Science MCOM.

4/8/16

Dakota Phillips.

The Man Who Knew Infinity Story

Movies about mathematicians excite us mostly because their ingenuity is

both unfathomable and fascinating to us. Like the misunderstood genius Alan Turing
(The Imitation Game), or the inspiring Stephen Hawking (Theory of Everything), a
peek into a past that we can only read of, overcoming obstacles that we can only
imagine, makes us remember and respect these gifted minds. Vijaykumar, Neeti. "The
Man Who Knew Infinity How Indian Genius Ramanujan Rose From Zero to Wow the Math
World." Www.thebetterindia.com. N.p., 31 Mar. 2016. Web. 8 Apr. 2016.
With every math show or movie in the media, there is always a bunch of
math work that goes into each production. With making a math movie or a math
show the project always must involve some kind of math Institution or math
professor to always check to see if the math is right. Ken Ono, mathematics
professor at Emory University helped with the film The Man Who Knew Infinity. Ken
Ono was a math consultant for the film. This meant for him that he checked the
math through out the film to make sure that all the math was correct.
This April, a biopic based on the brilliant Indian mathematician Srinivasa
Ramanujan, being portrayed by Dev Patel, is all set to release. A self-educated
mathematician, Ramanujan was known for his theorems that contributed
significantly to understanding number series, infinite series and continued fractions.
Ramanujan was a natural born genius in math. When he was young he had
more mathematical knowledge than anyone at his age. At the age of 13, he studied
the book of advanced trigonometry Inland cubic equations. By age 15 he was

devising his own theorems to solve equations. In 1909, he was married to 10-yearold Srimithi Janaki, and tutored students while he looked for a job. Meanwhile, the
Indian Mathematics Society was set up by V. Ramaswamy Aiyer. Ramanujan, at this
point, started mingling with Indias mathematicians, wowing them with his
brilliance. In 1913, he began writing letters to British mathematicians. Out of these,
G. H. Hardy was to be the one who would believe in Ramanujans skills. Hardy and
his colleague J. E. Littlewood were impressed enough to call Ramanujan to England.
Once in Cambridge, Hardy and Littlewood combed through his collection of theorems. They found that
while some of them already existed, many of them were new, unparalleled discoveries. In the next five
years at Cambridge, Ramanujan published many of his work there, aided by Hardy. Vijaykumar, Neeti.

"The Man Who Knew Infinity How Indian Genius Ramanujan Rose From Zero to Wow the Math
World." Www.thebetterindia.com. N.p., 31 Mar. 2016. Web. 8 Apr. 2016.

Hardy and Little wood could not figure out how a self taught mathematician
can figure out such complex equations like Ramanujan did. Ramanujan didnt point
all of these complex theorems to his natural born ability for math, He would say his
natural gift was from the Goddess Mahalakshmi. He said that the Goddess would
give him these complex theorems on a scroll in his dreams. His companionship
with Hardy was all about contradictions. Hardy was an atheist, who followed logic
and sense, while Ramanujan was religious and intuitive. Many a times, Hardy was
unable to figure out how Ramanujan, a quiet, pleasant and dignified man, could rely
on intuition to come up with theories. Together, Hardy and Ramanujan had many
accomplishments that changed the world of mathematics. Vijaykumar, Neeti. "The Man
Who Knew Infinity How Indian Genius Ramanujan Rose From Zero to Wow the Math
World." Www.thebetterindia.com. N.p., 31 Mar. 2016. Web. 8 Apr. 2016.
In order to make sure all the math in the film is correct, The Pressmen Film
company hired Ken Ono to check to see if the math in the film was correct. Ken Ono
said that, we will never know how Ramanujan found his formulas, he was a creative
genius, he was a gift. We were told that these formulas came to him as visions from
a goddess. And the more I study his note books, the more I am in awe of his work,
and then who are we to decide that it wasnt the Goddess giving him these
formulas, It's inexplicable. Ken Ono said that its very difficult to explain how to be
a mathematician to someone who is not a mathematician. Perhaps the most
important contribution that I made to the content of the film in the script, is the
answer to the question; what does it mean to say that Ramanujan was the man who
knew infinity? Youll have to watch the movie to find out but there is an answer.

Outline
In some ways media can influence us more than anything else in our lives.
This movie The Man Who Knew Infinity is set to come out this April. I wanted to
write this into a story because I wanted to share and spread the word about this
story of perseverance. I also wanted to share about what kind of work goes Im
behind a mask movie and how someone like an English professor has to critique the

math or check the math that goes into the film. My goal for this paper was to get
people more interested in the movie so that they will go see it this month.

Works Cited
Vijaykumar, Neeti. "The Man Who Knew Infinity How Indian Genius Ramanujan Rose From Zero to
Wow the Math World." Www.thebetterindia.com. N.p., 31 Mar. 2016. Web. 8 Apr. 22016

http://images.indianexpress.com/2015/11/dev-patel-759.jpg