When Henry Ford, climbed up to Edison's Office, in 1891, more than a 130 yea rs ago, he may have resembled a farm boy ,but his thoughts were those of a king !
As he made his way to Edison's office, his mind was at work. Since the last few months rare thoughts had taken possession of his rarified mind. He had been tinkering in his inner most consciousness - about developing a quadricycle powered by motor run by gasoline.
And who else to confer but the great man himself. Though the meeting did not transpire, Ford ended up with a job as an engineer with the Edison Illuminating Company. The break would change his life forever. Ford's desire was not a wild wish. It was an overwhelming desire which transcended everything else. He had fixed it in his inner consciousness that come what may he would be associated with the great man.
"Dependent people need others to get what they want. Independent people can get what they want through their own effort. Interdependent people combine their own efforts with the efforts of others to achieve their greatest success. "Steven R Covey."
Minkowski's contribution to the development of special relativity was in effect greater in impact. Minkowski new
mathematical formalism to the special theory, in a way enabled Einstein to
solve the problems of gravitation by means of general theory-"Whether he would ever have done it without the genius of Minkowski we cannot tell."
Hardy lived on for some 27 years after Ramanujan's death, to the ripe old age of 70. When asked in an interview what his greatest contribution to mathematics was, Hardy unhesitatingly replied that it was the discovery of Ramanujan, and even called their collaboration "the one romantic incident in my life".
