It’s easier to accept John Nash than the goddess Namagiri
[ by Charles Cameron — delighted to find Ramanujan is not alone in dreaming of mathematics ]
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When the Hinduism Today writer above says people found Ramanujan‘s assertion that his equations were given him in dreams by the local goddess Namagiri “irksome” he was understing the case: many mathematicians are allergic to the idea of a goddess providing inspiration to a mathematician in a devotional dream state. Thus Krishnaswami Alladi, in his Review of the Movie on the mathematical genius Ramanujan, writes:
The legend is that the Hindu Goddess Namagiri came in Ramanujan’s dreams and gave him these formulae..
See? It’s a legend, a priori, since “goddesses” don’t exist.
John Nash, he of the Beautiful Mind, game theory equilibria, and the Nobel Prize, on the other hand — if he provides inspiration to a fellow mathematician in a dream?
Why, his solution can be acknowledged as such in a learned paper..
January 8th, 2017 at 3:20 am
I think you need to define dream.
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I am not sure how much into quantum physics Nash was, but a dream is the dimensionally interference of a reality that doesn’t satisfy you or gives you much pleasure, i.e. the realization of happiness.