Srinivasa Ramanujan, Mozart of Mathematics

Shivani Kava, Dec 22, 2020, 10:43 AM IST

December 22 is celebrated as the National Mathematics Day throughout India to commemorate the birth anniversary of the Mathematical legend, Srinivasa Ramanujan Aiyangar.

Ramanujan who is known as the man who knew infinity had no formal training in pure mathematics. At just the age of 13, he had mastered trigonometry  and discovered complex theorems on his own. Most of his mathematics discoveries were based on sheer intuition,  most of which were proved later. A famous British Mathematician, GH Hardy mentored him at Cambridge.

Ramanujan had very few opportunities to showcase his talents as he died at the age of 32 after contracting Tuberculosis.

Lesser known facts about Ramanujan 

• Ramanujan avoided attending school. His family enlisted a local constable to make sure he attended school.
• As a young man, he failed to get a degree, as he did not clear his fine arts courses, despite always performing exceptionally well in mathematics.
• Ramanujan gave several fascinating formulas to calculate the digits of pi. His infinite series for pi has been the most treasured findings which forms the basis of many algorithms we use today.
• His discovery of new ideas helped solve many mathematical problems and he even contributed to the game theory.
• 1729 is called Hardy-Ramanujam number in his honor, and such numbers are called Taxicab numbers.
• A movie was made on Ramanujan in 2015 starring Dev Patel.