Life
He was born on 22 February 1903 in Cambridge where his father Arthur Stanley (1867 - 1954), also a mathematician, was President of Magdalene College. His mother was Mary Agnes Stanley (1875 - 1927). He was the eldest of two brothers and two sisters, and his brother Michael Ramsey, the only one of the four siblings who was to remain Christian, later became Archbishop of Canterbury. He entered Winchester College in 1915 and later returned to Cambridge to study mathematics at Trinity College. Easy-going, simple and modest, Ramsey had many interests besides his scientific work. Even as a teenager Ramsey exhibited both a profound ability and, as attested by his brother, an extremely diverse range of interests:
He was interested in almost everything. He was immensely widely read in English literature; he was enjoying classics though he was on the verge of plunging into being a mathematical specialist; he was very interested in politics, and well-informed; he had got a political concern and a sort of left-wing caring-for-the-underdog kind of outlook about politics.
— Michael Ramsey, Quoted in Mellor
Ramsey suffered mildly from depression, and was intellectually interested in psychoanalysis. While writing his dissertation he went to Vienna to be psychoanalysed by Theodor Reik, a disciple of Freud. As one of the justifications for undertaking therapy, he asserted in a letter to his mother that unconscious impulses might even affect the work of a mathematician. In September 1925 he married Lettice Baker, the wedding taking place in a Register Office since Ramsey was, as his wife described him, a ‘militant atheist’. (She subsequently ran a photography practice in Cambridge for many years ("Ramsey and Muspratt").) The marriage produced two daughters. Despite his atheism, Ramsey was quite tolerant towards his brother when the latter decided to become a priest in the Church of England.
Read more about this topic: Frank P. Ramsey
Famous quotes containing the word life:
“So that the life of a writer, whatever he might fancy to the contrary, was not so much a state of composition, as a state of warfare; and his probation in it, precisely that of any other man militant upon earth,—both depending alike, not half so much upon the degrees of his WIT—as his RESISTANCE.”
—Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)
“Toiling,—rejoicing,—sorrowing,
Onward through life he goes;
Each morning sees some task begin,
Each evening sees its close;
Something attempted, something done,
Has earned a night’s repose.”
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1809–1882)
“To make life more bearable and pleasant for everybody, choose the issues that are significant enough to fight over, and ignore or use distraction for those you can let slide that day. Picking your battles will eliminate a number of conflicts, and yet will still leave you feeling in control.”
—Lawrence Balter (20th century)