Srinivasa

Ramanujan Biography
Srinivasa Ramanujan was a striking personality with an extra
ordinary talent in mathematics. Read more to find out about his
profile, childhood, life and timeline.
Quick Facts
Famous as

Mathematician

Nationality

Indian

Born on

22 December 1887 AD

Zodiac Sign

Sagittarius

Born in

Erode

Died on

26 April 1920 AD

Place of
death

Chetput

Father

K. Srinivasa Iyengar

Mother

Komalat Ammal

Siblings

Sadagopan

Spouse:

Janaki Ammal
Trinity College, Cambridge (19191920),

Education

University of Cambridge (19141919),

University of Cambridge (1916), Government
Arts College, Kumbakonam (19041906), Town
Higher Secondary School (1904),
Pachaiyappa's College, University of

Quick Facts
Ramanujan constant, Ramanujan prime,
Ramanujan theta function, Ramanujans master
theorem, Mock theta functions, Ramanujan
Achievements
conjecture, Ramanujan-Soldner constant,
Works &

Ramanujans sum.

Rightly

regarded

as

natural

genius

by

the

English

mathematician G.H. Hardy, Srinivasa Ramanujan displayed an

amazing talent in mathematics, even though he did not receive
formal training in that subject. He contributed to several areas
of mathematics such as the number theory, mathematical
analysis, infinite series and continued fractions. This great
mathematician of the 20th century added much to the field of
advance mathematics with his fascinating theories and proofs,
which are in use even today. Also, in 1997, The Ramanujan
Journal was published by an American mathematician Bruce .C.
Berndt, which showed Ramanujans areas of study. He
formulated many formulas to solve problems, but his untimely
death put an end to his great exploration to the unseen beauty
and enormity of this subject. Within a short-life, he
independently compiled about 3900 results involving identities
and equations. Ramanujan used to jot down some of the proofs
and theorems in his notebooks that had been studied by many
mathematicians, after his death. Scroll further and read more
about the profile, life, career and timeline of Srinivasa
Ramanujan.

Early Life
Srinivasa Ramanujan was born at his grandmother s house in
Erode, a small town located about 400 km towards southwest
Madras. His father was a clerk in a textile shop in Kumbakonam.
Young Ramanujan contracted small pox in 1889 December.
However, unlike many other people in that town, Ramanujan
overcame the epidemic invasion even thoughhis family his
father s income was barely sufficient to meet extra medical
expenses. When he was five, he was sent to a primary school in
Kumbakonam. Before he entered the Town High school in
Kumbakonam in 1898 January, he went to several other private
schools. While in school, he excelled in all the subjects and was
considered as an all-rounder. Towards 1900, he began to work
towards developing his mathematical ability, dealing with
geometrics and arithmetic series. His talent was exposed to the
world very early in 1902, when he showed how to solve cubic
equations and also sought a method to solve quartic. While in
Town High School, he read a book Synopsis of elementary
results in mathematics, which was very concise that he could
teach himself without taking help from any tutor. In this book,
various theorems were mentioned in the book, along with
shortcuts and formulas to solve them. During this time,
Ramanujan engaged himself in deep research in 1904 and
during this time he investigated the series sigma 1/n and also
extended Euler s constant to 15 decimal points. Because of his
great work in school studies, he was awarded a scholarship to
attend Government College in Kumbakonam, in 1904. Due to his
lack of interest in other subjects, he could not utilize this
opportunity properly. He kept up his mathematical works and
studied in depth about hyper geometric series and the
relationship between series and integrals.

Care e r
Ramanujan was focused to pass the First Arts examination,
which would be his ticket to the University of Madras. Hence, he
went to Pachaiyappas College in Madras in 1906 and put all his

efforts in studying and attended all the lectures. Unfortunately,

after three months of his dedicated study, he became ill. He
appeared for the Fine Arts examination and cleared in
mathematics, but failed in all the other subjects. T his stopped
him from pursuing his dream of getting into the University of
Madras. He left college without a degree and pursued
independent research in Mathematics. In 1908, he studied
fractions and divergent series. His health deteriorated and this
time, it became worse and he had to undergo an operation in
1909. It took considerable time for him to recover. Ramanujan
spent more time and effort in developing his mathematical ability
and solved problems in the Journal of the Indian Mathematical
Society, developing relations between elliptic modular
equations. His brilliant work on the Bernoulli numbers in 1911,
in the Journal of the Indian mathematical society, grabbed the
recognition for all his hard work over the years. T hough he did
not have a University qualification, he became quite famous in
Madras as a mathematical genius. He required means of income
and so, he approached the founder of the Indian Mathematical
Society in 1911. Hence, he was appointed in a temporary post
at the accountants General Office in Madras. Afterwards, he
also approached Ramachandra Rao, the Collector at Nellore, for
a job. In 1912, Ramanujan applied at the Madras Port Trust in
the section of accounts for the clerical post. Recommendations
from the university mathematicians helped him to get through
the selection process. Hence, he joined the office on 1 March
1912. In the office, he was surrounded with great
mathematicians who enhanced Ramanujans knowledge in the
subject.

Life in England And Re turn to India
Ramanujan sent a copy of his works to some of the greatest
mathematicians of this time, but that didnt help him find his way
further. After having read Orders of infinity by G.H. Hardy in
1913, he also wrote to him. Hardy, along with Littlewood, went
through his works and to Ramanujans delight, Hardy replied to
him. In May 1913, T he Board of Studies in Mathematics

bestowed Ramanujan with a scholarship of Rs.75 per month for

his two-year study in University of Madras. T he following year
Ramanujan went to Trinity College, Cambridge, with the help of
Hardy. T his gave way to extra ordinary collaboration.
Ramanujan left India on 17 March 1914 and arrived in London
on 14 April 1914. Along with hardy, Ramanujan was able to
prove some important results. Ramanujan had some health
issues in the early winter season in March 1915, which stopped
him from publishing anything for five months. Hence, on 16
March 1916, he graduated from Cambridge and acquired a
Bachelor of Science degree by Research. It is during this time
that his health deteriorated and doctors were not confident. In
1919, 27 February, he went back to India and by this time his
health was completely destroyed. With regard to his great
recognition, he received a generous scholarship from the
Madras University and every possible measures were arranged
for his further research in the field of Mathematics.

Ram anujan-Hardy Num be r (1729)
When Ramanujan fell ill, Hardy came to his residence to visit
Ramanujan in a cab with a number 1729. T hat day, he made a
comment to Ramanujan saying that the number appeared to be
very dull number. Ramanujan corrected him instantly saying that
is an interesting number and explained that it is the smallest
natural number that could be expressed as the sum of two
positive cubes, in two different ways (i.e., 1 3 + 123 and 93 +
10 3 .)

Pe rsonal Life and De ath
In July, 14, 1909, Ramanujan married a ten year old girl, S.
Janaki Ammal. However, he did not live with her until she was
twelve years old. He succumbed to tuberculosis (T.B) in 1920
and was eventually admitted in the hospital. All the efforts went
in vain and he passed away at the age of 32, on 26 April 1920.

Re cognitions

Fellow of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, 1918.

Fellow of the Royal society of London, 1918.
Fellow of Trinity College Cambridge