Sometimes in studying Ramanujan's work, [George Andrews] said at another time, "I have wondered how much Ramanujan could have done if he had had MACSYMA or SCRATCHPAD or some other symbolic algebra package.

Robert Kanigel
About This Quote

"Sometimes in studying Ramanujan's work, [George Andrews] said at another time, "I have wondered how much Ramanujan could have done if he had had MACSYMA or SCRATCHPAD or some other symbolic algebra package." These are personal thoughts about the person George Andrews. He is a mathematician who was a student of Ramanujan. In his book "A History of Mathematics", Sir Michael Atiyah writes:"In 1947, at Cambridge, he was introduced to the incomparable genius of Srinivasa Ramanujan by a fellow undergraduate, George Andrews. It was a great meeting between a great man and a great student.

In the following year, Andrews gave a seminar where he discussed with two other students – Neville Neville and Robin Wilson – some of the equations that Ramanujan had found. It was quite clear that Andrews felt that what they were doing was not as good as what Ramanujan had done but he did not want to discourage them from trying to find out why those equations worked."

Source: The Man Who Knew Infinity: A Life Of The Genius Ramanujan

Some Similar Quotes
  1. I just don't see why the past has to matter. - Cassandra Clare
  2. Do you think we can be friends?” I asked. He stared up at the ceiling. “Probably not, but we can pretend. - Priya Ardis
  3. Vane grabbed me. “DuLac, let’s chat.” British-speak for “Stand still while I yell at you. - Priya Ardis
  4. For me, trees have always been the most penetrating preachers. I revere them when they live in tribes and families, in forests and groves. And even more I revere them when they stand alone. They are like lonely persons. <span style="margin:15px; display:block"></span>Not like hermits who... - Hermann Hesse
  5. Letting go means to come to the realization that some people are a part of your history, but not a part of your destiny. - Steve Maraboli
More Quotes By Robert Kanigel
  1. Plenty of mathematicians, Hardy knew, could follow a step-by-step discursus unflaggingly–yet counted for nothing beside Ramanujan. Years later, he would contrive an informal scale of natural mathematical ability on which he assigned himself a 25 and Littlewood a 30. To David Hilbert, the most eminent...
  2. Sometimes in studying Ramanujan's work, [George Andrews] said at another time, "I have wondered how much Ramanujan could have done if he had had MACSYMA or SCRATCHPAD or some other symbolic algebra package.
Related Topics