[lbo-talk] Boddi's claims about Ramanujan

[boddi satva]

On 10/10/06, ravi <ravi.bulk at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> My mail from LBO is behaving rather weirdly and I am trying to figure
> out the reason why. Additionally I am on moderation on LBO, perhaps
> because of change of address. In the meantime, I am losing messages and
> may not as a result respond to some of your posts addressed to me. From
> the archive, I see this bit from Boddi:
>
> Boddi writes:
> >> quoting me:
> >> In the early 20th century, at the peak of mathematical discovery and
> >> knowledge, as Hilbert posed his mighty questions, while Frege and
> >> Russell laid the firm foundations, there was an obscure, non-academic
> >> clerk (no, not Einstein ;-)) who sent a bunch of crazy claims to the
> >> mathematician G.H.Hardy. This man became what Hardy claimed a few years
> >> later, jokingly, as the only romantic episode in his life. The amazing
> >> results (not all of them correct), claimed Ramanujan, appeared to him in
> >> his dreams, as the Goddess Namagiri recited them out to him. Given this
> >> certain a source, he probably found Hardy's attempts to prove the
> >> results a strange hobby. It was fortunate that Hardy knew to distinguish
> >> the insight from the process of proving it.
> >
> > Seriously, this is rubbish. Ramanujan's PROOFS are things of
> > tremendous elegance, creating new insights from first principles -
> > well, nearly first principles. There is simply no evidence whatever
> > that the Goddess Namagiri even exists. Ramanujan did not rely on the
> > goddess, but constant work in his brain and on his chalkboard.
> > Possibly because he used the chalkboard, he tended to start his proofs
> > nearer the end than the beginning, but that is a perfectly valid way
> > of working, as is working in a team, which Hardy and Ramanujan became.
> > And they were a solid, scientific team, perfectly able to meet the
> > rigorous requirements of the discipline.
> >
>
> This is utter nonsense of the most disingenuous sort. Of course there is
> no evidence of the existence of Gods and Goddesses! Is this a matter of
> surprise to you? It is irrelevant whether the Goddess Namagiri exists.
> What is relevant is if Ramanujan uttered and believed what he said about
> his insights (and the Goddess) and whether he believed that that gave
> him reason to trust the insights -- something that most [biographical]
> texts about Ramanujan talk about.

Then why include the Goddess in this discussion. I thought it was an
appeal to mysticism which you seem to get very close to with the
astrology stuff. The question underlying all this is what method you
would propose for getting to (or, more properly, near) the truth
faster and better than science?

You have some objections, but you seem uncomfortable actually taking
on science and saying there is a better way to get to (or near) the
truth. You want to question the validity of science. You talk about
goddesses. What am I to think.

After all, there is a full-scale war being waged against science all
the time, from charlatans and reactionary religious people.


> Ramanujan was not mathematically illiterate. Quite the opposite. He
> could and often did prove his results, often in unique ways. But it is a
> joke to read this stuff about "solid, scientific team", especially when
> talking about mathematicians, and in particular about Ramanujan.
>
> All this hand-waving about "rubbish" and promiscuity in claiming
> personalities re-begs the question of your definition of science. What
> is it that you mean when you write "solid science"? What is this
> "science" and what is the "solid" version of it? This might help clarify
> what the mud hut is (the entire span of the results of human
> rationality, which has helped us survive and thrive in the planet for a
> few million years) and what the mansion is (exactly that: a mansion... a
> luxury).

The reason that Ramanujan's greatness comes through to us today is
that he linked up with a great mathematician who helped him bring his
work up to the rigorous (solid, scientific) standards of the
discipline. We know Ramanujan's work with Hardy was solid science
because it has withstood the test of time and offered important
insights. Ramanujan's source of inspiration had very little to do with
his scientific greatness. That source of inspiration is personal and
non-transferrable. His scientific greatness was acheived later, as his
work with Hardy underwent peer review and became the basis for work of
other mathematicians. You forget also that science is always the
product of a community.

Arguably, his devotion to nonsensical religious traditions killed him.
Fine to be a romantic figure, but he did the world no favors by dying
because he wouldn't eat. Okay, it was British food of the wartime
period and dying might well have seemed a reasonable option rather
than eating.


> The contrast I am offering however is not between Hilbert and Ramanujan,
> for the former's new methods of existential proofs were considered
> "theological" by some of the experts of the time!

Yeah, but they weren't "theological", they were mathematical. They
were very inspired, to be sure, but they were mathematical. Their
value is in their use-value. So we are not all taking surplus labor
from the Goddess.

Boddi