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“No, it is a very interesting number, it is the smallest number expressible as a sum of two cubes in two different ways, the two ways being 1^3 + 12^3 and 9^3 + 10^3…”
These words were the answer given when someone said that 1729 is a dull number. The answerer was Srinivasan Ramanujan.
Srinivasan Ramanujan- A self-taught Indian mathematician. With over 3500 mathematical formulae under his name, he was, is and will always be an absolute legend in this field.
He was born on 22 Dec 1887, to a Tamil Brahmin Iyengar family in Erode, Madras Presidency.That’s why this day was declared as National Mathematics Day in the year 2012 by our then Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh when he was visiting the Madras University to pay respect to Ramanujan sir’s achievement on his 125th birth anniversary. Since then this day has been marked as a day to respect his contribution in this field and to also create awareness about the importance of mathematics in the development of humanity.
His Contribution in Day today maths: Srinivasan Ramanujan has some extraordinary contributions associated with his name, namely his research in mathematical analysis, number theory, infinite series & continued fractions. Ramanujan was also recognised for his mastery of continued fractions and had worked out the Riemann series, elliptic integrals, hypergeometric series, and the functional equations of the zeta function. He has also given 3500 mathematical formulae, some which scientists and mathematicians still haven’t been able to prove till this day.
It would be a shock to know that he had failed his college exams in 1903, due to negligence to non-mathematics subjects. Thus, he could never get a formal mathematics degree. In 1912, his mathematical talent was recognised by a colleague, who liked him, worked as a clerk in Madras Port Trust. This very colleague had then referred his name to Professor GH Hardy of Trinity College, Cambridge University.
That started his journey to success. He got a BSc degree in 1916, consequently getting elected to the London Mathematical Society in 1917. In just the coming year, he was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society for his research on Elliptic Functions and theories of numbers. He then went on to become the first Indian to be elected as a fellow of Trinity College.
After his sudden demise due to Tuberculosis, at the fruiting age of 32, his three notebooks and some unpublished result pages were left behind. And till date the mathematicians are working on it, trying to find a solution and prove his theories.
Some words that are quoted for him on the royal society website, with which all of us would surely agree: “The loss of Ramanujan at such a young age was certainly a blow to the scientific community, who were left imagining what he might have gone on to achieve.”
Srinivasan Ramanujan truly was a legendary mathematician whose contribution to the discipline of mathematics is unfathomable. Though he passed away at such a young age, his contribution has left an ineradicable mark behind.
So let us all, at least just for this day, not see maths as a subject which terrorises us. But rather as a field that would take science, humanity and the human race to greater unexplainable wonders.
