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A NOTE ON RAMANUJAN'S LIFE

Article · December 2017

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Mamta Amol Wagh

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 Mamta Amol Wagh
Assistant Professor
Deen Dayal Upadhyaya College
University of Delhi

A note on Ramanujan’s Life

Ramanujan is one of the greatest Indian

mathematician who lived his life through hardships

and in that condition he did a great research because

of which he is known to the whole world today.

Ramanujan’s contribution to the theory of numbers

has been profound. He was indeed a mathematical

phenomenon of the twentieth century. This legendary genius of India ranks among

the all time greats like Euler and Jacobi. Ramanujan was born on December 22nd

in the year 1887 in an Iyenger family in Erode, Madras which is known as Tamil

Nadu now. His father was a clerk in a saree shop there and his mother was a house

wife. Ramanujan suffered from smallpox in December 1889. In that year around

4000 people died due to this disease but ramanujan recovered, may be because he

had to do such a great work in mathematics that the world will remembers always.
Ramanujan moved to his mother’s house in kanchipuram which is known as

Chennai today.

On October 1st 1892, Ramanujan got enrolled in a local school. His maternal grand

was a court official in kanchipuram but soon he lost his job and Ramanujan and his

mother had to move back to kumbhkonam after that. Ramanujan was very close to

his mother as his father was at work most of the time. From his mother he got the

education of tradition, religious songs, puranas and he attended pujas at a temple.

In kumbhkonam he was enrolled to a school there. When his grandfather expired

he and his mother were sent back to his maternal grandparent’s house where he got

admission in a local school but he did not like that school and started bunking the

school. Then his parents enlisted a local constable to keep an eye on him to make

sure that he attended the school regularly. Not much is known about his early life

and schooling except that he was a solitary child by nature. It is believed that he

was born as a result of ardent prayers to the goddess Namgiri. Later Ramanujan

attributed his mathematical power to this goddess of creation and wisdom. For

him nothing was useful unless it expressed the essence of spirituality. Ramanujan

found mathematics as a profound manifestation of the Reality. He was such a great

mathematician and genius that he wanted to transform all his thoughts and

imagination into mathematics . He was an expert in the interpretation of dreams

and astrology. All these qualities entered in his mind through his mother as he

spent most of his lifetime with his mother.

There were two boys who were paying-guests in his house. Ramanujan used to sit

with them and study and soon he exhausted their mathematics knowledge and by

the age of 13, he mastered the book on advanced trigonometry by S. L. Loney and

he developed some of his own theorems. When he was fourteen years old, he

started receiving awards and honors and merit certificates for his talent. He was so

obsessed of doing mathematics that he ignored everything else and would play

with numbers day and night on a slate and in his mind. Mathematics was his

companion to life. He constantly worked day and night to improve his knowledge

of mathematics and mastered this art on his own. His obsession and preoccupation

with mathematics did not allow him to pass his intermediate examination. He

appeared in his intermediate examination three times. He could not get even the

minimum pass marks in other subjects. He was the man who knew infinity. Once

in his class the teacher was teaching about division and said that if you divide a

number by itself you will get 1. Then Ramanujan asked the teacher , “is it the same

if we divide zero by zero.”

On 14th july 1909, Ramanujan marrried Janaki (Janakiammal) when she was just

10 years old which was not strange at that time. Janaki lived with her maternal

family until she was 13 years and then she and Ramanujan’s mother joined
Ramanujan in Madras. Ramanujan’s mother had arranged this marriage. After

marriage Ramanujan fell ill and he needed a surgery to be well again but because

of financial problems that could not be done. But then in 1910, a doctor got ready

to do the surgery free of cost. After the successful surgery Ramanujan was ready to

search for a job and for that he went door to door so that he could find a clerical

job. He tutored the students at Presidency college who were preparing for their

exams. In 1910 he was sick again and he feared of his health so he asked R.

RadhaKrishna Iyer to handover his notebooks to Professor Singaravelu or to the

British Professor Edward B. Ross, who was teaching in Madras Cristian College

that time. In 1913, he got a research position at Madras University and then he

moved to Triplicane (also known as Thiruvallikeni) with his family.

Ramanujan met deputy collector V. Ramaswamy Aiyer, who had founded the

Indian Mathematical Society, and was working in revenue department.

