NEWSLETTER No
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
NEWSLETTER No. 457 April 2016 THE MAN WHO KNEW INFINITY Film Review One of the most interesting “real life” stories about mathematics is the Hardy- Ramanujan relationship. This was well described in the book The Man Who Knew Infinity by Robert Kanigel and this has now been transformed into the film under review. It stars Jeremy Irons (Hardy), Dev Patel (Ramanujan) and Toby Jones (Littlewood). The film starts with a speech made towards the end of Hardy’s life where he described Ramanujan "as the most romantic figure in the recent history of mathematics" and the whole film can be seen as a romance, if not a love story describing their relationship. As with any many, it is welcome to have a film that depicts close relationship there are conflicts. Several the love of mathematics in a very human way. scenes are about the need for proof. The film Ramanujan is portrayed as being motivated describes Ramanujan as finding his formulae by aesthetics, by form, and by a thirst for through intuition and Hardy tries to tell him knowledge. Additionally, the themes of culture, that he could not publish his results without class and race serve to humanise the material proof, which is one of the major themes of the and the sometimes off-putting image of math- film and symbolic of the cultural clash between ematicians comes out well. Hardy, in particular, the two. He sends Ramanujan to some lectures while being depicted as awkward and lacking given by people with far less talent, which in social skills, is treated with real warmth causes conflict but finally, he does manage to by the end, and some scenes are put aside to prove his results and this led to publication by briefly mention his anti-war politics, as well as the London Mathematical Society, probably the those of Russell, but not in any heavy handed first time the name of our Society has appeared way. However, the idea that the motivation in a film! for learning mathematics is a very human one, At a time when interest in mathematics is high, and that mathematicians can come from all but the school-learned fear of it remains for backgrounds is one that I think will be hugely SOCIETY MEETINGS AND EVENTS • 15 April: Women in Maths Day, Cambridge page 26 • 21 July: Society Meeting at the 7ECM, Berlin page 37 • 20 April: Hirst Lecture & Society Meeting, St Andrews page 5 • 15 September: Midlands Regional Meeting • 22 April: Women in Maths Day, Edinburgh page 26 • 11 November: Graduate Student Meeting, London • 23 June: Northern Regional Meeting page 36 • 11 November: Annual General Meeting, London • 8 July: Graduate Student Meeting, London • 20 December: SW & South Wales Regional • 8 July: Hardy Lecture & Society Meeting, London page 11 Meeting, Bath NEWSLETTER ONLINE: newsletter.lms.ac.uk @LondMathSoc LMS NEWSLETTER http://newsletter.lms.ac.uk Contents No. 457 April 2016 6 22 Awards Modern Topics in Nonlinear PDE and Abel Prize 2016.........................................16 Geometric Analysis.................................4 Cecil King Travel Scholarship.....................18 Postgraduate Group Theory Clay Research Fellows 2016......................8 Conference........................................33 Quantum Physics and Logic....................30 2 Calendar of Events 42 Random Interacting Systems...................31 LMS Items Representation Theory of Algebraic Council Diary..............................................14 Groups....................................................32 Funding for Undergraduate Scottish Partial Differential Equations Colloquium............................30 Mathematical Society Meetings...........15 LMS Grant Schemes..................................13 News Hardy Lecture Tour..................................27 Chalkdust..................................................10 LMS Library at UCL...................................12 European News.........................................9 LMS Meetings Mathematics Policy Round-up.................7 Mathematical Sciences Research David Crighton Lecture............................17 Displayed in Parliament.........................6 Hardy Lecture & Society Meeting.........11 Heilbronn Institute...................................10 Hirst Lecture..............................................2 Voice of the Future..................................7 LMS Gresham College Lecture.................28 LMS Research School, QUB.......................29 Reports Northern Regional Meeting From Symbolic Dynamics to & Workshop............................................36 Approximation Methods........................20 Society Meeting at 7ECM Berlin.............37 Integrable Systems in Newcastle............23 Women in Maths Day..............................26 Mirzakhani Society....................................22 Why be Noncommutative?.......................22 Meetings Reviews Bayesian Methods for Networks..............34 BSDEs......................................................31 Experimental Mathematics......................38 Combinatorics at Oxford..........................30 The Geometry of the Octonions.............40 Computational and Analytic The Man Who Knew Infinity.....................1 Problems in Spectral Theory..................30 Visits Data Linkage and Anonymisation.......... 