context: Srinivasa Ramanujan (1887–1920) was a self-taught Indian mathematical genius who made extraordinary contributions to number theory, infinite series, and continued fractions, despite lacking formal higher education. His intuitive work from British-ruled India led to a fellowship at Cambridge and a legacy of thousands of original theorems.
Srinivasa Ramanujan famously credited his mathematical insights to visions received in dreams, often attributing them to his family goddess, Namagiri Thayar. He described seeing a red screen or wall in his sleep, upon which a hand would write complex formulas and mathematical equations, specifically elliptic integrals.
by Im_yor_boi
8 Comments
People that think in math (like it is a language) are amazing to me. Also dead at 32. Damn.
What song is this?
It’s crazy to me. I considered myself decent at math but the guys that came up with formulas, the guys that do shit like orbital mechanics, it blows my mind.
My favorite snippet from Neil Tyson about Isaac newton was him developing calculus, the laws of motion, universal gravitation, and optics… then turning 26. Fucking wild
Wasn’t 75% of what he wrote just wrong?
The cases where people become savant after receiving a head injury fascinate me. I wonder if he was born this way or if it just came to him at some point in life. There’s still so much we don’t understand about our minds.
The world is poorer for Ramanujan having died so young. But richer for having him in it as long as he lived.
Theta king
The bots are really pushing this guy today