Ramanujan: Letters

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• published: 03 Aug 2013
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(Learn and portray India with a collection of free online documentary films on http://www.bharatchitra.com ) G.H. Hardy, one of the leading mathematicians of 20th century, once received an unexpected letter from far away region of Madras in India. The letter contained enclosures that Hardy later referred as a treasure. He said, just with a first look at the work one can say the person who has written these theorems should be a genius. The letter was from a clark named Srinivasa Ramanujan working in account department of port trust office. At the age of 10 Ramanujan had shown such mathematical that he was awarded scholarship at school. He had intrinsic curiosity of everything related to mathematics, so he neglected every other subject. As a result, he failed to qualify for higher education. At the age of 15, Ramanujan borrowed Carr's synopsis of mathematics, a text book designed to teach bright English boys for university entrance exams. The book was structured in a bit odd way, lot of skipped steps and even sometimes statements without any proof. Some consider, the peculiar style of writing might be responsible for Ramanujan's odd way of working. In particular, his disregard of need for step by step proof for his new ideas. Ramanujan was not known to the world of mathematics until the age of 23 he wrote to Hardy. Understanding the potential of Ramanujan, Hardy invited him to Cambridge for visit and work as fellow at Trinity College. On one side where he was happy to work on mathematics, on the other side, the tamil Brahmin, Ramanujan could not sustain long the geographic, food and cultural changes. Ramanujan died of illness, malnutrition and possibly liver failure in 1920 at the age of 32. Appreciating Ramanujan's genius and love for numbers, G.H. Hardy later quoted an incident: "I remember once going to see him when he was ill at Putney. I had ridden in taxi cab number 1729 and remarked that the number seemed to me rather a dull one, and that I hoped it was not an unfavorable omen. "No," he replied, "it is a very interesting number; it is the smallest number expressible as the sum of two cubes in two different ways." This number 1729 is now also known as Ramanujan number. India celebrates 22nd Nov, the birth date of Indian genius mathematician Ramanujan, as National Mathematical Day.