Mathematics
Srinivasa Ramanujan
Mathematician, self-taught genius of number theory
Born 1887 · Died 1920
Photo: Konrad Jacobs · Public domain
«An equation for me has no meaning unless it expresses a thought of God.»
Srinivasa Ramanujan grew up in southern India with almost no formal mathematical training and independently rediscovered much of known mathematics before going far beyond it. Notebooks he left behind are still yielding new results a century later.
Key achievements
- Compiled nearly 3,900 results in number theory and analysis
- Elected Fellow of the Royal Society at thirty-one
- His lost notebook still yields new mathematics a century later
Universities
Cambridge, England
Came to Trinity College in 1914 at the invitation of G. H. Hardy and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society at thirty-one.
Facts
- He wrote to three Cambridge mathematicians with pages of unproved results; two dismissed him and G. H. Hardy realised they had to be true because nobody would have the imagination to invent them.
- Told that the number 1729 was dull, he replied instantly that it is the smallest number expressible as the sum of two cubes in two different ways.
- He fell seriously ill in England, partly from a vegetarian diet that was almost impossible to maintain in wartime Cambridge, and died at thirty-two.
Photographs
Photographs come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences; the author and licence are shown on each image.