Math Encounters -- Ken Ono - Enigmatic Figures: The Ramanujan Legacy

Srinivasa Ramanujan is one of the most enigmatic figures in the history of mathematics. A self-trained amateur mathematician, his ideas befuddled the accumulated wisdom of mathematicians in the early 20th century. Join award-winning Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science Ken Ono as he demonstrates how Ramanujan’s legacy continues to play a central role in the development of many of the deepest subjects in arithmetic geometry and number theory.
Special introduction by Devika Bhise, lead actress from the recent movie The Man Who Knew Infinity.
Math Encounters is a public presentation series celebrating the spectacular world of mathematics and presented by the Simons Foundation and the National Museum of Mathematics.
For further information, call the Museum of Mathematics at [phone] or e-mail [e-mail].

[@danieldeal6340]

People like Ramanujan remind me every day to perform my best no matter what I have

[@deepak2049]

@@imtiazmohammad9548 Kumbakonam was his city

[@bmniac]

@@deepak2049 Still a town.

[@VickneswaranSubramaniam]

To Sir Ken Ono, if sir (Srinivasan Ingeran Ramanujan) was ever reborn to follow up on his formulas, your enthusiastic words would be his light that would lead him to the doorstep of his last thought that he managed to pen down.

[@kirathekingkiller69]

The highest education I have is high school math but I watched the whole things because it's interesting, even though I don't understand it.

[@santanudutta2555]

Very inspirational lecture. I was intrigued by your reference to the 1893 World Columbian Exposition in Chicago. I cannot help pointing out that, although Ramanujan was not invited to the World Conference of Mathematics that was one of the events there, another famous Indian did steal the show at another event at the Expo. The event was the first Parliament of Religions; the Indian person was a Hindu monk named Swami Vivekananda.

[@lauruguayitausa]

Beautiful movie. I've watched it several times and I still cry every time I see it again!

[@cufflink44]

So glad there are videos like this on KZbin.

[@tonygonzalez8811]

She's great... Very well spoken! If you noticed she has a slight speech impediment but still found a way to be an excellent orator.

[@bayniqab6563]

I came yo know about Ramanujan today and I am amazed.

[@Saral_Lekhi]

You think Jesus was a miracle. It was Ramanujan. And yet this diamond died a gentleman.

[@alexclarosfernandez8467]

Thanks for this great exposition Profesor Ken!!!

[@hommefriday]

Absolutely facinating and my respect for Ken for making such a complex excercise so captivating for such an average person as myself

[@raymondk9211]

Omg, she is so beautiful. And she has courage to speak in front those people on the mic.

[@koenth2359]

About Benford's law. To find the first digit of 10^x we just need to look at 10^{x} where {x} is the fractional part of x. If {x} has a uniform distribution (which is usually the case if x is the result of some function that grow very fast), to me it's almost selfevident that for any random number the probability to find digit d is log_10(d+1)-log_10(d).

[@mviv6339]

In 1947 when India threw the British out , the average life span of Indians was 29. While it was 61 for the British. So not surprising he died at the age of 32.

[@karanmungra5630]

Bro average life span in those era was not low due to people in India not living long enough. But the average was drag down due to low infancy mortality rate and child mortality rate. Also, he suffered a serious disease which doesn't have the proper treatment at that time. So, I think the point you trying to make, doesn't justify his death in the proper way. It was just fate and a fatal disease which took his life. It is sad to loose him at a such young age.