35 Hou, Yong..................................................24 ECSTATIC 2016...........................................33 Kuna, Tobias...............................................25 Graph Limits and Statistics.......................34 Lin, Jyun-Ao...............................................24 Groups St Andrews 2017.........................32 Lomp, Christian.........................................24 Modelling, Analysis and Simulation.......33 Scott, Dana................................................25 [email protected] No. 457 April 2016 resonant for audiences, as it has been with Littlewood, Russell and Major MacMahon. the interest in Turing in recent years. A nice scene is a discussion between One problem about any film about math- MacMahon and Ramanujan concerning ematics is how much of our subject to the partition function. At first, MacMahon include. Any detail would put the general doubts whether Ramanujan’s formula for audience off. Here they get it about right, p(n) could be correct. MacMahon had and some praise must surely go to Ken Ono, computed p(200) by hand and then found who was the mathematical advisor for the that the analytic formula turned out to give film. Of course, there are many formulae an extremely accurate answer. MacMahon shown but these can be seen as mathemati- changed his mind! cal wallpaper. They do describe the partition Earlier in the film Ramanujan failed to be function p(n) and actually show that p(4)=5 elected a fellow of Trinity and racism played but this should be accessible to everyone. a part here. Towards the end of the film, One point of comparison would be the Hardy proposed that Ramanujan become an film Good Will Hunting, which also depicted FRS and in a moving speech, he persuaded a – this time fictional – mathematical genius, the other fellows to elect him. During his and was received fairly positively. I think it stay in Cambridge, Ramanujan develops tu- fair to say that while that film had a lot of berculosis and goes back to India where he charm, this fim outshines Good Will Hunting dies at the age of 32. in almost every way. The cultural gap is so The acting throughout is first class. Jeremy much more acute and the historical foun- Irons is outstanding as Hardy and he even dation makes all elements of the film more looks like him. Dev Patel is convincing as 3 grounded; from the characters, to the way Ramanujan. Unfortunately, he doesn’t look it presents mathematics to the backdrop like him; Ramanujan was short and fat of the First World War. Most of all it is whereas Patel is quite tall. We particularly more uplifting, embracing the positivity of liked Toby Jones as Littlewood, providing romance, albeit a platonic romance rooted some of the lighter moments. In short, this in a love of mathematics. is perhaps the best film about mathematics The filming is quite beautiful, both in ever made! India and in Cambridge. They were allowed Armando Martino and David Singerman to actually film in Trinity College! Many University of Southampton well-known mathematicians are characters. The Man Who Knew Infinity will be released in the Besides Hardy and Ramanujan we meet UK on 8 April and in the US on 29 April. Editorial team Publication dates and deadlines http://newsletter.lms.ac.uk Editorial office General Editor Published monthly, except August. Items and adver- London Mathematical Society, Mr A.J.S. Mann tisements by the first day of the month prior to publi- De Morgan House, 57–58 Russell ([email protected]) cation, or the closest preceding working day. Notices Square, London WC1B 4HS and advertisements are not accepted for events that Reports Editor occur in the first week of the publication month. (t: 020 7637 3686; Professor I. A. Stewart f: 020 7323 3655) ([email protected]) News items and notices in the Newsletter may be freely used elsewhere unless otherwise stated, al- Events calendar Reviews Editor though attribution is requested when reproducing Updates and corrections to Professor D. Singerman whole articles. Contributions to the Newsletter are [email protected] ([email protected]) made under a non-exclusive licence; please contact Articles Administrative Editor the author or photographer for the rights to repro- Send articles to S.M. Oakes duce. The LMS cannot