Mathematician's Century-Old Secrets Unlocked | Hacker News Reader

Mathematician's Century-Old Secrets Unlocked

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51 pointsdamien10 comments

I think it is fascinating that (a) this guy dropped knowledge that was WAAAY ahead of his time, so much so that we're just now understanding some of it, and (b) he sincerely believed he obtained some of this knowledge via divine revelation.

That doesn't mean that I believe it was divine revelation. But I have to admit, those 2 facts certainly make the situation interesting.

Second point could have been cultural and also related to upbringing. I understand the conundrum that he should/could have lead to the conclusion about atheism or at least about rational doubts in divinity. But imagine this (everything hypothetical)

1. A kid from the age of 5 or younger, worships a Goddess because of village/family reasons and ask for knowledge

2. He understand he's smarter than everyone around him because of high IQ but attributes it to the Goddess

3. This fuses, in his mind, causality of his intelligence being divinity.

4. To not risk his higher mental faculty, in event of wrath by the God, he kept on believing that his gift is God sent

No, that's not what I meant. What I meant was that the information was so far ahead of its time that it seems like it could have come from a higher intelligence.

So, on the one hand, we must acknowledge how incredibly advanced this guy was, teaching us something we could not even grasp until recently. But at the same time, we feel he was misled by superstition about where that info came from.

We credit him so highly on the one hand, and disbelieve him so cavalierly on the other.

His story can be explained scientifically. But on the spectrum of stories that claim "divine revelation," this one has to be one of the more credible, simply because of how advanced the information was.

"it could have come from a higher intelligence."

Yes, his higher IQ! That's how Newton studied and advanced derivatives.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton%27s_occult_studies

Newton was not far away from Ramanujan divine belief.

Thanks for sharing. I will read more on this. Loved this line

"Newton was not the first of the age of reason, he was the last of the magicians".

Someone in one of the other Ramanujan threads mentioned that if you did have divine guidance and wanted to prove it, dropping information that's ahead of your time but could be verified later is one obvious way.

That's every super intelligent person (as compared to his time's population set) ever. Aren't we proving some of Einstein's work now?

Dupe: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4933656

"cold weather" hurt his health? He got TB from infected milk! He could have lived to a ripe old age at home.

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