The Man Who Knew Infinity - Robert Kanigel

Reading the life of Ramanujan (pronounced something like Raa-MAA-nuh-jun) is likely to put those with an oldfashioned literary bent in mind of Gray’s “Elegy in a Country Churchyard”, lines fifty-three to fifty-six: “Full many a gem of purest ray serene, The dark unfathom’d caves of ocean bear; Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air.” Or to put it in other, less poetic words: some people never realize a minute fraction of their very great potential. Many more geniuses have been born than have ever been heard of, and Ramanujan was nearly one of those born ...