UPSC Prelims 2016 · Question 24 of 98
UPSC Prelims 2016 question on Man Who Knew Infinity
- ExamUPSC CSE
- Year2016
- PaperGeneral Studies Paper I
- SubjectScience and Technology
- TopicMiscellaneous Science and Technology
- DifficultyMedium
- TypeDirect
A recent movie titled The Man Who Knew Infinity is based on the biography of
Show answer
Answer: A. S. Ramanujan
Verdict
The answer is S. Ramanujan. The film The Man Who Knew Infinity is based on his life.
Analysis
The film takes its title and material from Robert Kanigel's biography of Srinivasa Ramanujan, the self taught mathematician from Kumbakonam whose collaboration with G. H. Hardy at Cambridge produced extraordinary results in number theory before his early death. The other three names are all eminent Indian physicists rather than mathematicians: S. Chandrasekhar for stellar structure, S. N. Bose for Bose-Einstein statistics, and C. V. Raman for the scattering effect that carries his name.
Source
The Hindu review of the film.
How to crack it
The title carries the clue, since infinity is a mathematical rather than a physical idea, and only one of the four names is a mathematician. Sorting the option set by discipline before recalling the film answers the question outright. More broadly, keep a short list of Indian scientists with their one defining contribution, because awards, anniversaries and films keep bringing them back into the paper in different forms.
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