[@naimulhaq9626]

I am a fan of Ono, and I am impressed by his heart felt dedication in promoting an understanding and appreciation of the phenomenon called Ramanujan and the mystery shrouding the spirituality that bestowed such quality that belittles many great mathematicians, like Euler, Jacob,Riemann etc. We are not aware, like Ono, of the spirituality that propelled Ramanujan to greatness. He was trained in Vaishnav yoga (meditation) by the Brahman priests of the temple at Namakkal, from an early age, as part of his mother's and maternal grandmother's plan in training him in the discipline that binds Vishnu with the earthly creation of human consciousness that can possess the divine knowledge of timeless and a priory laws, rules and algorithm of mathematics. His mother was well trained in numerology and his grandmother was a Vaishnav Yogi who predicted he will be born with divine qualities. He prayed many times daily to keep his touch with the divine, enabling him to solve problems just by looking at them and solve them in his dreams. Meditation made him creative and gave him self control, so he could work tirelessly. He worshiped Namagiri (Vishnu's consort). Mathematics is the only clue, enabling us to conceive 'intelligent design' and 'divine purpose', displayed and demonstrated by Ramanujan, that sometimes 'man is god'.

[@naimulhaq9626]

better than 'man is god', is 'man and god are entangled'.

[@g.k.6451]

How nicely u commented. Keep it up.

[@Ajayr108]

How do you know this?i Want to learn more about his spirituality

[@dbakht3166]

Bravo from Punjab Pakistan and UK. Ramunajan was a Indian subcontinent hero. Something positive to come out of India for a change. He died too young.

[@dbakht3166]

@Md Bacchithok I don't understand. I haven't said anything negative to you. 😎 calm down my brother. We can change our religion but we are bound by blood.

[@VinitSingh-ld2hi]

Proud to be an Indian 😊

[@MoosesValley]

This inspiring presentation only has 28K views in nearly 3 years ... But useless superficial drivel like the latest Kardashians video has 318K views in 21 hours. A travesty !! And people wonder why so many young women aren't going into science and maths ... Anyway, terrific, inspiring talks by Devika and Ken. More please. :)

[@saifdevdas7656]

That uglyly describes the current state of mankind.

[@devadattajoardar8920]

Dr Ono is not exactly right when he says that India was virtually absent in the World's Fair in Chicago in 1893. In fact, one of the events in the Fair was the Parliament of Religions, in which the different religions of India were represented by Indian religious leaders. And it was in this Parliament that a Hindu monk, Swami Vivekananda, captivated audiences and was lionized by the American public and came to be known as the 'cyclonic Hindu' in the years to come. That marked the beginning of the spread of Hinduism right across the modern world. The whole of India celebrated the Swami's triumph.

[@2sridhark]

How true! I completely missed that. I knew the event happened. I did not know it happened in that very venue!

[@naimulhaq9626]

Goddess Namagiri(Vishnu's consort) appeared in Ramanujan's dream or Ramanujan established a connection with the goddess and the god through meditation, who imparted the 'a priori' knowledge of mathematics to him. Vishnu is the cause of the evolution of the world and is the conjoined essence and object of meditative wisdom and active virtue (karma).

[@tilakmehrotra]

@Young Tang Ramanujan was religious and it didn't pin him down and he also made great contribution in the field of mathematics. So it makes your reason invalid.

[@sabyasachibandyopadhyay8558]

@Young Tang In fact Einstein, Newton, Ramanujan, Schrodinger, Poisson, to name a few revolutionary thinkers were religious. What makes one human more advanced than another is to question the ordinary and the mundane in the face of accepting it as immutable truth. Scientific inquiry does require a structured way of thinking which is either imparted by schools or by cultures or both. This same structured way of thought, if deep-seated can be an impediment to discovering esoteric truths. There's absolutely no relation between the volume of scientific discovery and specific cultures nurtured by Hindu or Muslim families. But I can understand this kind of thought coming from a Christian creationist idea, where the Bible explains everything that needs to be known about the world; hence looking at alien religions or cultures in the same lens.

[@clivewells7090]

@Young Tang you must be a very young tang. Isaac Newton wrote 12 million words and only 10% were about maths and physics, the rest were about religion and philosophy. He was also the manager of the Royal Mint and spent much time pursuing and executing forgers!

