Srinivasa Ramanujan

Srinivasa Ramanujan was a largely self-taught pure mathematician. Hindered by poverty and ill-health, his highly original work has considerably enriched number theory and, more recently, physics.

Beginnings

Srinivasa Ramanujan was born on December 8, 1820 in the town of Erode, in Tamil Nadu, in the south east of India. His father was K. Srinivasa Iyengar, an accounting clerk for a clothing merchant. His mother was Komalatammal, who earned a small amount of money each month as a singer at the local temple.

His family were Brahmins, the Hindu caste of priests and scholars. His mother ensured the boy was in tune with Brahmin traditions and culture. Although his family were high caste, they were very poor.

Ramanujan’s parents moved around a lot, and he attended a variety of different elementary schools. By the age of 10, he was the top student, not just in his school, but in his district.

The Discovery of Ramanujan as a Mathematician

The Hungry Years
At the beginning of 1907, at the age of 19, with minimal funds and a stomach all too often groaning with hunger, Ramanujan continued on the path he had chosen: total devotion to mathematics. The mathematics he was doing was highly original and very advanced.

Even though (or some might say because) he had very little formal mathematical education he was able to discover new theorems. He also independently discovered results originally discovered by some of the greatest mathematicians in history, such as Carl Friedrich Gauss and Leonhard Euler.

Ill-health was Ramanujan’s constant companion – as it would be for much of his short life.

By 1910 he realized he must find work to stay alive. In the city of Madras he found some students who needed mathematics tutoring and he also walked around the city offering to do accounting work for businesses.

And then a piece of luck came his way. Ramanujan tried to find work at the government revenue department, and there he met an official whose name was Ramaswamy Aiyer. Ramanujan did not have a resume to show Ramaswamy Aiyer; all he had was his notebooks – the results of his mathematical work.

Ramanujan’s good fortune was that Ramaswamy Aiyer was a mathematician. He had only recently founded the Indian Mathematical Society, and his jaw dropped when he saw Ramanujan’s work.

Number Theory and String Theory
In 1918 Ramanujan became the first Indian Mathematician to be elected a Fellow of the British Royal Society:

“Distinguished as a pure mathematician particularly for his investigation in elliptic functions and the theory of numbers.”

In his short lifetime he produced almost 4000 proofs, identities, conjectures and equations in pure mathematics.

His theta function lies at the heart of string theory in physics.

Some Personal Details and the End

In July 1909 Ramanujan married S. Janaki Ammal, who was then just 10 years old. The marriage had been arranged by Ramanujan’s mother. The couple began sharing a home in 1912.

When Ramanujan left to study at the University of Cambridge, his wife moved in with Ramanujan’s parents. Ramanujan’s scholarship was sufficient for his needs in Cambridge and the family’s needs in Kumbakonam.

For his first three years in Cambridge, Ramanujan was very happy. His health, however, had always been rather poor. The winter weather in England, much colder than anything he had ever imagined, made him ill for a time.

In 1917 he was diagnosed with tuberculosis and worryingly low vitamin levels. He spent months being cared for in sanitariums and nursing homes.

In February 1919 his health seemed to have recovered sufficiently for him to return to India, but sadly he would only live for about a year on his return.

Srinivasa Ramanujan died aged 32 in Madras on April 26, 1920. His death was most likely caused by hepatic amoebiasis caused by liver parasites common in Madras. His body was cremated.