Srinivasa Ramanujan's 128th birth anniversary: Some facts on the genius

In  the words of Albert Einstein "Pure mathematics is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas."

Srinivasa Ramanujan Iyengar was born on December 22, 1887. The day is also celebrated as National Mathematics Day to mark the birth anniversary of this Mathematics' genius, Srinivasa Ramanujan. The credit for all the  development in the 20th century Mathematics is given to Ramanujan's final writings, theories and developments.

On his 128th birth anniversary today, let us remind you how terribly awesome genius he was:

·       Ramanujan, learned about Hindu tradition and puranas from his mother. He also learned to sing religious songs, to attend pujas at the temple, and to keep particular eating habits. All of these were a part of the Brahmin culture

·       Before the age of 10, in the year1897, he had passed his primary examinations in English, Tamil, Geography and Arithmetic

·       He completely mastered a book on advanced trigonometry written by S. L. Loney by the time he was 13. By that time, he had also discovered sophisticated theorems on his own

·       By 14, he had received many merit certificates and academic awards. In fact, by 14, he had already completed most of the Mathematics in half the allotted time

·       In 1902, Ramanujan was taught how to solve cubic equations and he went on to find his own method to solve the quartic

·       In 1903, when he was 16, Ramanujan had studied G. S. Carr's 'A Synopsis of Elementary Results in Pure and Applied Mathematics' in detail. The book was a collection of 5,000 theorems

·       He failed most of the subjects in school because he read and studied only Mathematics

·       He did not have any degree but had his theories to apply for the jobs. He left college but continued to pursue independent research in Mathematics. At that point in his life, he lived in extreme poverty and starvation

·       When he was 17, he developed the Bernoulli numbers and calculated the Euler-Mascheroni constant to 15 decimal places

·       His mathematical studies impressed the founder of the Indian Mathematical Society, V. Ramaswamy Aiyer, so much that Aiyer gave his letters of introduction to R. Ramachandra Rao who gave him financial backing while he continued his research in Mathematics

·       He spent five years in Cambridge and was eventually awarded a Ph. D in Mathematics

·       In 1918, he was elected as the Fellow of the Royal Society for his investigation in Elliptic function and the Theory of Numbers

·       He was diagnosed with tuberculosis and a severe vitamin deficiency later in life. He returned to India in 1919 and died in 1920, at the age of 32.