[@r.msyiem]

Indians never knew how to respect people like Ramanujan,Bodhidharma but they are so proud when foreigners say they are indians they cannot even make a movie on Gandhi somebody has to make it for them really shameful

[@Subudhdh]

it is leftist/islamist bias in Indian academia that writes and makes movies on trash, like pathetic mughal era and not on scientists/mathematicians, J C Bose invented radio/wireless, C V Raman Spectroscopy, S N Nose the mathematician behind Einstein's 1905 work, so many more, but most of these Brahmins, including Ramanujan (perhaps 10 times more intelligent/miraculous than Einstein in raw genius) and leftist/islamists hate Brahmins to ignore even reality of their existence, they will prefer hardcore deceit instead.

[@Subudhdh]

and Gandhi is overrated, over-credited he was not intelligent but persistent with all kinds of good/bad things.

[@2sridhark]

BTW, Ramanujan never wore shoes in Trinity. He did not like them and so went around in slippers!

[@ericdavid3801]

in freezing cold, no wonder his body broke down. too early.

[@dbakht3166]

What an amazing guy. When you are that clever. You don't fall for mainstream fashions.

[@sonarbangla8711]

To me Ramanujan is the ultimate proof of the 'mind of god'/ intelligent design, relating man and his compliment 'god'. Namagiri was Vishnu's consort, she represented knowledge. She appeared in Ramanujan's dreams and imparted the knowledge of mathematics of black holes, genetics and much more, of concepts not even known during his life, only to be coined much later.

[@karanmungra5630]

It is just a popular myth. He didn't have formal education. But he did studied foundational mathematics from books. They mostly didn't have the detailed description of the ideas, but more concisely written, just stating theorems and problems. That's why he lacked knowledge of formal proofs. But due to his genius he was able to understand concisely written maths and developed his own theorems and conjectures. But to simply boil it down to some divine intervention and magically imparting knowledge, I think is an insult to such a great mind. There have been many such great genuises like Euler, Gauss, Archimedes whose mind work in a great way like Ramanujan. And also if you go by your idea of magically giving ideas, I want to sadly tell you that many of his theorems and conjectures were proven false.

[@sonarbangla8711]

You have such a high esteem of this man, why can't you trust what he claimed and declared. That he had metaphysical connection with the divine and he was trained in unknown mathematical methods (q-series) and discovered the secret of divine design, imparted to a human so they know the mind of god. When Gauss, Euler, Archimedes discovered no more than a few theorems, Ramanujan discovered 4000, can you explain that?@@karanmungra5630

[@kantameena9668]

Dec 22 Birthday of Ramanujan is Mathematics Day in India. Govt of India commerate Postage stamp in Ramanujan's memory.

[@pawechosta3835]

This looks like Binary Algebra - these are formulas, graphs and properties of discrete functions (numerical sequences), new bitwise operations, fractal arrays, conditional functions, difference quotients of discrete functions, calculations on over infinite numbers and also new interpolation prime number formulas and Collatz's equation (Problem 3x + 1). The book tions, calculations on over infinite numbers and also new interpolation prime number formulas and Collatz's equation (Problem 3x + 1). The book titled FUNDAMENTALS OF BINARY ALGEBRA will be published in September 2021.

[@robertmitchell8630]

35 current president royal society Indian noble prize also an admirer of ramanujan

[@TheSolidheroes]

Excellent speaker 👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾🙌🏾🙌🏾

[@viklondon3466]

As soon as I saw her, I knew she was a great mathematologist.

[@amarkalakoti]

Very impressive and detailed info.. thank you.

[@tonk6812]

i am following ur path....

[@namelastname4077]

a link to the website of letters in the description would be nice

[@2sridhark]

This lady Devika Bhise has a hard time pronouncing the name Ramanujan and she acted in that movie!

[@vp4744]

Because she's not from India and probably has very little interaction with South Indian names. She just wanted to make sure she does not skip of "nu" in the name, which most westerners make that mistake.

[@keithtinkler4073]

But in fact Hardy in the file (Irons) pronounces it just the way she does - check out the clip at the very end of this lecture.

