Indian Mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan And His Famous Quotes

You probably have heard a lot of Ramanujan quotes. In 1913, G. H. Hardy, the reputable English mathematician received a letter from a clerk living in Madras, India. The letter was 10 pages long and consisted of around 120 theorems on number theory, continued fractions, improper integrals, and infinite series. There was something about these formulae that made Hardy take a second look. He then showed them to J. E. Littlewood, his collaborator. A few hours later, they concluded that:

That was how Srinivasa Ramanujan was introduced to the world of mathematics. During his 32-year-life, he compiled around 3,900 results. Nearly all of them were equations and identities. Most of his claims have been proved to be correct.

Ramanujan was born on December 22, 1887, in a poor family in Erode, Madras Presidency. At the age of 11, his knowledge of mathematics was equivalent to two college students who were his house’s lodgers. He was then received S. L. Loney’s book on advanced trigonometry which he mastered when he turned 13 and even discovered complicated theorems by himself. By age 16, he had developed, investigated the Bernoulli numbers as well as calculating the Euler-Mascheroni constant with 15 decimal places. At that time, his friends commented that they could never understand him and were having a respectful feeling towards Ramanujan.

As life went by, Ramanujan was then accepted to a university where he spent every night researching mathematics. And this was when a strange thing happened. As Ramanujan fell asleep, he kept having dreams about Namagiri, the Hindu Goddess.

According to what Ramanujan had said, the Goddess visited him every night in his dreams and told him mathematical equations. And every morning when he woke up, he carefully noted them down as simple as he could. A few years forwards, he had noted down a total of 3,900 complicated formulae.

Although he excelled in mathematics, his performances at other subjects were rather poor. He left college without obtaining a degree and continued his research in mathematics. During this time, he was living in extreme poverty and often on the edge of starvation. His friends let him stay at their houses while he went around Madras to look a for a clerical position. Success finally came to him as he received his first modest subsidy from Indian mathematician Ramachandra Rao. He was later accepted to work at Madras Port Trust as a clerkship.

The letter that Ramanujan sent to Hardy was the turning point of his life and a historic moment for the field of mathematics. Ramanujan’s mathematical gift ứa recognized by Hardy. The English mathematician then invited him to come to Cambridge University and became his friend and mentor. The two worked together on mathematical problems. In the next five years of working together, the pair wrote 29 important publications, making great contributions to the Math world. Hardy described this experience as “that most romantic period” of his life. “Taxicab number” is one of their famous works.

Throughout his life, Ramanujan made numerous mathematical achievements. We have covered this in one of our articles. You can read it here.

The story about the life of Ramanujan was an inspiration for many people. He was poor with no university degree. His formulae seemed obscure and elegant at the same time. He had his own way of working, creating theorems and formulae from a mental landscape. Ramanujan’s mind was comparable to that of geniuses like Euler and Jacobi. His ideas have contributed to transforming and reshaping the mathematical field of the 20th century. Moving on to the 21st century, these ideas still continue to shape this century’s mathematics. Over a century has passed since Ramanujan passed away, his talent continues to be the inspiration for many young minds to delve deeper into the world of mathematics and science.

Have you ever heard about all of these Ramanujan quotes? If you want to know more about the renowned Indian Mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan, visit our Mobygeek website for more.

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