Srinivasa Ramanujan Iyengar was a poor Hindu with only a basic mathematical education who, as a young man, made important mathematical discoveries. He impressed the great British mathematicial, G.H. Hardy, who invited him to join him at Cambridge University in England, where the two had a brilliant and fruitful collaboration, cut short when Ramanujan died young.
I read Robert Kanigel’s The Man Who Knew Infinity: A Life of the Genius Ramanujan after seeing the movie based on the book. The movie does justice to the spirit of the book and mostly conforms to fact, but cannot duplicate Kanigel’s richness of detail.
Both the movie and the book gave me food for thought on the nature and sources of genius. I once thought of mathematical discovery as a logical, step-by-step process, but I now realize it depends as much on inspiration as anything else.
Some of Ramanujan’s theorems came to him in dreams, sometimes on scrolls held by Hindu gods.
Since I do not believe in the Hindu gods myself, how do I explain the fact that Ramanujan’s visions of the gods have him true mathematical theorems and also good advice on major life decisions.
I have to believe that his visions were manifestations of his subconscious mind. Brain scientists tell us that most cognitive activity takes place below the level of consciousness. I believe that most inspiration and creative thought arises from subconscious sources, and that the conscious mind performs an executive function—deciding which intuitions have a basis in reality.