[@RajshekherGarikapati]

Also, she doesn't do credit to herself when she claims Ramanujam couldn't explain his maths whereas Ken can, sort of sounds like an unnecessary comparison between an accepted genius who is long dead but had many handicaps in his time, with a current unknown who has many advantages. She could have made it briefer and kept us in the dark about her ignorance and naivete.

[@ksingh7149]

Overacting

[@ZenMasterChip]

@35:52 We are shown the formula for π... can someone explain to me how we get a number that starts with 3 by starting with 4/1 which is 4? I can't believe I got lost so fast!

[@jamesaldermen6832]

Chip Cooper It is a continued fraction. Think of everything to the right of each + as being added to the previous denominator. So it’s really 4/(1+1/(2+...)). So, since he’s dividing by more than just 1, it’s less than 4.

[@xtr3m385]

What about: 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +...= - 1/12 that is, adding whole positive numbers somehow results in a negative fraction!

[@vector8310]

The continued fraction is convergent, which means, in non-technical terms, than the number boils down from 4 to 3.14....

[@dontmindme5997]

1893 also had the world's first parliament of religions where Swami Vivekananda gave his famous Chicago address!

[@Niven42]

Am I the only one who winced every time she said, "ramma - noojin"?

[@marktallant2935]

yes

[@GH-oi2jf]

Niven42 - I noticed (but without wincing) and concluded that her pronunciation was probably correct and that of most Americans (myself included) incorrect.

[@C.J.80]

It's a Tamil word - pronounced as "raa-maa-nu-jan".

[@Saral_Lekhi]

I was wondering if she has a speech disability. She seemed to suppress a stutter..

[@C.J.80]

@Raj Narayanan I'm from Kerala bro and studied in Coimbatore

[@martyfrank3548]

My brain is exploding. Why does 9 appear in 3% of all first digits in the first 100 values, then fall to 1% in the first 500 digits ..and then jump up to 4.4% in the first 1000 values?! Is this a computation error? Haaaaaalp!!

[@gastonflatulenza1276]

Why does Ken Ono say (at 34:55) that pi is not 22/7? I don't understand that. Can someone enlighten me on this one?

[@DEEPANJANBISWAS]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof_that_22/7_exceeds_%CF%80

[@BookOnThrough]

Pi is 'irrational' - meaning, it cannot be expressed rationally, as a ratio, or fraction. 22/7 is a well defined fraction, which divides out to a value kinda close to pi - but is not pi, because 22 dividing into 7 has nothing to do with 'the ratio between a circle's diameter and circumference', which is what defines pi. Another neat *approximation* of pi is the cube root of 31. Thirty-one the number and cube roots as an operation don't have anything to do with pi either; these approx. are just lovely coincidences. Hope this was helpful/interesting!

[@ranam]

That software is wx maxima

[@fun4u_7576]

Proud to be an indian

[@manikanthhanji1152]

I am Indian....🥺🥺🥺proud to be a Indian ❤

[@mobinas]

Skip first 30 minutes for substance.

[@jakefisher1638]

Why does this woman at 38:21 have two pairs of glasses on?? Wtf???? 😂

[@venkatesant2827]

A fantastic lecture by Dr Ono. But why isn't such a lucid lecture available for download? This one and the other videos in which Dr Ono appears are treasure troves. Can someone help?

[@youngjin8300]

Yes, actually there are a quite a few websites that allows you to download the videos on KZbin. Google it

[@johnstfleur3987]

YOU ARE AN ACTRESS.

[@clivewells7090]

Guy starts talking about ramanujan's work after ten or twelve minutes. It's about the film first.

[@Tadesan]

Oh I want to devour Devika

[@johnstfleur3987]

FATHER.

[@johnstfleur3987]

MOTHER.

