How mathematician Ken Ono helped out actor Dev Patel

S Ramanujan may have been the genius who knew infinity, but Dev Patel, the actor essaying his celluloid persona, is quite the zero when it comes to maths. To lend authenticity and ensure that Ramanujan’s real life and Patel’s screen rendition added up, mathematician Ken Ono was roped in during the making of the movie. Ono who specialises in number theory, including integer partitions and modular forms, was tasked with breaking down Ramanujan’s formulae to Patel. "It was of course difficult to explain how to be a mathematician to someone who is not a mathematician," said Ono of his experience to ascertain that the mathematician in Patel did not pull a number on the audience.