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"David T. Ashley" <dta@xxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:mvWdnThFkNHWawvYnZ2dnUVZ_oCmnZ2d@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> "C" <cmiller5277@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
> news:1167519566.035640.307830@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> Hello all,
>>
>> I'm going to be studying abroad next semester in Budapest,
>> Hungary, and thinking ahead for the 10+ hour plane ride I'm going to
>> have (along with loads of downtime the first week or so), I was
>> wondering if anyone could suggest an interesting math or physics book I
>> could read during that time. I'm not looking for any kind of textbook
>> or anything here, but still something intelligent that I can pick up at
>> a Barnes & Noble or Borders or something along those lines. I've seen
>> the book "Not Even Wrong" by Peter Woit a couple of places, has anyone
>> been fortunate enough to read that yet?
>
> I highly recommend "A Mathematician's Apology":
>
> http://www.amazon.com/Mathematicians-Apology-Canto-G-Hardy/dp/0521427061/sr=8-1/qid=1167520399/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/002-5757940-7791229?ie=UTF8&s=books
>
> by Hardy.
>
> It is a fascinating book ... it gives an insight into the way a serious
> number theorist thinks. There is no real math in it. It is short (just
> about right for a long plane ride, I think).
>
> It has been years since I read it, but it was great. It tells how Hardy
> originally came to meet Ramanujan,
>
> en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1729_">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1729_(number)
>
> I probably have remembered it wrong, but my recollection is that Hardy
> spent one day a month reviewing all the odd mail he got. He had a large
> envelope from a guy in India who was doing something menial for a living
> (Ramanujan) but who had a lot of very insightful conjectures about
> integers. After reading the material, which some would have not taken the
> time to try to understand, Hardy decided he HAD to have Ramanujan as a
> graduate student.
The story about Ramanujan is absolutely amazing. Ramanujan had had no formal
education in mathematics.
See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srinivasa_Ramanujan">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srinivasa_Ramanujan
"A child prodigy, he was largely self-taught in mathematics and had compiled
over 3,000 theorems between 1914 and 1918 at the University of Cambridge.
However, Ramanujan was truly a self-thought person and never sought any
degree from Cambridge. Often, his formulas were merely stated, without
proof, and were only later proven to be true. His results were highly
original and unconventional, and have inspired a large amount of research
and many mathematical papers; however, some of his discoveries have been
slow to enter the mathematical mainstream. Recently his formulae have
started to be applied in the field of crystallography, and other
applications in physics. The Ramanujan Journal was launched to publish work
"in areas of mathematics influenced by Ramanujan"."
Nick
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