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 British mathematician who produced over
300 research papers, and published the important college textbooks
A Course of Pure Mathematics and An Introduction to the
Theory of Numbers, as well as the charming, if somewhat dark,
commentary A Mathematician's Apology. In addition to being an
advocate of rigor in mathematical proof, he was an ardent atheist as
well as an avid cricket player and fan. Hardy once wrote a postcard
to a friend containing the following New Year's resolutions (Hoffman
1998, p. 81).
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- 1. To prove the Riemann
hypothesis,
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- 2. To make a brilliant play in a crucial cricket match,
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- 3. To prove the nonexistence of God,
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- 4. To be the first man atop Mount Everest,
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- 5. To be proclaimed the first president of the U.S.S.R., Great
Britain, and Germany, and
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- 6. To murder Mussolini.
Hardy once told Bertrand
Russell "If I could prove by logic that you would die in five
minutes, I should be sorry you were going to die, but my sorrow
would be very much mitigated by pleasure in the proof" (Clark 1976;
Hoffman 1998, pp. 84-85).
In 1914, Hardy proved that there are an infinite number of
numbers  which have  and
 (where  is the Riemann
zeta function ), but was unable to prove the Riemann
hypothesis in full. It was to Hardy that the Indian mathematician Ramanujan
mailed some of his results. Recognizing Ramanujan's genius, Hardy
brought him to Cambridge where the two worked together. Their
collaboration is discussed in Kanigel (1991). After Ramanujan's
untimely death, Hardy wrote a book commemorating him by expounding
on some of his work (Hardy 1959).
 Littlewood,
Ramanujan
Additional biographies: MacTutor
(St. Andrews)
References
A. H. S. "Obituary: G. H. Hardy." Oxford
Mag. 66, No. 9, Jan. 22, 1948.
Clark, R. W. The
Life of Bertrand Russell. New York: Knopf, p. 176,
1976.
Hardy, G. H. Ramanujan:
Twelve Lectures on Subjects Suggested by his Life and Work.
New York: Chelsea, 1959.
Hardy, G. H. A
Course of Pure Mathematics, 10th ed. Cambridge, England:
Cambridge University Press, 1993.
Hardy, G. H. A
Mathematician's Apology, reprinted with a foreword by
C. P. Snow. New York: Cambridge University Press,
1993.
Hardy, G. H. and Rogosinski, W. W. Fourier
Series. New York: Dover, 1999.
Hardy, G. H. and Wright, E. M. An
Introduction to the Theory of Numbers. Oxford, England:
Oxford University Press, 1980.
Hoffman, P. The
Man Who Loved Only Numbers. New York: Hyperion,
pp. 78-92, 1998.
Kanigel, R. The
Man Who Knew Infinity: A Life of the Genius Ramanujan. New
York: Washington Square Press, 1991.
Author: Eric W. Weisstein
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