Srinivasa Ramanujan An Indian Mathematician : Not So Infinite Story Of The Man Who Knew Infinity

Srinivasa Ramanujan Life Story, History, Biography, Family, Personal Life, Wife, Wiki, Formulas List, Srinivasa Ramanujan contribution to mathematics, Unknown and interesting facts about Srinivasa Ramanujan’s life.

Srinivasa Ramanujan (1887-1920) proved to be one of India’s greatest mathematical geniuses. As he contributed towards the analytical theory of numbers and also performed his work on elliptic functions, continued fractions, and infinite series. Coming from a humble background, he was born in his grandmother’s house in Erode, which is a small village about 400 km southwest of Madras (now known as Chennai). When Ramanujan turned a year old his mother moved him to the Kumbakonam town that was about 160 km nearer to Madras. While in Kumbakonam, Ramanujan’s father worked as a clerk in a cloth merchant’s shop.

Ramanujan was a self-taught Mathematician whose knowledge about mathematics was astonishing even though he was to a great extent completely unaware of the modern developments in mathematics. However, his mastery of continued fractions was unparalleled to any existent mathematician.

Srinivasa Ramanujan is the man who knew Infinity. Srinivasa Ramanujan has been on all Magazine Covers, won every recognition, and has also been adopted as a feature movie but all this happened after he died proving his theorem and himself apparently. The untold story of Srinivasa Ramanujan inspires people to do things that make them happy, no matter what the world thinks of them.

Srinivasa Ramanujan | How the Journey of being Great Started?

Srinivasa Ramanujan Iyenagar was born to a Tamil Family on 22 December 1887 in India. He later went onto become one of the most reputed mathematicians from India. He was never professionally trained to be a mathematician but the contribution he made to the world of mathematics is incomparable and really appreciable. Srinivasa died at the early age of 32 and left the world with a lot of secrets to be resolved and discovered.

His keen desire to discover new theorems made him rediscover the old ones and brought him under the limelight. Indian scientists and mathematicians recognized his potential at an early stage and congratulated him for his amazing skills and efforts.

The Journey of discovering and Rediscovering Mathematical Theorems:

Srinivasa Ramanujan found a lost brother in form of G.H Hardy and then started an exquisite of discoveries and rediscoveries. Together they did great discoveries. The word spread soon and Srinivasa left for England only to return with an ailing disease. His return in 1920 marked the beginning of his bad health, which apparently led to death.

Srinivasa discovered around 3900 theorems and rewrote hundreds of other existing theorems. His untold story is not just inspirational but very much saddening. Had he lived the world would have known what infinity actually is and what it tends to depict. Today we live in a world where Srinivasa is not very popular but the feature film that debuted at International Film Festival Goa has surely surfaced him as a mathematical genius. The world now knows that there was a man who knew what Infinity actually is.

Ramanujan Prime and Ramanujan theta function happen to be some of the popular works of Ramanujan. The world found his theorems and algorithms to be really controversial and unorthodox; it is the only Irony that all of his 3900 results have been vindicated and proved to be correct in the contemporary world.

Movie The Man Who Knew Infinity brings to the world the real and most accurate story of Srinivasa Ramanujan; the intricately designed scenes and dialogues help people understand what kind of man Srinivasa was.

Also Read | Shakuntala Devi – India’s Human Calculator

Srinivasa Ramanujan:  The Personal Life and his Individuality

Srinivasa married Janaki Ammal (wife) in the year 1909, it was an arranged marriage; Srinivasa’s mother selected the bride for him and ensured that they get married in a low family affair. Srinivasa was happy about the way things were happening in his life.

The partnership he had with G.H Hardy is more interesting than the one he had with his wife. Together Srinivasa and G.H Hardy rewrote hundreds of algorithms/theorems and changed the world of mathematics forever and ever.

Srinivasa Ramanujan: A Life Full of Denial and Criticism

Srinivasa spent his life under denial and criticism. Srinivasa and his theorems were way ahead of his time; he had traveled time to leverage the world with the information whose discoveries were nothing but inevitable.

Seven decades after the death of Srinivasa the world realized, how very true and accurate he was with his discoveries and rediscoveries. He leveraged the world with a new direction but all this happened only after he was dead.

Varied books and biographies of known mathematicians have marked Srinivasa to be superstitious.

Srinivasa Ramanujan formulas list:

  • Brocard: Ramanujan Diophantine equation.
  • Dougall: Ramanujan identity.
  • Landau: Ramanujan constant.
  • Ramanujan’s congruences.
  • Hardy: Ramanujan number.
  • Ramanujan: Nagell equation.
  • Ramanujan: Peterssen conjecture.
  • Ramanujan: Soldner constant.
  • Ramanujan summation.
  • Ramanujan theta function.
  • Ramanujan graph.
  • Ramanujan’s tau function.
  • Ramanujan’s ternary quadratic form.
  • Ramanujan prime.
  • Ramanujan’s constant.
  • Ramanujan’s lost notebook.
  • Ramanujan’s master theorem.
  • Ramanujan’s sum.
  • Rogers: Ramanujan identities.
  • Ramanujan magic square.

