British mathematician who produced over 300 research papers, and published the important college textbooks A Course of Pure Mathematics and An Introduction to the Theory of Numbers, as well as the charming, if somewhat dark, commentary A Mathematician's Apology. In addition to being an advocate of rigor in mathematical proof, he was an ardent atheist as well as an avid cricket player and fan. Hardy once wrote a postcard to a friend containing the following New Year's resolutions (Hoffman 1998, p. 81).

1. To prove the Riemann hypothesis,

2. To make a brilliant play in a crucial cricket match,

3. To prove the nonexistence of God,

4. To be the first man atop Mount Everest,

5. To be proclaimed the first president of the U.S.S.R., Great Britain, and Germany, and

6. To murder Mussolini.

Hardy once told Bertrand Russell "If I could prove by logic that you would die in five minutes, I should be sorry you were going to die, but my sorrow would be very much mitigated by pleasure in the proof" (Clark 1976; Hoffman 1998, pp. 84-85).

In 1914, Hardy proved that there are an infinite number of numbers which have and (where is the Riemann zeta function ), but was unable to prove the Riemann hypothesis in full. It was to Hardy that the Indian mathematician Ramanujan mailed some of his results. Recognizing Ramanujan's genius, Hardy brought him to Cambridge where the two worked together. Their collaboration is discussed in Kanigel (1991). After Ramanujan's untimely death, Hardy wrote a book commemorating him by expounding on some of his work (Hardy 1959).

Littlewood, Ramanujan

Additional biographies: MacTutor (St. Andrews)