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Originally Posted by Plato  I find that a laughable statement!
Ramanajuan was so myopic as to cause many to question how much mathematics he knew. Only a number theorist would say that. |
Yes that is true, Ramanajuan did not know much math compared to the other mathemations of the century. But his good friend makes the following (I find it totally humorous) remark (taken from Wikipedia):
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Originally Posted by G.H.Hardy The limitations of his knowledge were as startling as its profundity. Here was a man who could work out modular equations and theorems... to orders unheard of, whose mastery of continued fractions was... beyond that of any mathematician in the world, who had found for himself the functional equation of the zeta function and the dominant terms of many of the most famous problems in the analytic theory of numbers; and yet he had never heard of a doubly-periodic function or of Cauchy's theorem, and had indeed but the vaguest idea of what a function of a complex variable was. |
But amognst number theorist he is one of the most respected mathematicians in the area.
However, I disagree with you. Not knowing a lot does not make one necessarily a bad mathemation. In fact, if God was to offer me a a gift of what style of mathematics I want to have, I would pick either Euler or Ramanjuan. Because I am amazed of how Ramanjuan was able to twist and manipulate equations, it is just shocking to see somebody do that so well. He is one of the few from math history who had this strange talent.
What about Poincare, do you agree with that?