Re: Oddity
>Oddities like this remind me of a story that I have now copied from C. P. >Snow's forwards to "A Mathematician's Apology" by G. H. Hardy. A lovely and >short book that I must re-read. Sadly the story has no relevance to Sundials >nor to the calendar so if you are offended by my straying off the approved >topic I crave your forgiveness. > >". The Royal Society elected him a Fellow at the age of >thirty (which, even for a mathematician, is very young). Trinity also >elected him a Fellow in the same year. He was the first Indian to be given >either of these distinctions. He was amiably grateful. But he soon became >ill. It was difficult, in war-time to move him to a kinder climate. > > >"Hardy used to visit him, as he lay dying in hospital at Putney. It was on >one of those visits that there happened the incident of the taxi-cab number. >Hardy had gone out to Putney by taxi, as usual his chosen method of >conveyance. He went into the room where Ramanujan was lying. Hardy, always >inept about introducing a conversation, said, probably without a greeting, >and certainly as his first remark: ' I thought the number of my taxi-cab was >1729. It seemed to me rather a dull number.' To which Ramanujan replied: >'No, Hardy! No, Hardy! It is a very interesting number. It is the smallest >number expressible as the sum of two cubes in two different ways.' > > >That is the exchange as Hardy recorded it. It must be substantially >accurate. He was the most honest of men; and further, no one could possibly >have invented it." > Further to the above: Srinivasa Ramanujan was a clerk in the accounts department of the Post Office Trust in Madras when, at the age of about 23 (his words) he wrote to G. H. Hardy. He enclosed some of his mathematical work on divergent series. Hardy deserves the highest credit for taking Ramanujan seriously. He wrote: "I should like you to begin by trying to reconstruct the immediate reactions of an ordinary professional mathematician who receives a letter like this from an unknown Hindu clerk. The first question was whether I could recognise anything. Some of the formulae seemed vaguely familiar. Some of (them) defeated me completely. I had never seen anything in the least like them before. A single look at them is enough to show that they could only have been written down by a mathematician of the highest class. They must be true, because if they were not true, no-one would have had the imagination to invent them" In 1987 Channel 4 produced a programme on Ramanujan. He died in India (not Putney) in 1920, aged 32 but his wife, a simple, unsophisticated woman was shown on film. Over the doorway of his house there was an inconspicuous plaque bearing his name, followed by the letters FRS. He was one of the world's great mathematicians. According to Hardy, throughout his life his formulae seemed to be arrived at by the most extraordinary routes, often with a rather tenuous grasp of what constituted a rigorous proof. In one of his theoretical answers a man was set to compute the correct result by hand. It took him a month. As his answer was about four trillion and differed from Ramanujan's by only 0.004 and as the answer was necessarily a whole number and not a fraction Ramanujan was clearly right. Frank 55N 1W -- Frank Evans
Re: Oddity
Oddities like this remind me of a story that I have now copied from C. P. Snow's forwards to "A Mathematician's Apology" by G. H. Hardy. A lovely and short book that I must re-read. Sadly the story has no relevance to Sundials nor to the calendar so if you are offended by my straying off the approved topic I crave your forgiveness. ". The Royal Society elected him a Fellow at the age of thirty (which, even for a mathematician, is very young). Trinity also elected him a Fellow in the same year. He was the first Indian to be given either of these distinctions. He was amiably grateful. But he soon became ill. It was difficult, in war-time to move him to a kinder climate. "Hardy used to visit him, as he lay dying in hospital at Putney. It was on one of those visits that there happened the incident of the taxi-cab number. Hardy had gone out to Putney by taxi, as usual his chosen method of conveyance. He