What would you do if you have the superpower of solving complex math problems without pen and paper? What if you could see the relationship between numbers hidden in plain sight? What if you could write one-liner proofs to complex theorems? How amazing would it be if you worked on your own theorems in plane trigonometry by the age of 13? A small-town boy had it all. His notebooks covering 3900 equations, summaries, and results are the best treasure that someone has left to the math community till date. He was able to re-derive 100 years of work in Western Mathematics by himself. But, who is he? Srinivasa Ramanujan from Kumbakonam, a small town in Tamil Nadu was a genius in mathematics. One of many children of a clerk, he showed signs of brilliance right from his childhood. join an interactive session
From raw talent to mastery
At 10, he was the top student in his district and started high school at Kumbakonam Town High School. He found his passion by then and started learning advanced math through self-study seriously.
By 12, he was learning cubic equations and arithmetic and geometric series. Indeed he invented his own method to solve quartic equations.
By 13, he mastered plane trigonometry from a book that he got from his senior at school and was working on his own theorems!
He used to write only the results and summaries of his work as papers were costly and he could afford only a small amount of paper. He used to do his work on a slate with chalks and transfer the results to his notebooks. His notebooks had 3900+ such results and summaries.
His talent in memorizing values of irrational numbers such as pi, Euler’s constant, and sqrt(2) amazed his classmates and his teachers, and was able to recite as many decimals as they asked for. He believed that his talent was all gift of the goddess Mahalakshmi. He said, he used to dream of God Narasimha, and complex mathematical works would appear right in front of his eyes. To quote him,
An equation for me has no meaning, unless it represents a thought of God.
Srinivasa Ramanujan
Sixteen-year-old Ramanujan came across ‘A Synopsis of Elementary Results in Pure and Applied Mathematics’ by George Shoobridge Carr which made him apprehend his flair for mathematics. He was awarded a scholarship to study at Government Arts College but lost it as he couldn’t concentrate on any subject other than math.
Despite his poverty, he filled a notebook full of theorems and results by the age of 21. He tutored kids in math and also offered accounting services for firms to overcome poverty. When R. Ramachandra Rao of the Indian Mathematical Society interviewed him, he suspected foul play like everyone else. But eventually, he trusted his skills and started supporting him financially. Ramaswamy Aiyer who had recently founded the Indian Mathematical Society along with Ramachandra Rao published his works in the Journal of the Indian Mathematical Society.
Ramanujan at the Cambridge
Even though his works were very hard to read and understand, he was very famous for his intelligence among his peers. They suggested him to go to the west. Impressed by ‘Orders of Infinity’, he decided to write a letter to GH Hardy and other famous mathematicians from the West. Hardy, like others, dismissed his letter at first for he is just a son of a clerk. But later, he decided to give it a shot. Hardy was astounded by the advancements in theorems and results in Ramanujan’s notebook.
“I had never seen anything in the least like them before. A single look at them is enough to show that they could only be written by a mathematician of the highest class. They must be true because, if they were not true, no one would have the imagination to invent them.”
G. H. Hardy
Hardy then invited Ramanujan to Cambridge but his mother was against him going. It was against their culture to cross the sea. She was later convinced when their family deity appeared in her dreams and ordered her to let him fulfill his life’s purpose. Ramanujan had to face several culinary and cultural differences, not to mention racism at Cambridge. As always, Ramanujan quickly became famous among his peers as a remarkable mathematician of his time.
Milestones
Even with little formal training, the theorems he discovered were mostly entirely new. His work on highly composite numbers earned him a Ph.D. He is the first Indian to be elected as a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. And he is only the second Indian to be a Fellow of the Royal Society and also the youngest to this day. He collaborated with G H Hardy, who says
“Ramanujan’s ideas were arrived at by a process of mingled argument, intuition, and induction, of which he was entirely unable to give any coherent account.”
His theta function is one of the most important of string theory in physics. In isolation, he had worked on hundred years’ worth of Western Mathematics by himself, in vain as they were already discovered. The results are still inspiring researchers decades later. He was unaware of many topics in mathematics. In the areas he was aware of, he enjoyed working and his new outputs were phenomenal. He had innate intuition in number theory that helped him see results to complex theories obvious but were arduous to other experts in the field.
As his notebooks contain no proofs, only the results and summaries, many researchers and scholars are working on the proofs. Often scientists come up with their new findings only to find that Ramanujan has already shown that decades earlier.
It is a misery that the world had to lose a gem very early. The culinary difference, weather, and long hours of study and research led to frequent illness. In 1917, diagnosed with tuberculosis, he had to spend considerable time at nursing homes and sanitariums. By 1919, he recovered considerably to move back to India. But, destiny had other plans for him. He died of hepatitic amoebiasis on April 26, 1920 at the age of 32.
National Math Day
To honour his exemplary skill and contributions, the Indian government commemorated him by announcing his birthday as National Math Day every year since 2012. The then Prime Minister of India, Manmohan Singh, announced this on February 26, 2012 when he visited Madras University to pay tribute to Ramanujan’s achievements and celebrate his 125th birth anniversary.
Schools, universities, and organizations host several educational events including seminars, workshops quizzes and other competitions to celebrate national math day every year. Steps are taken to create awareness on the importance of mathematics and ensure more contribution in the field of Mathematics.
March 13th is celebrated as World Math Day every year since 2007. It involves participants playing 60-second games on mental math problems appropriate for each age group. On the inaugural World Math Day, 287000 students from 98 countries answered 38,904,275 questions. The student numbers and the participating countries have steadily increased in the following years. It tests the accuracy and speed of the participants while they compete with people all around the world.
Read a similar article: “Pi versus Phi, The Magic and The Mystery“
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