Srinivasa Ramanujan: A Life in Numbers
From The Multiverse Employee Handbook by Robb Corrigan
February 24, 2026 · 34 min · Season 3 · Episode 21
About this episode
This episode explores the extraordinary life and contributions of mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan, highlighting his unique approach to mathematics and his collaboration with G.H. Hardy.
In January 1913, Cambridge mathematician G.H. Hardy received a letter from an unknown clerk in Madras containing nine pages of mathematical theorems with no proofs—just raw conclusions that seemed impossibly advanced. 🎧 Did you listen? Help us improve in 2 minutes: https://tally.so/r/nr1evM "They must be true," Hardy concluded, "because if they were not true, no one would have the imagination to invent them." Thus began one of history's most extraordinary mathematical collaborations: a rigorous atheist trying to teach proof methodology to a mystic who claimed the goddess Namagiri showed him formulas in dreams. Today we explore how Srinivasa Ramanujan became one of the twentieth century's most important mathematicians despite minimal formal training, why his work on mock theta functions written on his deathbed in 1920 is now calculating black hole entropy, and what happens when mathematical genius arrives without credentials, formal education, or any intention of showing its working. We discover why Ramanujan's instant recognition of taxi number 1729's properties demonstrated supernatural intimacy with numbers, how his "Lost Notebook" misfiled for fifty-six years contained…
People in this episode
Host: Robb Corrigan
Topics covered
- mathematics
- Srinivasa Ramanujan
- G.H. Hardy
- mock theta functions
- black hole entropy
- mathematical genius
Keywords
- Srinivasa Ramanujan
- G.H. Hardy
- mock theta functions
- black hole entropy
- Lost Notebook
- mathematical genius
- taxi number 1729
Mentioned in this episode
Books & works: Lost Notebook
Places: Madras, India
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