Biography of Mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan
Srinivasa Ramanujan Aiyangar was an Indian mathematician. He made remarkable contributions to mathematical analysis, number theory, infinite series, continued fractions and discoveries of the properties of the Partition Function. He was beyond his time and era.
Early life and Education
On December 22, 1887, Ramanujan was born into a Tamil Brahmin family in Erode, Madras Presidency (now in Tamilnadu, India). His father Kuppuswamy Srinivasa Iyengar was a clerk in a Sari shop. His mother, Komalarammal was a housewife and worked as a singer at a local temple. He moved with his mother to her parents' house in Kanchipuram near Madras at the age of only two.
Ramanujan was admitted to a local school near his grandparents' house in 1892. But unfortunately, he could not continue his study there. So they had to move back to Kumbakonam. There he enrolled in Kangayan Primary School. He was unlucky this time as well. When his paternal grandfather died, he was sent back to his maternal grandparents in Madras. He could not continue his study there as well. After several months, he was sent back to his parents and continued his study in Kangayan Primary School.
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Ramanujan learned about tradition and Puranas, sing religious songs, attend Pujas at the temple, and maintain traditional Brahmin food culture from his mother. In 1897, he passed primary school and got admitted into Town Higher Secondary School. He completed mathematical exams in half of the allotted time and showed a familiarity with geometry and infinite series. He graduated from Town Higher Secondary School in 1904.
Ramanujan received a scholarship to study at Government Arts College, Kumbakonam. But he was so intent on mathematics that he ran away from home, heading towards Visakhapatnam and stayed in Rajahmundry for about a month.
He later enrolled at Pachaiyappa College in Madras. There he passed in Mathematics, choosing only to attempt questions that appealed to him and left the rest. He performed poorly in the exam. Eventually, he failed to pass the F.A exam and left the college without his degree. Then he continued to pursue independent research in mathematics.
In July 1909, Ramanujan married Janaki (Janakiammal) who was ten years older than him when they were married.
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Research Works
Ramanujan did not have proper schooling to developed mathematical equations and schooling. Despite that, when he was in Town Higher Secondary School, he was shown how to solve cubic equations in 1902; he developed his own method to solve the quartic and the following year he tried to solve the quintic!
When he was only 16, he got an opportunity to read "A Synopsis of Elementary Results in Pure and Applied Mathematics" by G.S Carr. This book is generally acknowledged as a key element in awakening his genius. The following year Ramanujan developed and investigated the Bernoulli Numbers and calculated the Euler-Mascheroni Constant up to 15 decimal places.
Till then, Poverty did not leave him behind. In 1910, he was ill and needed surgery. He hid not have enough money to do it. A doctor did it free of cost. After that Ramanujan started searching for jobs. In 1913, upon securing a research position at Madras University, Ramanujan moved with his family to Triplicane.
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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 that led to a special scholarship from the University of Madras and a grant from Trinity College, Cambridge.
At the very beginning, Ramanujan was completely unaware of modern developments in mathematics. But his mastery of continued fractions was un-equated by any living mathematician. He worked out the Riemann series, the elliptic integrals, hypergeometric series, the functional equations of the zeta function and his own theory of divergent series, in which he found a value for the sum of such series using a technique he invented that came to be called Ramanujan Summation.
Ramanujan made further advances in the partition of numbers. His papers were published in English and European journals and in 1918, he was elected a fellow the Royal Society of London. In the last year of his life, he discovered mock theta functions.
1729, the number is known as Hardy-Ramanujan number after a famous visit by Hardy to see Ramanujan at a hospital.
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Some other remarkable works from Ramanujan are Landau-Ramanujan constant, Ramanujan prime, Ramanujan-Soldner constant, Ramanujan theta function, Ramanujan's sum, Rogers-Ramanujan identities, Ramanujan's master theorem, Ramanujan-Sato series and so on.
Financial Hardship
This part of his life cannot be ignored in his biography. Ramanujan faced a lot of financial hardship from his childhood. Sometimes it became a question about starvation. As his father was a clerk in a sari shop, he did not earn much. So his mother had to contribute to the family. She went to a local temple, sang religious songs and earned a little. Ramanujan himself accompanied his mother sometimes.
When he grew up, got married, his financial condition got even worse. He was also continuing his mathematical research. So he had to go out in search of a permanent job.
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To make money, he tutored students a the Presidency College who were preparing for their F.A, though Ramanujan himself was not an F.A graduate. But it was not enough for him to serve himself and his family. Finally, in 1913, he managed to secure a job at a research position at Madras University.
Previously, in 1910, Ramanujan met V. Ramaswamy Aiyer, who founded the Indian Mathematical Society, wishing for a job at the revenue department. Mr Aiyer saw Ramanujan's mathematical research works and got wondered. Then he managed Ramanujan a job in Madras Port Trust and worked there for some time.
Notebooks
Ramanujan noted many of his works in four notebooks of looseleaf paper. Three of them were found initially and the fourth one was invented later. He did not derive the problems, rather directly thought up the final result. this happened because of his financial limitation as papers were expensive then. He was also quite likely to have been influenced by the style of G.S Carr's book, which stated results without proof.
The results and observations in his notebooks helped many papers by later mathematicians trying to prove what he had found. Hardy, G.N Watson, B.M Wilson and Bruce Brendt are such big names.
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Awards and Recognition
The tremendous works Ramanujan had down in his short-llived life is remarkable. But when he was alive he was rarely known to world-famous mathematicians. Even most of his works were unknown to the world. So he did not get any remarkable awards or recognitions in his lifetime. Till now many pieces of research are going on his inventions.
Some of his notable achievements are:
- In 1904, at the age of only 17, he was awarded the K Ranganatha Rao Prize for Mathematics by the School's headmaster.
- After his death, Nature listed Ramanujan among other distinguished scientists and mathematicians on a "Calendar of Science Pioneers" who had achieved eminence.
- People of Tamilnadu celebrate Ramanujan's birthday, 22 December as state IT Day.
- The same day has been annually celebrated as Ramanujan Day by the Government Arts College, Kumbakonam and IIT Madras.
- The International Center for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) has created a prize in Ramanujan's name for young mathematicians from developing countries.
- Sastra University, Tamilnadu has instituted the Sastra Ramanujan Prize of USD 10,000 to be given annually to a mathematician not exceeding age 32 for outstanding contributions in an area of mathematics influenced by Ramanujan.
- In 2011, the Government of India declared 22 December as National Mathematics Day.
- Ramanujan IT City was built in Chennai in 2011 in remember of Ramanujan.
- Ramanujan's family house is now a museum located in Sarangapani Sannidhi Street in Kumbakonam.
One thing is very clear that the world cannot give proper respect to this legendary mathematician when he was alive. But the modern world knows and feels that how important works had been done by this hero.
Death
In 1919, Ramanujan became very ill. So he returned to India. He was suffering from Hepatic Amoebiasis. In 1920, he died at the age of only 32.
Ramanujan is one of the most underrated mathematicians in the world. He had nothing in his life but achieved everything through his works. His notebooks came to light after his death and only then people could realize how talented he was. This genius will be remembered all over the world and all over time. Ramanujan credited his substantial mathematical capacities to divinity.
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