Srinivasa Ramanujan (1887-1920) Indian Mathematician + Legendary Hero

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Srinivasa Ramanujan (1887-1920) Indian Mathematician + Legendary Hero Mini Biography ● Found a copy of A Synopsis of Elementary Results in Pure and Applied Mathematics by George Carr and self-taught himself mathematics. ● Went to college, but failed his non-math classes and lost his scholarship ● Wrote all his thoughts down in notebooks, but lacked a formal and rigorous proof method ● Sent letters and his work to University of Cambridge. His 3rd letter reached G.H. Hardy, who was incredibly impressed by Ramanujan’s work. Some of it was already proved, other material was completely new, but all of it was intriguing to Hardy. ● As an example, Ramanujan had a lot of work with infinite series and found a series that was later used to calculate pi to over 17 million digits. ● G.H. Hardy brought Ramanujan over to Europe and helped him formalize his math skills. Much of their work revolutionized number theory as it is today. ● Ramanujan eventually fell ill during World War I, made the difficult journey back to India, and passed away shortly after Amazing Anecdotes ● One of the ideas he presented in his letter was the notion that the sum of all positive integers can be equal to the opposite of one-twelfth (an idea that was shown by Reimann years earlier, and is currently used in string theory) ● When Hardy visited Ramanujan in the hospital, he told him about the rather dull number of his taxicab he had taken: 1729. Ramanujan quickly exclaimed “No, it is a very interesting number. It is the smallest number expressible as a sum of two cubes in two different ways.” 1729 is now called the Hardy-Ramanujan number, and is the first of the taxicab numbers, with the second being 87539319. ● Hardy rated mathematicians on a scale of 0 to 100. He put himself at 25, David Hilbert at 80, and Ramanujan was a whopping 100! ● Ramanujan studied Fermat’s Last Theorem, and came up with an infinite list of near-misses of counter-examples, but never got it down exactly. ● His birthday in December is celebrated in India as National Mathematics Day “In order to honor the legacy of Srinivasa Ramanujan, the Spirit of Ramanujan STEM Talent Initiative supports emerging engineers, mathematicians, and scientists who lack traditional institutional support through financial grants and mentorship opportunities.” https://spiritoframanujan.com/home/ Keeping with the Spirit of Ramanujan, expii has a collection of interactive math puzzles that includes holiday and pop culture themed tasks. https://www.expii.com/solve REFERENCES Fun Facts: Gregersen, E. (n.d.). 6 Interesting Facts about Srinivasa Ramanujan. Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/story/interesting-facts-about-srinivasa-ramanujan Biography: Wolfram, S. (2016). Who Was Ramanujan? Stephen Wolfram Blog. Retrieved from https://blog.stephenwolfram.com/2016/04/who-was-ramanujan/ .

Copy Link

Recommended publications

Notices of the American Mathematical Society June/July 2006
of the American Mathematical Society ... (I) , Ate._~ f.!.o~~Gffi·u. .4-e.e..~ ~~~- •i :/?I:(; $~/9/3, Honoring J ~ rt)d ~cLra-4/,:e~ o-n. /'~7 ~ ~<A at a Gift from fL ~ /i: $~ "'7/<J/3. .} -<.<>-a.-<> ~e.Lz?-1~ CL n.y.L;; ro'T>< 0 -<>-<~:4z_ I Kumbakonam li .d. ~ ~~d a. v#a.d--??">ovt<.·c.-6 ~~/f. t:JU- Lo,.,do-,......) ~a page 640 ~!! ?7?.-L ..(; ~7 Ca.-uM /3~~-d~ .Y~~:Li: ~·e.-l a:.--nd '?1.-d- p ~ .di.,r--·c/~ C(c£~r~~u . J~~~aq_ f< -e-.-.ol ~ ~ ~/IX~ ~ /~~ 4)r!'a.. /:~~c~ •.7~ The Millennium Grand Challenge .(/.) a..Lu.O<"'? ...0..0~ e--ne_.o.AA/T..C<.r~- /;;; '7?'E.G .£.rA-CLL~ ~ ·d ~ in Mathematics C>n.A..U-a.A-d ~~. J /"-L .h. ?n.~ ~?(!.,£ ~ ~ &..ct~ /U~ page 652 -~~r a-u..~~r/a.......<>l/.k> 0?-t- ~at o ~~ &~ -~·e.JL d ~~ o(!'/UJD/ J;I'J~~Lcr~~ 0 ??u£~ ifJ>JC.Qol J ~ ~ ~ -0-H·d~-<.() d Ld.orn.J,k, -F-'1-. ~- a-o a.rd· J-c~.<-r:~ rn-u-{-r·~ ~'rrx ~~/ ~-?naae ~~ a...-'XS.otA----o-n.<l C</.J.d:i. ~~~ ~cL.va- 7 ??.L<A) ~ - Ja/d ~~ ./1---J- d-.. ~if~ ~0:- ~oj'~ t1fd~u: - l + ~ _,. :~ _,. .~., -~- .. =- ~ ~ d.u. 7 ~'d . H J&."dIJ';;;::. cL. r ~·.d a..L- 0.-n(U. jz-o-cn-...l- o~- 4; ~ .«:... ~....£.~.:: a/.l~!T cLc.·£o.-4- ~ d.v. /-)-c~ a;- ~'>'T/JH'..,...~ ~ d~~ ~u ~ ~ a..t-4. l& foLk~ '{j ~~- e4 -7'~ -£T JZ~~c~ d.,_ .&~ o-n ~ -d YjtA:o ·C.LU~ ~or /)-<..,.,r &-.
