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My Search for Ramanujan : How I Learned to Count / by Ken Ono, Amir D. Aczel.

Springer Nature - Springer Mathematics and Statistics eBooks 2016 English International Available online

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Format:
Book
Author/Creator:
Ōno, Ken, Author.
Aczel, Amir D., Author.
Language:
English
Subjects (All):
Number theory.
Mathematics.
History.
Number Theory.
History of Mathematical Sciences.
History of Science.
Local Subjects:
Number Theory.
History of Mathematical Sciences.
History of Science.
Physical Description:
1 online resource (235 p.)
Edition:
1st ed. 2016.
Place of Publication:
Cham : Springer International Publishing : Imprint: Springer, 2016.
Language Note:
English
Summary:
"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.".
Contents:
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.
Notes:
Description based upon print version of record.
ISBN:
3-319-25568-1

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