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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does Kanigel say was Ramanujan's greatest talent?

2. What was proved correct in Ramanujan's work from this time?

3. How does Kanigel describe John Littlewood?

4. Who was absent from the dock when Ramanujan's ship came in?

5. What value did Ramanujan work with at Cambridge?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is a formalist in mathematical thinking?

2. How much did Ramanujan's bride share in his mathematical life?

3. Describe Ramanujan's trip to England.

4. What did Ramanujan discover when P. C. Mahalanobis read him a puzzle one evening?

5. Ramanujan kept extensive notes of his thinking. What was in Ramanujan's notebooks, and how much of his work was valuable, according to Kanigel?

6. How was Ramanujan treated on his return to India?

7. What did Hardy do with Ramanujan's letter?

8. What did Ramanujan write to Hardy?

9. What was the conflict between Ramanujan's family and his wife?

10. What was Ramanujan's Master Theorem intended to do?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Compare and contrast Ramanujan's life and Hardy's. How are they similar? How are they different? What did they offer each other? Was Ramanujan truly Hardy's greatest accomplishment? Does that make Ramanujan's depression, suicide attempt and death Hardy's greatest failure?

Essay Topic 2

Was Ramanujan different 'as a person' than he was 'as a mathematician'? Did his work in math redeem the discomforts or failures he suffered elsewhere in his life? How does his life balance out--was he a mathematician, or a fully-developed human being, who could adjust to any number of human experiences?

Essay Topic 3

To what extent was math a social enterprise for Ramanujan? How much did his career depend on other people? What made other people believe in him? What values did those people have that made it important to help Ramanujan?

(see the answer keys)

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