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From: paulv@boring.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.math
Subject: Re: A number theory problem
Message-ID: <6608@boring.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 31-Aug-85 17:41:35 EDT
Article-I.D.: boring.6608
Posted: Sat Aug 31 17:41:35 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 2-Sep-85 04:24:44 EDT
References: <388@aero.ARPA>
Reply-To: paulv@boring.UUCP (Paul Vitanyi)
Organization: CWI, Amsterdam
Lines: 21
Apparently-To: rnews@mcvax.LOCAL

In article <388@aero.ARPA> sinclair@aero.UUCP (William S. Sinclair) writes:
>
>Most of you have probably heard the story of Ramanujan, who was riding
>in the cab with a friend. They were discussing his room number 1729,
>when his friend remarked that it was an uninteresting number.
>"Oh no" Ramanujan replied. "it is the smallest number that can be written
>as the sum of two cubes in two different ways".
>
>                                   Bill Sinclair (asbestos Willie)


According to C.P. Snow in the preface to G.H. Hardy's `A Mathematicians
Apology':
	Hardy used to visit him as he lay dying in hospital at Putney.
[He] always inept about introducing a conversation, said, probably
without greeting, and certainly as his first remark,: `I thought
the number of my taxicab was 1729. It seemed to me a rather dull
number.' To which Ramanujan replied: `No Hardy! no Hardy! It is a
very interesting number. It is the smallest number expressible as
the sum of two cubes in two different ways.'