National Mathematics Day 2020: Celebrating S. Ramanujan birthday

National Mathematics Day 2020

National Mathematics Day is celebrated every year on December 22 across the nation to recognise and celebrate the works of Srinivasa Ramanujan. It was on this day in 1887, the Indian mathematical genius Srinivasa Ramanujan was born. The mathematical genius Ramanujan was born to a Tamil Brahmin Iyengar family at Erode, Tamil Nadu. The former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, on February 26, 2012, declared December 22 as the National Mathematics Day to mark the mathematician’s birth anniversary. The National Mathematics Day is celebrated across the country with several educational events in schools and colleges.

Srinivasa Ramanujan, who is also known as the ‘man who knew infinity’, did not receive any formal education in Mathematics but made important contributions to the field of mathematics. The mathematical genius made in depth analysis in order to solve mathematical problems using new ideas and concepts.

Srinivasa Rmanujan – Interesting Facts, Contributions & more

1. S. Ramanujan was born on December 22, 1887 in a Tamil Brahmin Iyengar family in Erode. Though his mother, a housewife, had three other children later, none of them survived even till their first birthday.
2. Ramanujan went to local school and was recognized as a child prodigy in mathematics by the age of 11.By that age, he could do advance mathematics taught at college level. It was at that age that he was introduced to trigonometry and by age 13 he was a master in the subject.
3. As a student, he would help his school assign 1200 teachers to 35 teachers as per their specific needs and requirements.
4. He graduated from Town Higher Secondary School in 1904 and was awarded the K. Ranganatha Rao prize for mathematics by the school’s headmaster, Krishnaswami Iyer. He even got a scholarship to study at Government’s Arts College Kumbakonam. However, not interested in any other subject, he failed to score minimum passing marks and lost his scholarship.
5. Following the same, he enrolled at Pachaiyappa’s College in Madras, now Chennai but failed his Fellow in Arts in 1906 and then in 1907 as he could not be inclined to study any other subject and even in mathematics he only chose to do ‘challenging’ questions.
6. Ramanujan got the recognition again in 1910 after he met the founder of the Indian Mathematical Society, V. Ramaswamy Aiyer and slowly gained repute in the mathematical circles. His remarkable work won him a position of research at the University of Madras.
7. He wrote to many English Mathematicians but his work was often disregarded for it lacked ‘formal’ presentation and flair. Before he was ‘found’ by G.H. Hardy, his work was returned by two professors of the Cambridge University, unread.
8. He first refused to leave India for England but later agreed. For most part, he claimed that he got the genius from divinity and that is where he got his answers.
9. He compiled as many as 3900 results and identitites in his lifetime.
10. Among the most important contributions were to mathematical analysis, number theory, infinite series, and continued fractions. His work on Ramanujan prime, the Ramanujan theta function, partition formulae and mock theta functions continue to open new areas of research.
11. Among the most famous are Ramanujan Number- also called the magic number which is 1729. It is the smallest number that can be expressed as a sum of cubes of two different sets of numbers. Ramajuna Square is another mathematical puzzle that enthrals all.
12. The great mathematician, however, was riddled with ill health all his life. The condition was often exacerbated due to poverty and his strict dietary restrictions that he followed as part of his religious beliefs.

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