[@davidwilkie9551]

Partitioning as a pure-math relative positioning exercise would be silly on its own, but add in the "mass defect" of Logarithmic numberness dominance, Periodic Table sequences, and distribution of resonance Primes, (Benford's Law.., discovered from the observed use of a book of Log Tables, related to Euler's e-Pi-i condensation elemental transverse trancendental logarithmic condensation Intuitions), and it's an answer to the "Riddle of the Universe", Singularity-point shaping positioning Conception, ONE-INFINITY corresponds to Superspin. Ie "Turtles all the way Down" infinite regression "through" the Quantum Operator Singularity positioning Apature, Time Duration Timing of pure-math relative-timing logarithmic numberness rates, in zero-infinity-> infinite regression of line-of-sight superposition density-intensity fractions=> Perspective vanishing point transverse scalar, an instantaneous Fluxion-Integral-> Unity vector-value.., via practical awareness of Number Theory, Intuition confirmation calculations. Point 9-recurring is logarithmic singularity positioning One identification of elemental e-Pi-i sync-duration Totality, mathematically speaking. Algorithmic example. Mathematicians, particularly highly experienced.., until the contours of the function-dominance landscape stand out from the points-in-perspective clouds of shaping significances are shown to balance, axial-tangential, on e-Pi-i omnidirectional-dimensional logarithmic interference positioning logarithmic condensation = resonance numberness, (as Gauss showed for thelog Prime occurrence, convert by the Quantum Operator Fields Modulation Mechanism Computational Information of built-in mind-tools, ..to practical applications in symbolic perceptions of intentional policies. Logarithmic Time Communication AM-FModules wave-packaging coordination of pulse-evolution differentiates, here-now-forever. Chemistry and Physics identifies the "Brand Name" properties of Actuality, Mathematics checks out and Authenticates the ingredients of the components "as it says on the Tin". This is, i-reflection line-of-sight abstractions assembled in Perspective Superspin Modulation landscape containment states of e-Pi-i , 1-0-infinity, ie vanishing-into-no-thing Singularity positioning this Eternity-now pure-math Interval. A line-of-sight logarithmic singularity superposition awareness automatically composes Module-ation forms, tabular pattern matrices and all the possible Clockface divisioning of the Unit Circle transverse trancendental symbolic re-presentation of Time Duration Timing Conception projection-drawing abstractions, the experience of sum-of-all-histories Intuition development in Teaching and Learning reiteration of primary probability dominance in potential possibilities Quantum-fields Mechanism Holographic Standing Wave Condensation. Math-Phys-Chem and Geometry techniques built in/of naturally occurring quantisation Calculus, of elemental ln e=1 @antilog Pi i-reflection containment.., @.dt zero-infinity "least possible action" sync-duration Eternity-now, Singularity function Perspective Principle.

[@venkatbabu186]

Internet access makes you feel as though you have to deal with world affairs.

[@martyfrank3548]

(Around 1 hour mark)

[@afterthesmash]

1:14:10 Moments after this is the most inexplicable scene in the movie, as the professor decides to have a white male moment, and scold his exceptional brown student for no other reason. I'm sure they must have done that to put the beat in the movie that all white males are inherently discriminatory, because every story of a minority hero fighting back needs such a moment. But it was completely inexplicable, and contrary to what anyone I've ever known in a STEM field would do. There's _always_ a guy or gal who's way ahead of everyone else. It's almost always an opportunity to ask "what else do you know that the rest of us haven't seen coming yet?" to see if they can provide further amusement.

[@johnstfleur3987]

MELLO.

[@arupratan1978]

Ramanujan said he received formulas through revelation from Goddess. Hardy and Littlewood were these poor guys who took all efforts to prove these truly hard formulas who are direct revelation of Goddess!!! Ramanujan was just a medium between Goddess and Hardy

[@gayatryghatwai6829]

Ramanujam displayed great humility by saying he received his inspiration from the Goddess! He could have easily said nothing....which is probably what a majority of human beings would do. In any case, I don't think the Goddess would reveal herself to just any "medium". The person receiving her wisdom has to be worthy of it. Somehow you appear to be disrespectful.

