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Srinivasa Ramanujan
SRINIVASA RAMANUJAN
Srinivasa Ramanujan, a poor uneducated Indian, was one of the
greatest and most unusual mathematical geniuses who ever lived, was born on 22nd December
in 1887 in Erode in Tamilnadu. He grew up in Kumbakonam where his father K. Sirnivasa
Iyengar worked as an accountant in a sari shop. His mother Komalata Ammal was a
house wife and also sang songs at local temple.
Srinivasa Ramanujan started his schooling in 1892. He did not like
school though he completed high school and tried twice to obtain a college
education. But he failed both times because he was so obsessed by mathematics
that he simply could not spend any time on other subjects. He started excelling
in mathematics. He came to think of his results or the source of his incredible
outpouring of mathematics.
In 1909, when Ramanujan was 22 years old, he married 9 year old
Janaki and took a clerical position in Madras Port Trust Office to support her
and his mother who lived with them. While working as a clerk, Ramanujan continued
to pour out math results on wrapping paper in the office. He was tied up with
mathematics in such a way that he forgot even eating. His wife and his mother
used to feed him at meal times so that he would continue writing while he
ate.
Fortunately, both the chairman and manager of Madras
Port Trust Office were engineers who recognized his extraordinary mathematical
talent. They urged him to send his results to English mathematicians. He wrote to
HF Baker & E.W. Hobson of Cambridge University. Both returned his letters
without any comment.
Then on 16th June 1913, he wrote to G.H Hardy. He
invited Ramanujan to come to England to study with him. Ramanujan
accepted his invitation and arrived at Trinity College in April 1914. Hardy
characterized Ramanujan as a very great mathematician full of paradoxes, who
defied all judgment. Ramanujan worked very hard in collaboration with G.H
Hardy. He used to work 24 to 36 hrs at a stretch and collapse and sleep for 12
hrs or more at a time. As he was a vegetarian it was difficult for him to find food
in England. It resulted that he was affected by mysterious illness that might
be vitamin B2 deficiency caused by his poor diet. He returned to India in 1919.
He died a year later at the age of 32.
Ramanujan left behind three notebooks, which he wrote before coming to
England and which were filled with as many as 4000 results. GH Hardy showed a
colleague of him, Ramanujan’s strange letter which was crammed with as many as
60 mathematical theorems and formulas stated without any proofs. He made a
significant contribution to mathematical analysis, number theory and continued
fractions.
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