[Show full text]
Indian Mathematics
Indian Mathemtics V. S. Varadarajan University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA UCLA, March 3-5, 2008 Abstract In these two lectures I shall talk about some Indian mathe- maticians and their work. I have chosen two examples: one from the 7th century, Brahmagupta, and the other, Ra- manujan, from the 20th century. Both of these are very fascinating ﬁgures, and their histories illustrate various as- pects of mathematics in ancient and modern times. In a very real sense their works are still relevant to the mathe- matics of today. Some great ancient Indian ﬁgures of Science Varahamihira (505–587) Brahmagupta (598-670) Bhaskara II (1114–1185) The modern era Ramanujan, S (1887–1920) Raman, C. V (1888–1970) Mahalanobis, P. C (1893–1972) Harish-Chandra (1923–1983) Bhaskara represents the peak of mathematical and astro- nomical knowledge in the 12th century. He reached an un- derstanding of calculus, astronomy, the number systems, and solving equations, which were not to be achieved any- where else in the world for several centuries...(Wikipedia). Indian science languished after that, the British colonial occupation did not help, but in the 19th century there was a renaissance of arts and sciences, and Indian Science even- tually reached a level comparable to western science. BRAHMAGUPTA (598–670c) Some quotations of Brahmagupta As the sun eclipses the stars by its brilliancy, so the man of knowledge will eclipse the fame of others in assemblies of the people if he proposes algebraic problems, and still more, if he solves them. Quoted in F Cajori, A History of Mathematics A person who can, within a year, solve x2 92y2 =1, is a mathematician.
[Show full text]
After Ramanujan Left Us– a Stock-Taking Exercise S
Ref: after-ramanujanls.tex Ver. Ref.: : 20200426a After Ramanujan left us– a stock-taking exercise S. Parthasarathy [email protected] 1 Remembering a giant This article is a sequel to my article on Ramanujan [14]. April 2020 will mark the death centenary of the legendary Indian mathe- matician – Srinivasa Ramanujan (22 December 1887 – 26 April 1920). There will be celebrations of course, but one way to honour Ramanujan would be to do some introspection and stock-taking. This is a short survey of notable achievements and contributions to mathematics by Indian institutions and by Indian mathematicians (born in India) and in the last hundred years since Ramanujan left us. It would be highly unfair to compare the achievements of an individual, Ramanujan, during his short life span (32 years), with the achievements of an entire nation over a century. We should also consider the context in which Ramanujan lived, and the most unfavourable and discouraging situation in which he grew up. We will still attempt a stock-taking, to record how far we have moved after Ramanujan left us. Note : The table below should not be used to compare the relative impor- tance or signiﬁcance of the contributions listed there. It is impossible to list out the entire galaxy of mathematicians for a whole century. The table below may seem incomplete and may contain some inad- vertant errors. If you notice any major lacunae or omissions, or if you have any suggestions, please let me know at [email protected]. 1 April 1920 – April 2020 Year Name/instit. Topic Recognition 1 1949 Dattatreya Kaprekar constant, Ramchandra Kaprekar number Kaprekar [1] [2] 2 1968 P.C.
