Futility Closet

In 1913, English mathematician G.H. Hardy received a package from an unknown accounting clerk in India, with nine pages of mathematical results that he found "scarcely possible to believe." In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast, we'll follow the unlikely friendship that sprang up between Hardy and Srinivasa Ramanujan, whom Hardy called "the most romantic figure in the recent history of mathematics." We'll also probe Carson McCullers' heart and puzzle over a well-proportioned amputee. Intro: W.H. Hill's signature was unchanged when inverted. Room 308 of West Java's Samudra Beach Hotel is reserved for the Indonesian goddess Nyai Loro Kidul. Sources for our feature on Srinivasa Ramanujan: Robert Kanigel, The Man Who Knew Infinity, 1991. K. Srinivasa Rao, Srinivasa Ramanujan: A Mathematical Genius, 1998. S.R. Ranganathan, Ramanujan: The Man and the Mathematician, 1967. Bruce C. Berndt and Robert A. Rankin, Ramanujan: Letters and Commentary, 1991. G.H. Hardy, "The Indian Mathematician Ramanujan,"