[@robertmitchell8630]

111.00 mathematician on ramanujan

[@vaibhavkrupakar240]

Not exactly true because ramanujan did learn to prove towards the end

[@johnstfleur3987]

91.

[@archangecamilien1879]

25:08 it might be an Indian-thing, haha...I mean...a cultural thing...families are probably "tighter" than we would expect in Western society...at least I would guess they are...

[@archangecamilien1879]

I'm surprised how much she knew about math...I mean...for an actress, I wouldn't expect any actor to know much about math...she says she knows very little, but that's more than the average person...the rotation stuff is stuff (rotating curves around axes) you usually explain to students for Calculus in college, and I'm not sure they usually feel it intuitively as she does...I mean...Eddie Redmayne talked about not being a very math oriented/savvy-person, haha, if I remember, while talking about The Theory of Everything...not sure if I heard correctly that she said she was Indian, haha, so it's not surprising or something, at the beginning...maybe that's also an Indian-thing, math...

[@archangecamilien1879]

At any rate many Eastern, or non-Western, societies tend to be less individualistic than Western ones, as far as I understand...

[@johnstfleur3987]

7.

[@swamijee]

Ken Ono & the non-Indian crew did a terrific job. The desi actors botched even the basics - no one says "madhuras" in Madras -it's pronounced 'Medras'. Ramanujan was quite portly so casting Dev Patel was another mistake. All in all a disappointment -if you knew or understoodf the milieu Ramanujan grew up in, the movie does an average to poor job of replicating it.

[@abhishekdsl]

Why don't you make one?

[@bmniac]

Superficial remark

[@johnstfleur3987]

C2.

[@johnstfleur3987]

TIME.

[@smellysock4260]

7:36 then skip the next 30 minutes of fluff

[@tingiboloe7380]

Why ken ono talk about ramanujan when he says yhat ramanujan invented nothing new

[@bmniac]

???

[@johnstfleur3987]

JESUS.

[@sujaysukumar123]

She couldnt pronounce Ramanujan

[@johnstfleur3987]

L.

[@3aeren]

34:47 dude just shave your head

[@johnstfleur3987]

CAMBRIDGE.

[@johnstfleur3987]

ZERO.

[@qualquan]

If Ramanujan was all that smart, how come he had such bizarre life shortening religious beliefs, impervious to all reasoning, despite the best attempts of his friend/mentor Hardy.

[@AB-fc8io]

May be we are so ignorant to not believe in reality that there is a different dimension where there is a source of knowledge and that can not be proved by humanity.

[@user-wq2xu1rn2c]

Don’t be limited by your “beliefs” - we only see what we CAN.

[@lfc_tushar]

How do you know that doesn't exist?

[@bmniac]

Immature comment.. Vegetarianism need not be religion based and if it were it would make no difference. Most eminent doctors recommend a plant based diet.

[@Kamallubana001]

Pathetic delivery

[@bmniac]

Very bright!

[@Kamallubana001]

He is so boring person.

[@ScipioWasHere]

People like Ramanujan remind me every day to perform my best no matter what I have

[@taopaille-paille4992]

@Md Bacchithok he provided proofs?

[@clivewells7090]

@Md Bacchithok He was asked for proofs and offered only empirical reasons. It does not belittle any countries citizen that they have or have not proofs of truth. There are people who know the day of the week of any date but have no proof apart from the calendar. I myself believe he was divinely inspired, in a way, way more specific than we all are.

[@bcfu8146]

Md Bacchithok well citizenships has nothing to do with brainwashing. Perhaps she was invited to further the brainwashing propaganda built around Ramanujan. Professor Hardy was like a gasping schoolboy for he couldn’t comprehend the genius of Ramanujan. The whole movie business is a propaganda to downplay the genius of Ramanujan. Ramanujan used chalk and slates in his early days because paper was so expensive. So now they peddle the cock and bull stories that he was divinely inspired like madman prophets of Abrahamic desert cults - a reflection of arithmetically challenges western civilisation which could not count until 1700s.

[@akhil999in]

his brain was possibly different.