Abstract

It is now just over one hundred years since the beginning of the mathematical partnership between the Cambridge analyst G. H. Hardy and the Indian mathematical genius Srinivasa Ramanujan, one of the most celebrated collaborations in the history of mathematics. Indeed, the story of how Ramanujan was brought from India to Cambridge and feted by the British mathematical establishment now borders on legendary. But, in the context of this collection of articles, it provides an interesting case study of mathematical exchange. This paper considers one particular product of the Hardy-Ramanujan creative partnership: their 1918 paper on partitions, and argues that the exchange of ideas prompted by their work on this paper was facilitated in part by their membership of the premier learned body in Britain for the advancement of mathematical research: the London Mathematical Society.