News Highlights:
The contributions of the mathematical genius Srinivasa Ramanujan, whose birth anniversary falls on National Mathematics Day, are inimitable even in the age of artificial intelligence.
Mathematical genius Srinivasa Ramanujan:
- About:
- Srinivasa Ramanujan was an Indian mathematician who contributed to mathematical analysis and number theory with almost no formal training in pure mathematics.
- He is still remembered for his contributions to the field of mathematics.
- Theorems formulated by him are to date studied by students across the world, and within very few years of his lifespan, he made some exceptional discoveries in mathematics.
- Early life:
- Srinivasa Ramanujan was born on 22nd December 1887 in the south Indian town of Tamilnadu, named Erode.
- His father, Kuppuswamy Srinivasa Iyengar, worked as a clerk in a saree shop, and his mother, Komalatamma, was a housewife.
- Since a very early age, he had a keen interest in mathematics and had already become a child prodigy
- Education:
- He attained his early education and schooling from Madras, where he was enrolled in a local school
- His love for mathematics had grown at a very young age and was self-taught primarily
- He was a promising student and had won many academic prizes in high school.
- But his love for mathematics proved to be a disadvantage when he reached college. He continued to excel in only one subject and failed in all others. This resulted in him dropping out of college
- However, he continued to work on his collection of mathematical theorems, ideologies and concepts.
- Break Through:
- In 1911, Ramanujan published the first of his papers in the Journal of the Indian Mathematical Society.
- In 1913, he began a correspondence with the British mathematician Godfrey H. Hardy which led to a special scholarship from the University of Madras and a grant from Trinity College, Cambridge.
- In 1918, he was elected to the Royal Society of London.
- Ramanujan was one of the youngest members of Britain’s Royal Society and the first Indian to be elected a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge University.
- Ramanujan Contributions:
- formulas:
- while Ramanujan was in England, he, along with British mathematician Godfrey H. Hardy, published over a dozen research papers
- During the time period of three years, he published around 30 research papers
- Hardy and Ramanujan developed a new method, now called the circle method, to derive an asymptomatic formula for this function
- One of his most treasured findings was his infinite series for Pi.
- He gave several formulas to calculate the digits of Pi in many unconventional ways.
- His first paper was published, a 17-page work on Bernoulli numbers that appeared in 1911 in the Journal of the Indian Mathematical Society
- Game Theory:
- He discovered a long list of new ideas to solve many challenging mathematical problems, which gave a significant impetus to the development of game theory.
- His contribution to game theory is purely based on intuition and natural talent and remains unrivalled to this day.
- Ramanujan’s Book:
- One of Ramanujan’s notebooks was discovered by George Andrews in 1976 in the library at Trinity College. Later the contents of this notebook were published as a book.
- formulas:
- Achievements:
- In 1916, he was granted a Bachelor of Science degree “by research” at Cambridge University
- In 1918, he became the first Indian to be honoured as a Fellow of the Royal Society
- In 1997, The Ramanujan Journal was launched to publish work “in areas of mathematics influenced by Ramanujan”
- The year 2012 was declared as the National Mathematical Year as it marked the 125th birth year of one of the greatest Indian mathematicians
- Since 2021, his birth anniversary, December 22, is observed as the National Mathematicians Day every year in India.
Pic Courtesy: The Hindu
Content Source: The Hindu