The secret behind 1729: GH Hardy, Ramanujan and the world’s most interesting number
In 1919, the legendary British mathematician GH Hardy visited his ailing friend Srinivasa Ramanujan at a hospital in Putney, London. He arrived in a taxi bearing the number 1729, and joked that it seemed “rather a dull” number. Ramanujan, with a spark of brilliance, countered: “No, Hardy, it is a very interesting number. It is…