Srinivasa Iyengar Ramanujan is an inspiration for mathematicians across the globe. The self-taught genius lived a short but vibrant life and he is widely regarded as India's greatest mathematician. Ramanujan died on April 26, 1920, at the age of 32 years after suffering from tuberculosis. He lives on through his work, which has continued to provide food for thought and research over the years.Ramanujan’s birth anniversary on December 22 is celebrated as National Mathematics Day in India to honour his achievements.At the young age of 13, Ramanujan worked out Loney’s trigonometry exercises without any assistance.Ramanujan obtained a copy of Synopsis of Elementary Results in Pure and Applied Mathematics at the age of 15 and took on a daunting challenge. The book had over 5,000 theorems, but it either had brief proofs or no proofs at all. Thus, he took it upon himself to solve and obtain proof of all the theorems and he eventually succeeded.Despite having little to no formal training in mathematics, Ramanujan managed to publish his first paper in the Journal of Indian Mathematical Society in 1911.ALSO READ | Math puzzle for 10-year-old leaves several confused; do you have an answer?In 1913, Ramanujan encountered Godfrey H. Hardy, a British mathematician who is known for his work on number theory.This helped him get a scholarship from University of Madras and he was awarded a grant from Trinity College, Cambridge. He then moved to England and started to work alongside Hardy.The English weather didn’t suit him and he also mentioned a few instances of racism towards him. He became the second Indian Fellow of the Royal Society and the first Indian fellow of the Trinity College, Cambridge in 1918.He was born in a poor Tamil Brahmin family and at home he never had enough money to buy paper for notes and studies. So he used only slates and chalk for his calculations.ALSO READ | NCERT study reveals 11% of class 3 kids lack basic math skills and 37% have limited skillsProfessor Hardy created a scale which rated the mathematical ability of a person. On this scale of 0 to 100, Hardy rated himself 25 while Ramanujan was rated a full 100.Ramanujan returned to India in 1919, but his health began to deteriorate, and a year later he died at age 32.He left his work in three notebooks and a huge pile of sheets, which contained unpublished results. These were verified by mathematicians across the world for many years after his death.
