December 22 marks the 125th anniversary of the birth of
Srinivasa Ramanujan, an Indian mathematician renowned for somehow intuiting
extraordinary numerical patterns and connections without the use of proofs or
modern mathematical tools. A devout Hindu, Ramanujan said that his findings
were divine, revealed to him in dreams by the goddess Namagiri.
“I wanted to do something special, in the spirit of
Ramanujan, to mark the anniversary,” says Emory mathematician Ken Ono. “It’s
fascinating to me to explore his writings and imagine how his brain may have
worked. It’s like being a mathematical anthropologist.”