Page 196 - A Mind For Numbers: How to Excel at Math and Science

NEW YORK TIMES SCIENCE WRITER NICHOLAS WADE ON AN INDEPENDENT
MIND

Nicholas Wade writes for the Science Times section of the New
York Times. Always an independent thinker, Wade owes his very
existence to the similar independent thinking of his grandfather—
one of the few male survivors of the Titanic. When most men
followed a rumor and moved to the port side, Wade’s grandfather
followed his intuition and deliberately moved the other way, to
starboard.
Here, Nicholas gives his insight on what he thinks are the most
interesting books about scientists and mathematicians.

“The Man Who Knew Infinity: A Life of the Genius Ramanujan, by
Robert Kanigel. This book tells the unbelievable, rags to intellectual
riches story of the Indian mathematical genius Srinivasa
Ramanujan and his friend British mathematician G. H. Hardy. My
favorite episode is this:
‘Once, in the taxi from London, Hardy noticed its number, 1729.
He must have thought about it a little because he entered the room where Ramanujan lay in bed
and, with scarcely a hello, blurted out his disappointment with it. It was, he declared, “rather a dull
number,” adding that he hoped that wasn’t a bad omen.
‘“No, Hardy,” said Ramanujan. “It is a very interesting number. It is the smallest number
expressible as the sum of two cubes in different ways.”‘
“Noble Savages, by Napoleon Chagnon. This beautifully written adventure story gives a sense
of what it’s like to learn to survive and thrive in an utterly alien culture. Chagnon was originally
trained as an engineer. His scientific research has shifted our understanding of how cultures
develop.
“Men of Mathematics, by E. T. Bell. This is an old classic that’s a show-stopping read for
anyone who’s interested in how fascinating people think. Who could forget brilliant, doomed
Évariste Galois who spent the night before he knew he was to die ‘feverishly dashing off his last
will and testament, writing against time to glean a few of the great things in his teeming mind
before the death which he foresaw could overtake him. Time after time he broke off to scribble in
the margin “I have not time; I have not time,” and passed on to the next frantically scrawled
outline.’ Truth be told, this is one of the few exciting stories that Professor Bell perhaps
exaggerated, although Galois unquestionably spent that last evening putting the final polish on his
life’s work. But this brilliant book has inspired generations of both men and women.”