[swagmoney1606]

> Would you be able to spot a Ramanujan from the dross?

Yes. We would do this by analyzing their arguments for logical errors, then testing their new theory, then hopefully proving their new theory. The difference between a crazy and genius is the results their new ideas produce.

[syndicatedjelly]

I don't think you appreciate how crazy Ramanujan was in his time. While he was somewhat appreciated in India (not at any high level though), when he reached out to professors in the UK, the first several thought he had no ability to become a mathematician. They were used to seeing mathematical proofs, and Ramanujan not providing any made him appear fraudulent. The only one who understood his brilliance was G.H. Hardy, also considered an eccentric by his peers.

In Ramanujan's words, "an equation for me has no meaning unless it expresses a thought of God". In mathematician circles of the early 20th century, this was an obscene statement. Even today, can you imagine a researcher in any field saying something like that, and being taken seriously?

Yet Ramanujan is probably one of the greatest mathematicians of all time. In Hardy's word, he had "never met his equal, and can compare [Ramanujan] only with Euler or Jacobi".

To think that "we" (whoever you mean by that) can recognize sheer talent of Ramanujan's type is, frankly, arrogant. If anything, the ivory towers are even more enclosed - research is more and more about the quantity of publications, not about the quality of ideas. A recent Nobel Laureate stated that if he had not received the Nobel Prize, his university would have probably fired him, for lack of a consistent publication record.

So no, I don't agree with your statement. While the scientific method you describe for approaching nature has worked tremendously well for understanding the world, it still completely fails to capture the core of what it is that makes a person a true genius.

[soundarana]

For one Ramanujan you have 1000 cranks.

[syndicatedjelly]

Which only proves the point further - Hardy could have easily selected one of the other 999 cranks, yet by some intuition he knew that Ramanujan was the real deal.

    After seeing Ramanujan's theorems on continued fractions on the last page of the manuscripts, Hardy said the theorems "defeated me completely; I had never seen anything in the least like them before", and that they "must be true, because, if they were not true, no one would have the imagination to invent them".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srinivasa_Ramanujan#Contacting...

[keeganpoppen]

1,000,000 cranks

[mulmen]

Ideas are cheap and proof is expensive. It’s impossible to give all ideas equal consideration. You have to apply a filter, it’s inevitable. The question is just what filter you apply.

[l33t7332273]

In math, proof is not generally so expensive, so perhaps Ramanujan was not the best example.

[penteract]

Ramanujan was missed by at least one maths professor. Also, there are mathematical proofs such as that of Fermat's last theorem, or the claimed proof of the abc conjecture by Shinichi Mochizuki for which verification is very difficult.

I'll agree that the costs don't come close to replicating work by LIGO or CERN.

[Tainnor]

There's a difference between a flawed proof (e.g. Wiles's original proof of FLT which was found to contain a gap) and outright crankery, though. There are more mathematical cranks than most people would think, and their arguments usually fall apart rather easily.