Godfrey Hardy was born on February 7, 1877 in Cranleigh, Surrey, England, the son of teachers. Hardy attended Cranleigh School, where his father taught, and then Winchester College. Brilliant and competitive, Hardy studied mathematics initially so that he could beat the other students in competitions. His real love of mathematics began at Trinity College, Cambridge.
Hardy's professional career as a mathematician began at Cambridge where he was elected a fellow of Trinity College in 1900. Hardy left Cambridge in 1919 to accept a chair of mathematics at Oxford. He stayed at Oxford unit 1931, when he returned to Cambridge.
Hardy made important contributions in Diophantine analysis, divergent series, Fourier analysis, and number theory. His name is particularly associated with two famous collaborators, the English mathematician John Littlewood and the Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan. Indeed, Hardy discovered Ramanujan who was a self-taught mathematical genius.
Hardy is also especially remembered for his book A Mathematician's Apology (1940), a wonderful description of the life, habits, and methods of a pure mathematician, and a poignant lament to lost powers. Hardy died on December 1, 1947 in Cambridge