Srinivasa Ramanujan was an Indian mathematician who made ground breaking advancements in mathematics. He was a child prodigy, and was for the most part self taught.
He was born in Erode, Tamil Nadu, India in the year 1887. By the age of 12 Ramanujan had mastered trigonometry, astounding his teachers. He had mastered the subject so thoroughly that he was inventing complicated theorems.
He first encountered formal mathematics at the town highschool in Kumbakonam. By the age of 14, Ramanujan's genius manifested itself, as he begin receiving numerous
merits and awards for his abilities. His teachers did not understand him, but were in awe of him, and greatly respected him.
Ramanujan's goal was to obtain recognition and support which would free him up so that he could devote his time to mathematics. He hoped he could find someone who could sponsor him, but received numerous rejections. After trying hopelessly to get Indian sponsors, and sent a letter to G. H. Harding a fellow at Cambridge university. After reviewing the theorems, Hard admitted that they "defeated me completely; I had never seen anything in the least like them before."
Despite some skepticism, Hardy replied to Ramanujan's letter, and begin making plans to bring him to England. He compared Ramanujan to Euler or Jacobi, two famous mathematicians. Ramanujan was reluctant to travel at first, because he did not want to lose his caste for traveling to foreign shores.
After discussing the matter with his mother, Ramanujan decided to leave. Ramanujan would eventually become a fellow at Trinity, and was made a member of the Royal Society, one of the highest honors.
Being in a foreign country far from home begin to take its toll. This was probably do to stress, and because of World War I, there was a shortage of vegetarian foods in England. Ramanujan did not eat meat because of its religious beliefs. He became ill, and returned to India in 1919. He died soon after from hepatic amoebiasis, a liver infection. He probably picked up this disease in Madras, where he visited.
Mathematical Contributions
Ramanujan mainly worked in analytical number theory and is primarily famous for his work in summation formulas involving constants such as π, prime numbers and the partition function. His final gift to the world before he died was the Mock Theta Function. He also made contributions in the areas of Gamma Functions, Modular Forms, Divergent Series, and Hypergeometric series.
Quotations
"An equation for me has no meaning, unless it represents a thought of God."
