GENIUSES IN MATHEMATICS

SRINIVASA RAMANUJAM

1. Hardy-Ramanujan Number Once Hardy visited to Putney where Ramanujan was hospitalized.
He visited there in a taxi cab having number 1729. Hardy was very superstitious due to his
such nature when he entered into Ramanujan’s room, he quoted that he had just came in a
taxi cab having number 1729 which seemed to him an unlucky number but at that time, he
prayed that his perception may go wrong as hewanted that his friend would get well soon,
but Ramanujan promptly replied that this was a very interesting number as it is the smallest
number which can be expressed as the sum of cubes of two numbers in two different ways
as given below: 1729 = 1 3 +123 = 103 + 9 3 Later some theorems were established in theory
of elliptic curves which involves this fascinating number
Infinite Series For𝜋: Srinivasa Ramanujan also discovered some remarkable infinite series of π
around 1910. The series computes a further eight decimal places of π with each term in the series
.Later on, a number of efficient algorithms have been developed by number theorists using the
infinite series of π given by Ramanujan.
In 1918, he was second Indian to get elected as one of the youngest
Fellows in the history of Royal Society for his investigation in Elliptic
functions and the Theory of Numbers.

Again in 1918, he received one more achievement, he became the first

Indian where he was honored by getting elected as a Fellow of Trinity
College.

Along with this there are many contributions he made in field of

Mathematics, for eg: Fastest Algorithm for calculation of pi, he was
successful in discovering 3 Ramanujan's Congruences.
ARYABHATTA
Aryabhata was one of the major Mathematician-Astronomers belonging to
the classical age of Indian Astronomy and Mathematics. Born in
Pataliputra,Magadha, he is regarded as one of the greatest Mathematician
of all time. His famous works include the ‘Aryabhatiya’ whose Mathematical
parts consists of topics on algebra, trigonometry and arithmetic, continued
fractions, sum of power series, quadratic equations and sine tables.
One of his discoveries is the approximation of pi which is given by him in
Aryabhatia,
“Add four to 100, multiply by eight, and then add 62,000. By this rule the
circumference of a circle with a diameter of 20,000 can be approached.”
The calculation is obtained as 3.1416 which is close to the actual value
of π(3.14159).
Before going to Aryabhata’s invention of zero lets know a little bit about the
Indian History of number zero.
Acharya Pingala, a Sanskrit scholar and an Indian Mathematician first used
the Sanskrit word ‘Sunya’, referred to as Zero.The word ‘Sunya’ means
void or empty. It is believed that the first text to use the decimal place value
system(includes zero) was first used in Jain text or Cosmology named
‘Lokavibhaga’ . This is where the term ‘Sunya’ was used.
‘Bakshali Manuscript’, an Arithmetic manual on merchants records the
symbol of zero which is a dot like structure having a hollow structure
signifying void or nothing..These manuscripts were brought up by
Radiocarbon dating ( which is a method of determining the age of an object
using radiocarbon) in 2017. The ages were recorded to come from 224-383
AD, 680-779 AD, and 885-993 AD. This marks the world’s oldest record of
the application of the symbol of Zero.
In Mathematics there is a term called the Decimal place Value System also
called Positional Notation. This means that the value of a number is
determined by the position of the digit that is the value of a number is
actually the product of the digit by a factor which is determined by the
position of the digit.
For example lets take three identical digits 999. Here the interesting part is
in words the number is written as nine hundred and ninety nine . The
hundreds tens and the units here are being determined by the position of
the digits that is digit at the first place represents the units, second place
represents the tens and the third place represents hundreds. Similarly any
digit at the fourth place shall reprimand thousands.
This concept of the place value system, although was first used in ‘Bakshali
Manuscript’ held a very important place in Aryabhata’s work. But the
symbol for Zero was not used by Aryabhata. The use of Zero as a ‘digit’
was first used in India during the Gupta Period.
George Ifrah, a French Mathematician stated that the concept and
understanding of zero as a ‘digit’ was first given by Aryabhata in his place
value system because the counting system of digits is not possible without
the place value system or zero. Also calculation performed by Aryabhata
on square and cubic roots cannot be done if the numbers are not arranged
in accordance with the place value system or zero. This concept of Zero is
considered to be one of the best and greatest achievements of Indian
Mathematics.
Now the rules for using Zero as a digit was first introduced in
Brahmasputha Siddhanta, by Bramhagupta whereas in some stances his
rules differ from the modern rules, one being on dividing zero by zero the
result yields zero.