RAMANUJAN’S well-connected friends secured him a research post at Madras University, and in 1913 encouraged him to contact eminent mathematicians in England.* GH Hardy was so excited by what he saw that he wrote to the India Office immediately about bringing Ramanujan to Cambridge.
Ramanujan, a devoted Hindu, had been brought up to believe foreign travel would be a defilement, but his mother told him the family goddess had appeared and pronounced her blessing. So Ramanujan spent five years collaborating with Hardy, and in 1918 became the first Indian to be elected Fellow of Trinity College. He continued to work as if Mathematics had befriended him, unfolding herself in flashes of insight which he rarely bothered to prove, though nearly all of them were right, and still spark new discoveries today.*
Srinivasa suffered from chronic illness all his life, and in Cambridge his health began to deteriorate seriously. He returned to Madras in 1919, and died in Kumbakonam on April 26th, 1920, aged 32.
Edgar Middlemast helped Ramanujan with his letters, and Gilbert Walker, a mathematician at Trinity College in Cambridge and a friend of Sir Francis Spring, helped him win his place at Madras University.
“Hardy said that this was the most singular experience of his life” wrote CP Snow: “what did modern mathematics look like to someone who had the deepest insight, but who had literally never heard of most of it?”
Précis
In 1913, Ramanujan’s well-placed friends found him a research post as Madras University, and helped him share his ideas with eminent mathematicians in England. One of these, GH Hardy, brought Ramanujan over to Cambridge, where for the next five years Ramanujan enriched Pure Mathematics with a series of brilliant conjectures, until his death in 1919, aged 32. (57 / 60 words)
In 1913, Ramanujan’s well-placed friends found him a research post as Madras University, and helped him share his ideas with eminent mathematicians in England. One of these, GH Hardy, brought Ramanujan over to Cambridge, where for the next five years Ramanujan enriched Pure Mathematics with a series of brilliant conjectures, until his death in 1919, aged 32.
Variations: 1.increase the length of this precis to exactly 60 words. 2.reduce the length of this precis to exactly 50 words. 3.introduce one of the following words into the precis: although, despite, if, may, must, ought, since, unless.
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Word Games
Sevens Based on this passage
Suggest answers to this question. See if you can limit one answer to exactly seven words.
Variations: 1.expand your answer to exactly fourteen words. 2.expand your answer further, to exactly twenty-one words. 3.include one of the following words in your answer: if, but, despite, because, (al)though, unless.
Jigsaws Based on this passage
Express the ideas below in a single sentence, using different words as much as possible. Do not be satisfied with the first answer you think of; think of several, and choose the best.
Spinners Find in Think and Speak
For each group of words, compose a sentence that uses all three. You can use any form of the word: for example, cat → cats, go → went, or quick → quickly, though neigh → neighbour is stretching it a bit.
This exercise uses words found in the accompanying passage.
1 Burn. Clerk. Government.
2 But. Contact. Pass.
3 Draper. Post. Trinity.
Variations: 1. include direct and indirect speech 2. include one or more of these words: although, because, despite, either/or, if, unless, until, when, whether, which, who 3. use negatives (not, isn’t, neither/nor, never, nobody etc.)
Add Vowels Find in Think and Speak
Make words by adding vowels to each group of consonants below. You may add as many vowels as you like before, between or after the consonants, but you may not add any consonants or change the order of those you have been given. See if you can beat our target of common words.
crns (6+4)
acorns. corns. cranes. crones. cronies. croons.
cairns. careens. corneas. coronas.
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