went into the room where Ramanujan was lying. Hardy, always inept about introducing a conversation, said, probably without a greeting, and certainly as his first remark: ' I thought the number of my taxi-cab was 1729. It seemed to me rather a dull number.' To which Ramanujan replied: 'No, Hardy! No, Hardy! It is a very interesting number. It is the smallest number expressible as the sum of two cubes in two different ways.' That is the exchange as Hardy recorded it. It must be substantially accurate. He was the most honest of men; and further, no one could possibly have invented it." At 22:31 23/11/1999 +0100, Jean-Paul Cornec wrote: >It is curious to note there is almost the same >lapse of time between the two "all-odd" >dates and the two "all-even" dates : a bit more >than years. > >Jean-Paul Cornec > >48°44'24" N - 3°27'27"W > >-- >> De : Tony Moss <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >> A : Sundial Mail List > >> Objet : Oddity >> Date : dimanche 21 novembre 1999 11:41 >> >> This snippet came to me too late to share on >the day. >> >> I can't vouch for it's accuracy I'm afraid. >> >> Tony Moss. >> >> >> << Today is November 19th, 1999. >> >The numerical format for Wednesday was >11-17-1999. All of the DIGITS are >> >odd. The next Odd day is 11-19-1999. (which >is today) The next >> >Odd day after that will be 1-1-3111 - which >is well over a thousand >> years >> >away, which we will never see. >> >Days such as 4-13-89 have both even and odd >digits, thus, it is neither >> odd >> >nor even. >> >The next even day will be 2-2-2000 - the >first one since 8-28-888. So, >> now >> >you have a reason to celebrate this Friday as >it'll be your last odd >> day on >> >Earth!! >> > > --Andrew Pettit e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Postman Pat: 3, Lucastes Road, HAYWARDS HEATH, West Sussex, RH16 1JJ, ENGLAND Tel. UK: (+44) (0)1444 453111
Re: Oddity
It is curious to note there is almost the same lapse of time between the two "all-odd" dates and the two "all-even" dates : a bit more than years. Jean-Paul Cornec 48°44'24" N - 3°27'27"W -- > De : Tony Moss <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > A : Sundial Mail List > Objet : Oddity > Date : dimanche 21 novembre 1999 11:41 > > This snippet came to me too late to share on the day. > > I can't vouch for it's accuracy I'm afraid. > > Tony Moss. > > > << Today is November 19th, 1999. > >The numerical format for Wednesday was 11-17-1999. All of the DIGITS are > >odd. The next Odd day is 11-19-1999. (which is today) The next > >Odd day after that will be 1-1-3111 - which is well over a thousand > years > >away, which we will never see. > >Days such as 4-13-89 have both even and odd digits, thus, it is neither > odd > >nor even. > >The next even day will be 2-2-2000 - the first one since 8-28-888. So, > now > >you have a reason to celebrate this Friday as it'll be your last odd > day on > >Earth!! >
Re: Oddity
Message text written by "The Shaws" > Is the digit 0 an even number? An interesting concept. If not, we still have 30.11.1999 to look forward to. Mike My definitions might be wrong, but here goes: An even number is any number, when divided by 2, yields an integer. Zero is an integer (According to "Calculus with Analytic Geometry" by Sleznick and Crowell, W. W. Norton & Co. 1968.) Then Zero is an even number. See you in 3111. Bill Gottesman Burlington, VT
Re: Oddity
Is the digit 0 an even number? An interesting concept. If not, we still have 30.11.1999 to look forward to. Mike [EMAIL PROTECTED] 53.37N 3.02W Chester, UK
Oddity
This snippet came to me too late to share on the day. I can't vouch for it's accuracy I'm afraid. Tony Moss. << Today is November 19th, 1999. >The numerical format for Wednesday was 11-17-1999. All of the DIGITS are >odd. The next Odd day is 11-19-1999. (which is today) The next >Odd day after that will be 1-1-3111 - which is well over a thousand years >away, which we will never see. >Days such as 4-13-89 have both even and odd digits, thus, it is neither odd >nor even. >The next even day will be 2-2-2000 - the first one since 8-28-888. So, now >you have a reason to celebrate this Friday as it'll be your last odd day on >Earth!!
