[UpstandingUser]

This is one of the big tragedies of Ramanujan. We have all these miraculous mathematics from him but we don't really know how he got there. A lot of this stuff we already knew, but he seems to have found it all out independently. No idea how though, all because he was too poor to buy paper. Jeez.

[nerdponx]

I had no idea he did all his work on a big slate. His working memory must have been astoundingly good.

[tshanmu]

Maybe thats what made him what he was - working in an ephemeral medium forcing his working memory to adapt in ways that are conducive to doing mathematics?

For a comparison on the other end our spatial memory structures in the brain have changed since widespread use of gps/mapping apps, apparently.

[linspace]

Short term memory is very important for problem solving. Euler continued to work and publish mathematics after becoming blind