoid the hero worship.

Re: Who Was Ramanujan?

#105

Post by my_first_acct »

For personal reasons, I was pretty interested by one of the digressions: the origins of the phrase “mathematics… is a young man’s game”, and a discussion of whether it is still (or ever was) true (focusing on the age question, not the gender bias, of course).

Re: Who Was Ramanujan?

#106

Post by linhchi »

dang wrote: post #80
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 ;)

Correct, and it's time for HN to let go of it. Think of it as a test for this community: can we focus on what's interesting in what the man says and resist being trolled by the rest. https://hn.algolia.com/?query=wolfram%20derangement%20syndro...

I hope you put this everytime you find the syndrome as you call it. Because "the rest" might be newcommer. After I read your explanation in the link, i think it makes sense. But i must say that everyone gets that impression of SW writing doesnt know that it has been there since forever and would not change, and we can do nothing about it (as a comment below says that SW himself says he writes like that bc arrorange helps him solve problem).

Treatment needs time.

Re: Who Was Ramanujan?

#107

Post by phasmantistes »

boulos wrote: post #104
phasmantistes wrote: post #99

I was lucky enough to see The Man Who Knew Infinity this past weekend at the San Francisco International Film Festival. And I'd just like to say that it is a truly beautiful film, and I encourage everyone to go see it. After the showing, there was a panel discussion with the director, composer, producer, two actors (Stephen Fry!), and three consulting mathematicians who helped the production. One of the topics that c…

Huh. I was at the same showing and didn't care for it much. The movie only rarely touched on the mathematics and instead focused on his life and personal troubles. At least Theory of Everything and Imitation Game actually showed a bit of work happening. The closest we get in this movie is a bit of argument about primes and then a little of his partitions work (at an extremely consumable level, so much so it was borin…

You're absolutely right. But the movie is not meant to be a documentary about the math, it is meant to be a story about his life. The same goes for Theory of Everything, Imitation Game, and A Beautiful Mind. The different here is that what math they show is actually correct.

I was also disappointed that the discussion afterwards put so much emphasis on him as a person, and not on the actual math, but I don't hold that against the film itself. Movies about artists and authors have never been about their works of art either: the movies are about their lives, and I think it is appropriate for cinema to be used as a medium for biography rather than as a medium for education.

Re: Who Was Ramanujan?

#108

Post by r0muald »

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 ;)

No, sorry but I can't agree with you. I had no idea the post was by Wolfram until the end due to loading it on a poor connection, and while at first it seemed just here and there, why not. It's also the first time I read a piece by him and honestly I was furious at the promotional tone of it long before the end. But his story is so beautiful and tragic, I wanted to read it again (I remember reading other accounts in the past).

What's worst: it seems to appropriate a wonderful story by making it seem as if Mathematica is the natural outcome of Ramanujan's work.

Re: Who Was Ramanujan?

#109

Post by phasmantistes »

wil421 wrote: post #103
phasmantistes wrote: post #99

I was lucky enough to see The Man Who Knew Infinity this past weekend at the San Francisco International Film Festival. And I'd just like to say that it is a truly beautiful film, and I encourage everyone to go see it. After the showing, there was a panel discussion with the director, composer, producer, two actors (Stephen Fry!), and three consulting mathematicians who helped the production. One of the topics that c…

We have been making films about technical people for a while. A Beautiful Mind comes to mind first I am sure I can find some more. Takedown, and Pirates of Silicon Valley are some others. Funny as I search for more about actual people, a lot of fictional movies were created around the time the dot com bubble burst.

A Beautiful Mind isn't as long ago as you think: less than 15 years. In the space of cinema (which was producing films about famous artists at least as early as the '30s) that's not very long. Takedown and Pirates of Silicon Valley are also a bit different: hacking has been part of "pop culture" since the mid 90s at least, and Pirates is a documentary anyway.

Re: Who Was Ramanujan?

#110

Post by manav »

One thing that really stood out to me was that Ramunajan got lost in the traditional system of Academia which persists even now. There could have been (and may still be) so much talent out there that may never get a chance.

I also really wish the letters were more legible. I think it would be interesting to read some of these older mathematics texts.

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