Ramanujan showed him his notebooks wishing that he could get a job in the same

department. Later Aiyer recalled

“I was struck by the extraordinary mathematical results contained in the

notebooks. I had no mind to smother his genius by an appointment in the lowest

rungs of the revenue department.”

With Aiyer’s help, Ramanujan was able to publish his research (after so many

hurdles because the secretary of Indian Mathematical Society doubted

Ramanujan’s research thinking that it’s not his own, but later Ramanujan’s friend

C.V. Rajgopalachari crushed Rao’s doubts about Ramanujan’s academic integrity.)

in the journal of the Indian Mathematical Society.

The problem which was posed by Ramanujan in the journal was

1  2 1  3 1  ...

He waited for the solution of this problem for six months, but failed to receive any.

Then finally Ramanujan supplied the solution to the problem himself.

In his first notebook, on page no. 105, he gave an equation that could be used to

solve such nested radicals problem

x  n  a  ax  (n  a) 2  x a( x  n)  (n  a) 2  ( x  n) ...

By using this equation, the answer to the problem poised in the journal could be

easily calculated which was 3, obtained by setting x  2, n  1, a  0 .

Ramanujan’s first formal paper for the same journal was on Bernoulli numbers.

In the starting, Ramanujan's papers had many flaws. As Journal editor M. T.

Narayana Iyengar noted:

“Mr. Ramanujan's methods were so terse and novel and his presentation so lacking

in clearness and precision, that the ordinary [mathematical reader], unaccustomed

to such intellectual gymnastics, could hardly follow him.”

Ramanujan continued publishing the problems in the journal.

Ramanujan’s first job (in Madras General Accountant’s office) gave him a monthly

salary of twenty rupees only. This was his temporary job.

In 1913 he came across an article written by Professor Hardy. Ramanujan stayed at

Cambridge for four years and during this period he produced many papers of great

mathematical significance in collaboration with his mentor Professor Hardy.

PROF. G.H. HARDY

There is an incident from his life:

Well, the story narrates the friendship of Professor G. H. Hardy and Ramanujan.

This incident gave birth to the famous Taxi Cab Numbers. Hardy once paid a visit

to Ramanujan when he was in UK in a cab numbered "1729". Ramanujan who had

an inherent love for factorization saw the number immediately and said there is

something "fishy" about it. Ramanujan said that 1729 was not a boring number at

all: it was a very interesting one. He explained that it was the smallest number that

could be expressed by the sum of two cubes in two different ways. This story is

very famous among mathematicians. 1729 is sometimes called the “Hardy-

Ramanujan number” So came the famous "Taxicab" numbers. There are only 6

known taxicab numbers. Hardy and Ramanujan found the second one.

So what are taxicab numbers T(n) are :

They are the smallest numbers which can be represented in n different ways as the

sum of n cubes. 1729 happened to be the 2nd "Taxicab" no.

1729 = 13 + 123 = 93 + 103.

Such was the prodigy of Ramanujan that when once Mr. Hardy was asked about

what was his greatest discovery to mathematics, he replied "Mr. Ramanujan".

His phenomenal and exceptional genius was recognized all over the academic

world. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society, London in 1918. He was then

30 years of age. His mastery of certain areas of mathematics was really fantastic

and unbelievable. Ramanujan was awarded a Bachelor of Science degree by

research (this degree was later renamed PhD) in March 1916 for his work

on highly composite numbers, the first part of which was published as a paper in
the Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society. The paper was more than 50

pages and proved various properties of such numbers. Hardy remarked that it was

one of the most unusual papers seen in mathematical research at that time and that

Ramanujan showed extraordinary ingenuity in handling it. But due to non stop

working day and night in mathematics research his health started deteriorating and

he fell seriously ill in April, 1917.

Ramanujan had contracted tuberculosis. And it was decided to send him back to

India for some time. He reached India on March 27, 1919. He breathed his last on

April 26, 1920 at Kumbakonam at the age of 32 years. His death shocked Professor

Hardy and others beyond words.

REFERENCES

1. http://www.yourarticlelibrary.com/essay/srinivasa-ramanujan-essay-on-

srinivasa-ramanujan/28457

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srinivasa_Ramanujan

3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxicab_number
 4. https://todayinsci.com/R/Ramanujan_Srinivasa/RamanujanSrinivasa-

PictureLarge.htm

5. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0315086003000028

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