Date: Tuesday, November 13, 2007 Time: 4:00 p.m. Room: CSE E121 Opening Remarks by Dr. Angel Kwolek-Folland (Interim Associate Provost) Reception:At 5:00 p.m. in LIT 339

Abstract: David Leavitt will read from and discuss his novel "The Indian Clerk" based on the story of G. H. Hardy's collaboration with Srinivasa Ramanujan. The colloquium will focus on such topics as: Why a novel and not a biography? How a novelist came to be interested in the story of two mathematicians. The adventures of a mathematical novice in the world (and minds) of two great heroes of pure mathematics.

ABOUT RAMANUJAN AND HARDY: Srinivasa Ramanujan (1887-1920), a self taught mathematical genius from rural India, dazzled mathematicians at Cambridge University, England, in the early twentieth century by sending bewildering mathematical formulae in a series of letters. There is a legend that the Hindu Goddess Namagiri came in Ramanujan's dreams and presented him these formulae! G. H. Hardy of Cambridge was convinced that Ramanujan was a genius of the class of Euler and Jacobi, and invited Ramanujan to Cambridge. The rest is history! The mathematics department has one of the strongest research programs in the world related to Ramanujan's work. Ramanujan's remarkable life story, and his great collaboration with Hardy have been portrayed in books and stage productions. David Leavitt's novel is the most recent development and has attracted a lot of attention in the press.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER: English Professor David Leavitt is the author of several novels including : "The Body of Jonah Boyd," "While England Sleeps," and "Equal Affections." He is a recipient of fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation and the the National Endowment for the Arts. His latest work, the novel "The Indian Clerk," has won acclaim in reviews in The New York Times, The Washington Post and USA Today, among others.