Robert Kanigel Livres

In 1913, a young unschooled Indian clerk wrote a letter to G H Hardy, begging the pre-eminent English mathematician's opinion on several ideas he had about numbers. Realising the letter was the work of a genius, Hardy arranged for Srinivasa Ramanujan to come to England. Thus began one of the most improbable and productive collaborations ever chronicled. With a passion for rich and evocative detail, Robert Kanigel takes us from the temples and slums of Madras to the courts and chapels of Cambridge University, where the devout Hindu Ramanujan, 'the Prince of Intuition,' tested his brilliant theories alongside the sophisticated and eccentric Hardy, 'the Apostle of Proof'. In time, Ramanujan's creative intensity took its he died at the age of thirty-two and left behind a magical and inspired legacy that is still being plumbed for its secrets today.

On an Irish Island tells the remarkable story of a remote outpost nearly untouched by time in the first half of the twentieth century, and of the adventurous men and women who visited and were inspired by it. In a love letter to a vanished way of life, Robert Kanigel brings to life this wildly beautiful island, notable for the vivid communal life of its residents and the unadulterated Irish they spoke well into the twentieth century. With the Irish language rapidly disappearing, Great Blasket became a magnet for scholars, linguists, and writers during the Gaelic renaissance. As we follow these visitors—among them John Millington Synge, author of The Playboy of the Western World—we are captivated both by the tiny group of islanders who kept an entire country’s past alive and by their complex relationships with those who brought the island’s story to the larger world.

From the author of the best-selling The Man Who Knew Infinity, comes an unprecedented look at the traditional master-apprentice relationship alive today in modern science. Robert Kanigel takes us into the heady world of a remarkable group of scientists working at the National Institutes of Health and the Johns Hopkins a dynasty of American researchers who for more than forty years have made Nobel Prize-and Lasker Award-winning breakthroughs in biomedical science. He brilliantly captures the drama of fine minds and explosice personalities at work-whether Bernard Brodie and Julius Axelrod discovering a new wonder drug called Tylenol or Solomon Snyder and Candace Pert unlocking the chemical secrets of the brain. And as we watch ideas debated, expierments working and failing, careers and relationships tested, and professional honors lost and won, we see close up all that is so deeply human in the practice of science. In a new epilogue to this edition, Kanigel brings us up-to-date on the lives and careers of these unforgettable personalities.

'One of the finest, best-documented biographies ever published about a modern mathematician' - Martin Gardner In 1913, a young unschooled Indian clerk wrote a letter to G H Hardy, begging the pre-eminent English mathematician's opinion on several ideas he had about numbers. Realising the letter was the work of a genius, Hardy arranged for Srinivasa Ramanujan to come to England. Thus began one of the most improbable and productive collaborations ever chronicled. With a passion for rich and evocative detail, Robert Kanigel takes us from the temples and slums of Madras to the courts and chapels of Cambridge University, where the devout Hindu Ramanujan, 'the Prince of Intuition,' tested his brilliant theories alongside the sophisticated and eccentric Hardy, 'the Apostle of Proof'. In time, Ramanujan's creative intensity took its toll: he died at the age of thirty-two and left behind a magical and inspired legacy that is still being plumbed for its secrets today. Biographical Notes Robert Kanigel is the author of six other books, including The Man Who Knew Infinity. After 13 years as professor of science writing at MIT, he has returned to full-time writing in Baltimore.

A biography of the Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan. The book gives a detailed account of his upbringing in India, his mathematical achievements, and his mathematical collaboration with English mathematician G. H. Hardy. The book also reviews the life of Hardy and the academic culture of Cambridge University during the early twentieth century.

From the acclaimed biographer of Jane Jacobs and Srinivasa Ramanujan comes the first full life and work of arguably the most influential classical scholar of the twentieth century, who overturned long-entrenched notions of ancient epic poetry and enlarged the very idea of literature. In this literary detective story, Robert Kanigel givers us a long overdue portrait of Milman Parry, an Oakland druggist's son who became known as the "Darwin of Homeric studies." So thoroughly did he change our thinking about the origins of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey that scholars today refer to a "before" Parry and an "after." Before Parry's trailblazing work in the 1930s, centuries of readers took it for granted that the Homeric epics were "written," like any other literature; today, after Parry, we realize that they evolved out of a long and winding oral tradition. Parry made it his life's work to develop and prove this revolutionary theory, and Kanigel brilliantly tells his remarkable story--cut short by Parry's mysterious death by gunshot wound at the age of thirty-three. From UC Berkeley to the Sorbonne to Harvard to Yugoslavia--where he traveled to prove his idea definitively by studying its traditional singers of heroic poetry--we follow Parry on his idiosyncratic journey, observing just how his early notions blossomed into a full-fledged theory. Kanigel gives us an intimate portrait of Parry's marriage to Marian Thanhouser and their struggles as young parents in Paris, and he explores the circumstances of Parry's tragic death at the Palms Hotel in Los Angeles. Tracing Parry's legacy to the modern day, Kanigel shows how what began as an attempt to understand the Homeric epics evolved into a new field altogether, "oral theory," which today illuminates everything from Beowulf to jazz improvisation, from the Old Testament to hip-hop. -- From dust jacket

Presents a collection of essays unlike any other stuffy attempt at introducing the modern reader to the Great Books.

Focusing on personal transformation, Robert Kanigel's memoir recounts his evolution from a conventional engineer to a celebrated writer, all set against the backdrop of Baltimore's vibrant culture. Through a reflective narrative, he shares the challenges and triumphs of his unconventional journey, emphasizing the importance of love and work in shaping his identity. This memoir serves as an inspiring testament for aspiring writers, highlighting the potential for creativity to emerge from unexpected paths.

From Leatherette to Naugahyde, men and women have devoted enormous energy to making fake leather seem real. Faux Real explores this borderland of the almost-real, the ersatz, and the fake, illuminating a centuries-old culture war between the authentic and the imitative.

The first major biography of the irrepressible woman who changed the way we view and live in cities, and whose influence is felt to this day. Jane Jacobs was a phenomenal woman who wrote seven groundbreaking books, saved neighborhoods, stopped expressways, was arrested twice, and engaged in thousands of impassioned debates—all of which she won. Robert Kanigel's revelatory portrait of Jacobs, based on new sources and interviews, brings to life the child who challenged her third-grade teacher; the high school poet; the mother who raised three children; the journalist who honed her skills at Architectural Forum and Fortune before writing her most famous book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities; and the activist who helped lead a successful protest against Robert Moses’s proposed expressway through her beloved Greenwich Village.