One day in January 1913. G. H. Hardy, a famous Cambridge University mathematician received a letter from an Indian named Srinivasa Ramanujan asking him for his opinion of 120 mathematical theorems that Ramanujan said he had discovered. To Hardy, many of the theorems made no sense. Of the others, one or two were already well-known. Ramanujan must be some kind of trickplayer, Hardy decided, and put the letter aside. But all that day the letter kept hanging round Hardy. Might there be something in those wild-looking theorems?
1913年1月的一天。剑桥大学著名数学家G.H.哈迪收到一位名叫斯里尼瓦瑟·拉马努金的印度人的来信，询问他对自己已经发现的120个数学定理的看法。对哈迪来说，这些定理中有很多毫无意义。在另一些中，有一两个已经很有名。拉马努金一定是个骗子，哈迪决定把信放在一边。但那一整天，这封信一直萦绕在哈迪的心头。这些看似疯狂的定理中可能有些什么呢？
That evening Hardy invited another brilliant Cambridge mathematician, J. E. Littlewood, and the two men set out to assess the Indian’s worth. That incident was a turning point in the history of mathematics.
那天晚上，哈迪邀请了另一位才华横溢的剑桥数学家J·E·利特尔伍德，两人开始评估这位印度人的价值。那次事件是数学史上的一个转折点。
At the time, Ramanujan was an obscure Madras Port Trust clerk. A little more than a year later, he was at Cambridge University, and beginning to be recognized as one of the most amazing mathematicians the world has ever known. Though he died in 1920, much of his work was so far in advance of his time that only in recent years is it beginning to be properly understood.
当时，拉马努金是马德拉斯港口信托公司一名默默无闻的职员。一年多后，他进入剑桥大学，开始被公认为世界上有史以来最了不起的数学家之一。尽管他于1920年去世，但他的大部分工作成果都远远超前于他的时代，直到最近几年才开始被人们正确地理解。
Indeed, his results are helping solve today’s problems in computer science and physics, problems that he could have had no notion of.
事实上，他的研究结果有助于解决当今计算机科学和物理领域的问题，而这些问题他根本不知道。
For Indians, moreover, Ramanujan has a special significance. Ramanujan, though born in poor and ill-paid accountant’s family 100 years ago, has inspired many Indians to adopt mathematics as career.
此外，对于印度人来说，拉马努金有着特殊的意义。拉马努金虽然100年前出生在一个贫穷、收入微薄的会计师家庭，但他激励了许多印度人将数学作为职业。
Much of Ramanujan’s work is in number theory, a branch of mathematics that deals with the subtle laws and relationships that govern numbers. Mathematicians describe his results as elegant and beautiful but they are much too complex to be appreciated by laymen.
拉马努詹的大部分工作都在数论中，这是数学的一个分支，研究数字间的微妙规律和关系。数学家们形容他的结果优雅而美丽，但这些结果太复杂了，外行人无法欣赏。
His life, though, is full of drama and sorrow. It is one of the great romantic stories of mathematics, a distressing reminder that genius can surface and rise in the most unpromising circumstances.
然而，他的生活充满了戏剧性和悲伤。这是数学史中一个伟大的浪漫故事，令人痛心地提醒我们，天才可以在最没有希望的情况下浮出水面并崛起。
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