The man who knew infinity
New York Public Library, Book to Remember, 1991
Library Journal, Best Sci-Tech Books of 1991 Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist, 1991 National Book Critics Circle Award finalist, 1992 From the dustjacket of the Scribners hardcover edition, 1991Ĭassette book, National Library for the Blind, 1993Ĭhinese editions, Shanghai Scientific, 2002, 2008 Here is a life and a life's work that resound a century later, a testimonia to the truth that genius can flower in the most unlikely places, and a biography with all the drama, the richness, and the cultural sweep of a fine historical novel. Robert Kanigel's achievement is not simply to make Ramanujan's science accessible, but to show the pleasure, the excitement, and the love of numbers that inspired it. For Hardy the collaboration with Ramanujan was "the one truly romantic incident of my life."
Ramanujan's isolation from his family and the intensity of his work eventually took their toll, and within seven years of leaving India he was dead. Hardy arranged for Ramanujan to sail for England, leaving behind his wife and mother in Madras. Thus began one of the most productive and unusual scientific collaborations in history, that of an English don and an impoverished Hindu genius whose like has never been seen again. Hardy realized that the letter was a work of genius. Srinivasa Ramanujan begged Hardy's opinion regarding several ideas he had about numbers. Hardy, then widely acknowledged as the premier English mathematician of his time. In support of this project Kanigel was awarded an NEH Public Scholar award.In 1913, a twenty-five-year-old Indian clerk with no formal education wrote a letter to G.H. His most recent book, "Hearing Homer's Song: The Brief Life and Big Idea of Milman Parry," is a biography of the man who revolutionized our understanding of the Homeric epics. "Eyes on the Street," his biography of Jane Jacobs, the far-seeing author of "The Death and Life of Great American Cities" and fearless champion of big-city life, was published by Knopf in 2016. Durkan Prize by the American Conference for Irish Studies.
Kanigel's 2012 book, "On an Irish Island," set on a windswept island village off the coast of Ireland, was nurtured by a Guggenheim fellowship and later awarded the Michael J. "The Man Who Knew Infinity," his second book, was named a National Book Critics Circle finalist, a Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist, and a New York Public Library "Book to Remember." It has been translated into Italian, German, Polish, Greek, Chinese, Thai, and many other languages, and has been made into a feature film, starring Jeremy Irons and Dev Patel, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2015. Durkan Prize by the Amer Robert Kanigel was born in Brooklyn, but for most of his adult life has lived in Baltimore. Robert Kanigel was born in Brooklyn, but for most of his adult life has lived in Baltimore.