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The Mystery of Ramanujan's Dreams - by Kristin Posehn

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One of my favorite dreamers in history, Srinavasa Ramanujan, was born December 22, 1887, in the small, Southern city of Erode, India. His father was a petty clerk in a cloth merchant’s shop, his mother devoutly religious. From an early age, Ramanujan was drawn to mathematics. He was that kid and then some, showing such an unusual aptitude for math that in grade school his teachers turned to him to ask if what they were doing was correct. He received a scholarship, but flunked out, because by then he refused to study any subject but math. At age 16, too poor to afford paper, often hiding under a cot because his parents disapproved of his math monomania, he taught himself number theory by working through every problem in a borrowed textbook on a slate board he wiped clean with an elbow, to make it last longer. And as if that wasn’t astonishing enough, he expanded his efforts from this textbook to both rediscover entire branches of pure mathematics—otherwise unknown to him because dude ha

The Mystery of Ramanujan's Dreams #4 in a series on dreams Kristin Posehn Jan 31, 2023 165 48 6 Share One of my favorite dreamers in history, Srinavasa Ramanujan, was born December 22, 1887, in the small, Southern city of Erode, India. His father was a petty clerk in a cloth merchant’s shop, his mother devoutly religious. From an early age, Ramanujan was drawn to mathematics. He was that kid and then some, showing such an unusual aptitude for math that in grade school his teachers turned to him to ask if what they were doing was correct. He received a scholarship, but flunked out, because by t

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