Srivinasa Ramnuja- The man who knew Infinity

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The man who knew Infinity
By: Sonali Purohit
Many people have heard of “The man who knew Infinity”, mostly from the movie made in 2015. He was credited as one the greatest mathematicians in history. Developing his very own theorems at age 13,  without no evidence of a formal math education. He showed his true talents at a young age, and by age 15 he acquired a book called Synopsis of Elementary Results in Pure and Applied Mathematics. This book would play a crucial part in his mathematic success. By the time he was a teenager,  he solving very complex problem that others his age couldn’t even dream of solving. However, his deep love and admiration for math made his attention shift to math and only math, which then led to him not being able to complete his degree and him dropping out of college.


Ramanujan was struggling for work to support himself, tutoring and searching for jobs. At age 24, he was able to continue his research with the help of a man named Rao. With that help, he was able to publish his first paper. This paper opened many doors for him, including gaining the attention of Godfrey Hardy, an acclaimed mathematician.  Hardy was very impressed with Ramanujan’ work and helped him get a scholarship to the University of Madras and a grant to Cambridge. Thus, Ramanujan followed Hardy to England to further his education and research.


Although he was almost completely unaware of modern developments in mathematics, his mastery of continued fractions was unequaled by any living mathematician. He worked out the Riemann Series, the elliptic integrals, hyper geometric series, the functional equations of the zeta function, and his own theory of divergent series.


Though brilliant, many of his theorems on the theory of prime numbers were wrong, as the the book he had been using for his knowledge was extremely outdated. In England Ramanujan made further advances, especially in the partition of numbers (the number of ways that a positive integer can be expressed as the sum of positive integers; e.g., 4 can be expressed as 4, 3 + 1, 2 + 2, 2 + 1 + 1, and 1 + 1 + 1 + 1). His papers were published in both England and European journals! This led to his advancement and invitation to join  Royal Society of London. The Royal Society of London is a learned society made for improving natural knowledge. Sadly in 1917, he contracted Tuberculosis but his condition improved enough for him to return to India. The following year, he passed away still unknown to many but recognized by mathematicians and scientists from the past and present alike.  His work and findings are not only still used in computer algorithms and the research of black holes in space.
His work has been constantly contributing to many aspects in science, from physics, mathematics and even astronomy alongside with Stephen Hawkings. Ramanujan thought that his mock modular forms corresponded to the ordinary modular forms earlier identified by Carl Jacobi, and that both would wind up with similar outputs for roots of 1. However, at the time no one knew what Ramanujan was talking about. Thus his findings only being found after he had died. Scientists recovered a formula from his deathbed letter. The letter described several new functions that behaved differently from known theta functions, or modular forms, and yet closely mimicked them. His work still plays just a crucial part in science and mathematics as it did when he was alive.








Links- https://www.famousscientists.org/srinivasa-ramanujan/
          https://www.thefamouspeople.com/profiles/srinivasa-ramanujan-503.php


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