“Ramsey published a grand total of eight pages in pure mathematics. He had been working the Entscheidungsproblem in the foundations of mathematics, which asked whether there is a way of deciding whether or not any particular sentence in a formal system is valid or true. He solved a special case of the problem, pushed its general expression to the limit, and saw that limit clearly. A theorem he proved along the way showed that in apparently disordered systems, there must be some order. The branch of mathematics that studies the conditions under which order must occur is now named Ramsey Theory, with more discrete parts of it called Ramsey’s Theorem and Ramsey Numbers.
In 1927-28, Ramsey published two papers in economics, with the encouragement of John Maynard Keynes. When the Economic Journal celebrated its 125th anniversary with a special edition in 2015, both papers were included. That is, looking back over a century and a quarter, one of the world’s best journals of economics decided that two of its 13 most important papers were written by Frank Ramsey when he was 25 years old. The editors explained themselves by saying that the papers initiated “entirely new fields”—optimal savings and optimal taxation theory. In addition, they produced the Ramsey-Cass-Koopmans model, Ramsey Pricing, Ramsey’s Problem, the Keynes-Ramsey Rule, and more.
Ramsey was also the first to set out the subjective conception of probability and expected utility theory that underpins much of contemporary economics. That is, he figured out how to measure degrees of belief and preferences and then showed how we might determine what a rational decision would be, given what someone believes and desires. He was a socialist and wouldn’t have been happy with what became of his idea—he didn’t think that all human action and decision should be crammed into the strictures of rational choice theory, as many economists and social scientists today seem to assume. Nonetheless, in this domain we find the Ramsey/de Finetti Theorem, the Ramsey-Good Result, Ramsey’s Procedure for measuring the intensity of preferences, and more.
In philosophy, he was just as impressive. When an undergraduate, he translated Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Tractatus and wrote a critical notice of it that still stands as one of its most important commentaries. He went on to have a profound influence on Wittgenstein, persuading him to drop the quest for certainty and purity, and turn to ordinary language and human practices. Ramsey was in search of a realistic philosophy and was leaning in the direction of American pragmatism when he died.”
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Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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