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Remembering The Man Who Knew Infinity, Srinivasa Ramanujan On National Mathematics Day
Writer: Shweta Singh
She is a Journalism graduate from Delhi University, She has previously worked as a voice over artist for various cuisines and clothing brands. She is specialised in content writing, hosting anchoring and voice over.
India, 22 Dec 2021 11:00 AM GMT
Editor : Palak Agrawal |
Palak a journalism graduate believes in simplifying the complicated and writing about the extraordinary lives of ordinary people. She calls herself a " hodophile" or in layman words- a person who loves to travel.
Creatives : Palak Agrawal
Palak a journalism graduate believes in simplifying the complicated and writing about the extraordinary lives of ordinary people. She calls herself a " hodophile" or in layman words- a person who loves to travel.
A self-taught mathematician, Ramanujan discovered his own theorems, independently compiled 3900 results, and is known for his contribution in hypergeometric series, the Riemann series, the elliptic integrals, the theory of divergent series, and the functional equations of the zeta function.
India celebrates National Mathematics Day on December 22 every year. The day commemorates the birth anniversary of great mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan.
Ramanujan was born in a Tamil Brahmin family on December 22, 1887, at Erode, Tamil Nadu. Despite the absence of any formal training in the subject, the Maths prodigy discovered his theorem and compiled over 3900 results independently.
Besides, he had held numerous laurels to his name, such as being elected Fellow of the prestigious Royal Society for his research on Elliptic Functions and theory of number and the first Indian to be elected a Fellow of Trinity College. Ramanujan breathed his last in 1919 at the age of 32 in India.
Ramanujan's Last Days
According to the available information, after Ramanujan returned to India from England, he recorded his life's mathematical discoveries. The "notebook" was not a book but a cluster of unrecorded loose sheets of paper— more than one hundred pages written on 138 sides in Ramanujan's distinctive handwriting. The sheet comprised six hundred formulas listed consecutively without proof, and the manuscripts contained no introduction or covering letter.
Story of Ramanujan's Lost Notebook
Ramanujan died on April 26, 1920, at the age of 32. His wife gave his notebooks to the University of Madras. Registrar Francis Drewbury sent much of the material to G.H. Hardy, Ramanujan's mentor at Trinity College, on August 30, 1923.
Hardy then passed on the notebook G. N. Watson who, along with B. M. Wilson, started the project of editing Ramanujan's notebook. In a tragic incident, Wilson died in 1935, and Watson lost interest in the project and dropped it around the 1930s.
After Watson's death in 1965, J. M. Whittaker, who then examined Watson's papers and Ramanujan's notebook which he and R. A. Rankin sent to Trinity College Wren Library on December 26, 1968.
The whereabouts of the notebook were untraceable until George Andrews discovered it in the spring of 1976 while he was visiting Trinity College. The book was published by Narosa publishing house on December 22, 1987.
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