Famed Mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan’s birth anniversary on December 22 is celebrated as National Mathematics Day. Born in 1887 in Erode, Tamil Nadu, the story of Ramanujan’s tryst with mathematics is one of the most engaging tales read, depicted and performed through various works of art. Dev Patel-starrer ‘The Man Who Knew Infinity’ (2015) was the latest tribute to the mathematics wizard by the popular cinema. It was in 2012 that then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh declared December 22 as National Mathematics Day.
Born into an orthodox Iyengar Brahmin family, Ramanujan’s strictly vegetarian diet and frugal eating habits took a toll on the genius’ health in London’s inclement winters where he couldn’t endure the off-shore climate, resulting in his return to Tamil Nadu where he breathed his last in Kumbakonam at a remarkably young age of 32.
Ramanujan lived a life that was devoted to mathematics in all its passion. At a fledgling age of 11, Ramanujan began to show signs of an unfolding genius. British mathematician Godfrey H. Hardy was instrumental in supporting Ramanujan’s extraordinary calibre for mathematics. The mathematics wizard made a significant contribution to mock theta function that generalises the form of the Jacobi theta functions, while preserving their general properties.
Although Ramanujan received no formal education, by the age of 12, he had mastered trigonometry and developed many theorems on his own with no assistance. He was awarded a scholarship to study at Government Arts College, Kumbakonam, but he eventually lost it due to his abysmal performance in other subjects. He ran away from home and enrolled himself at Pachaiyappa’s College in Madras. Ramanujan devoted himself solely to mathematics but fared poorly in other subjects.
There were hard times in the genius’ life as he had no way of supporting himself. Mathematician Ramaswamy Iyer helped him get a position of a clerk at the Madras Port Trust.
His breakthrough finally came in 1913, when Ramanujan wrote to G H Hardy. The British mathematician, on realising Ramanujan’s genius wrote back to him, calling him to London. Hardy then got Ramanujan into Trinity College, Cambridge and what began was a captivating saga of success. In 1917, Ramanujan was elected to be a member of the London Mathematical Society. In 1918 he also became a Fellow of the Royal Society, becoming the youngest person to achieve the feat.
Ramanujan, however, had difficulty acclimatising in London. The English diet did not suit this orthodox Brahmin eatring habits. He was even hospitalised due to ill health in 1917. He returned to India in 1919 but his health deteriorated. He passed away on April 6, 1920.
1729: The Magic Of Hardy-Ramanujan Number
The man who knew Infinity, Srinivasa Ramanujan knew more than infinity. He contributed theorems and independently compiled 3900 results. However, to inquisitive minds and those dabbling in mathematical science would also know him for the Hardy-Ramanujan number.
The Hardy-Ramanujan number is named such after an anecdote of the British mathematician G.H. Hardy who had gone to visit S. Ramanujan in hospital. The anecdote is a part of Ramanujan's biography 'The Man Who Knew Infinity' by Robert Knaigel.
Mr. Hardy quipped that he came in a taxi with the number '1729' which seemed a fairly ordinary number. Ramanujan said that it was not. 1729, the Hardy-Ramanujan Number, is the smallest number which can be expressed as the sum of two different cubes in two different ways.
1729 is the sum of the cubes of 10 and 9 - cube of 10 is 1000 and cube of 9 is 729; adding the two numbers results in 1729.
1729 is also the sum of the cubes of 12 and 1- cube of 12 is 1728 and cube of 1 is 1; adding the two results in 1729.
Ramanujan was fascinated with numbers and made striking contributions to a branch of mathematics partitio numeroru m, the study of partitions of numbers.
Ramanujan and Magic Squares
Srinivasa Ramanujan had a special affinity toward numbers. His taxi-cab number (1729) incident is popular. A Mathematician without parallel, he made extraordinary contributions to mathematical analysis, number theory, infinite series, and continued fractions. His works have been collected and analyzed throughout the world
Incidentally, in the opening page of the first Ramanujan’s notebook, there begins by working out a 3 x 3 Magic Square!
Having worked on a variety of special Magic squares ourselves, we could not think of a greater tribute to Srinivasa Ramanujan than this!
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