The one who perceived infinity to its fullest

In 2011, the first National Mathematics Day was observed. The Indian government averred, 22nd December to be celebrated as National Mathematics Day in honor of the man who perceived infinity to its fullest.

Srinivasa Ramanujan (22 December 1887 – 26 April 1920) also known as ‘The man who knew infinity’ was an Indian mathematician. Though he had gathered no formal training in pure mathematics, he substantiated disciplines like mathematical analysis, number theory, infinite series, and continued fractions. He proffered solutions to problems that were considered unsolvable then. Ramanujan conjectured his research in Mathematics in solitude. According to Hans Eysenck: "He tried to interest the leading professional mathematicians in his work, but couldn’t succeed. What he presented was too unconventional, too unfamiliar, and additionally presented in unusual ways, they could not be bothered".

Did you know the theory of black holes was predicted by Ramanujan over 100 years ago?

In 1913 in search of mathematicians who could better understand his work, he began a postal accord with the English mathematician G. H. Hardy at the University of Cambridge, England. Acknowledging Ramanujan's work as exceptional, Hardy arranged for him to travel to Cambridge. In his notes, Hardy stated that Ramanujan had produced ground-breaking new theorems, including some that defeated him completely. He had never seen anything like them before. Some of which have recently proven but highly advanced results.

During his short life, Ramanujan on his own compiled a whopping 3,900 results (mostly identities and equations). Many were completely unconventional. His original and highly distinctive conjectures, such as the Ramanujan prime, the Ramanujan theta function, partition formulae, and mock theta functions. These have opened entire new areas of work and inspired an endless amount of further research. Of all his conjectures, all but a dozen or two have now been proven correct. The Ramanujan Journal, a scientific journal, was instituted to accelerate academic articles in domains Ramanujan worked upon. His notebooks possessing summaries of his conjectures results have been scrutinized for decades since his death as a source of new mathematical ideas.

Even now researchers continue to discover feeble comments in his writings about "simple properties" and "similar outputs" for certain findings were themselves intellectual and subtle number theory results that have remained unsuspected even nearly a century after his death. He was honored as one of the youngest Fellows of the Royal Society and only the second Indian member. Ramanujan became the first and foremost Indian to be voted as a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. Of his original letters, Hardy stated that a single sufficed to show they could have been curated only by a mathematician of the highest caliber.

In 1919, ill health—now believed to have been hepatic amoebiasis compelled Ramanujan's retrieval to India. The world lost the ignited mind in 1920 at the tender age of 32. His concluding letters to Hardy, forged in January 1920, show that he was continuing to produce new mathematical ideas and theorems. His "lost notebook", houses discoveries from the concluding year of his life, which enthralled mathematicians when it was rediscovered in 1976. His work on mock modular formulas could elucidate the dynamics of black holes.

A devoted Hindu, Ramanujan credited his substantial mathematical capacities to divinity. He affirmed that his family goddess, Namagiri Thayar, revealed his mathematical knowledge to him.

He once said, "An equation for me has no meaning unless it expresses a thought of God."

No wonder why he had an acquaintance with infinities.

Author: Raghav Gupta

Editor: Aviral Srivastava