Srinivasa Ramanujan Contribution to Mathematics

  • Ramanujan on his own compiled about 3,900 results that consisted of identities and equations mostly. Where one of his most valuable findings was the infinite series for pi. This series formed the basis of many algorithms that we put in use today. Also, Ramanujan gave various fascinating formulas in order to calculate the digits of pi in several unconventional ways. Not just this yet he had also been known for discovering Landau-Ramanujan constant, Mock theta functions, Ramanujan conjecture, Ramanujan prime, Ramanujan-Soldner constant, Ramanujan theta function, Ramanujan’s sum, Rogers-Ramanujan identities, and Ramanujan’s master theorem, etc.

 

  • Ramanujan discovered an exhaustive list of new ideas for solving many challenging mathematical problems that gave notable momentum to the development of game theory. Where his contribution to game theory had been purely based on intuition and inborn talent and continues to remain matchless to date.

 

  • He described the mock theta function elaborately which is a concept in the realm of modular form in mathematics. Till some time back, it was considered an enigma but it is now recognized as holomorphic parts of mass forms.

 

  • In the year 1976, one of Ramanujan’s notebooks was discovered by George Andrews in the library at Trinity College and later the contents of the notebook were published as a book.

 

  • The 1729 digit combination had been known as the Ramanujan number. It is the sum of the cubes of 2 numbers i.e. 10 and 9. For instance, 1729 results after adding 1000 (the cube of 10) and 729 (the cube of 9). If you pay keen attention to this, it is the smallest number that can be presented in 2 different ways as it is the sum of these 2 cubes. Strikingly, 1729 is a natural number following 1728 and preceding 1730.

 

  • His contributions count across the mathematics gamut, which includes complex analysis, number theory, infinite series, and continued fractions. Some of the other prominent contributions made by him were hypergeometric series, the Riemann series, the elliptic integrals, the theory of divergent series, and the functional equations of the zeta function, etc.

 

Unknown Facts about Srinivasa Ramanujan

 

  • At the age of merely 13 years, Ramanujan could work out Loney’s Trigonometry exercises without any support or guidance.

 

  • Despite being such a genius, he never had any friends in the school owing to the fact that they never understood him but were invariably awestruck with his mathematical magic.

 

  • Another surprising fact about him is that he failed to attain a degree at a young age as he couldn’t clear the fine arts courses but always outshined in mathematics.

 

  • Fewer resources never limited his hard work and talent, as when even paper was expensive, Ramanujan most of the time derived the results on a slate to jot down the results of his derivations.

 

  • As a part of his daily practice, Ramanujan kept his theories and mathematical ideas in his notebooks. It was then when the new series represented 1/pi in a much faster method than was established. Seeking Ramanujan’s abilities Hardy was highly impressed. Ramanujan had formulated a scale of mathematical ability that tagged mathematicians on the scale of 0 to 100. While Ramanujan gave himself just 25, however, Hardy awarded him a precise 100.

 

  • Additionally, Hardy and Ramanujan also stand to be famous for their special number, which is also known as the Hardy-Ramanujan number.

 

  • After Ramanujan’s death, people close to him found a treasure trove. This treasure was composed of precious notebooks which consisted of summaries and results. However, unfortunately holding no proof that it was his personal notebook. Where the 1st notebook consisted of 351 pages that had 16 organized chapters and some unorganized material. The 2nd notebook had 256 pages in 21 chapters and about 100 unorganized pages, and lastly, the 3rd notebook consisted of 33 unorganized pages. Interestingly, the results in these notebooks were inspired by numerous papers by various mathematicians.

Ramanujan passed away at a young age of merely 32 years yet left a precious legacy behind him, which still holds great importance and impact in the world of mathematics.

Saluting the Real Hero of Modern Day Mathematics

In the beginning, it is difficult to believe that someone could have been so accurate with his predictions of mathematical formulas and theorems. We look at the amazing discoveries he made and do nothing but appreciate the efforts a man from a middle-class family from India made and changed the world forever and forever.

The movie allows the world to understand who Srinivasa Ramanujan was and it also leverages the world with a chance to stand and respect a person who defied all denials and criticism and rose as the real hero.

Srinivasa’s contribution to the mathematical world is incomparable and beyond imagination. His theory for 3900 theorems was vindicated and accepted by the varied International Societies concerned with Mathematics.

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Priyanka Agarwal: By Profession: She is Sr. Content Writer, with more than 10 years of experience. A School; College star performer who always had a flair to splash vibrant colours on the blank canvas with her writing. With an M.B.A. Degree in Media & Entertainment from Director Subash Ghai premier institute Whistling Woods International, Mumbai. Having worked in Diverse Content, Feature Films, Commercial Advertisements, Web series, Music Videos, Short Films & Television, etc. Attained knowledge in versatile fields of Content/Creative Writing.

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