[Show full text]
Srinivasa Ramanujan Iyengar
Srinivasa Ramanujan Iyengar Srinivasa Ramanujan Iyengar (Srinivāsa Rāmānujan Iyengār)() (December 22, 1887 – April 26, 1920) was an Indian mathematician widely regarded as one of the greatest mathematical minds in recent history. With almost no formal training in mathematics, he made profound contributions in the areas of analysis and number theory. A child prodigy, Ramanujan was largely self-taught and compiled nearly 3,884 theorems during his short lifetime. Although a small number of these theorems were actually false, most of his statements have now been proven to be correct. His deep intuition and uncanny algebraic manipulative ability enabled him to state highly original and unconventional results that have inspired a vast amount of research; however, some of his discoveries have been slow to enter the mathematical mainstream. Recently his formulae have begun to be applied in the field of crystallography and physics. The Ramanujan Journal was launched specifically to publish work "in areas of mathematics influenced by Ramanujan". With the encouragement of friends, he wrote to mathematicians in Cambridge seeking validation of his work. Twice he wrote with no response; on the third try, he found the English Mathematician G. H. Hardy. Ramanujan's arrival at Cambridge (March 1914) was the beginning of a very successful five-year collaboration with Hardy. One remarkable result of the Hardy-Ramanujan collaboration was a formula for the number p(n) exp(π 2n /3) of partitions of a number n: pn()∼ asn→∞.A partition of a positive integer n is just an expression for n as a sum of 43n positive integers, regardless of order.
[Show full text]
Secondary Indian Culture and Heritage
Culture: An Introduction MODULE - I Understanding Culture Notes 1 CULTURE: AN INTRODUCTION he English word ‘Culture’ is derived from the Latin term ‘cult or cultus’ meaning tilling, or cultivating or refining and worship. In sum it means cultivating and refining Ta thing to such an extent that its end product evokes our admiration and respect. This is practically the same as ‘Sanskriti’ of the Sanskrit language. The term ‘Sanskriti’ has been derived from the root ‘Kri (to do) of Sanskrit language. Three words came from this root ‘Kri; prakriti’ (basic matter or condition), ‘Sanskriti’ (refined matter or condition) and ‘vikriti’ (modified or decayed matter or condition) when ‘prakriti’ or a raw material is refined it becomes ‘Sanskriti’ and when broken or damaged it becomes ‘vikriti’. OBJECTIVES After studying this lesson you will be able to: understand the concept and meaning of culture; establish the relationship between culture and civilization; Establish the link between culture and heritage; discuss the role and impact of culture in human life. 1.1 CONCEPT OF CULTURE Culture is a way of life. The food you eat, the clothes you wear, the language you speak in and the God you worship all are aspects of culture. In very simple terms, we can say that culture is the embodiment of the way in which we think and do things. It is also the things Indian Culture and Heritage Secondary Course 1 MODULE - I Culture: An Introduction Understanding Culture that we have inherited as members of society. All the achievements of human beings as members of social groups can be called culture.
[Show full text]
Muramatsu's Method Aryabhata (499 AD) Brahmagupta (640 AD
π in Other Eastern Countries Japan India In the Edo Period of Japan (1603 to 1868), 3.16 was used for π. But Aryabhata (499 AD) as people recognized that this value was not accurate, different values for π were calculated. Wasan scholars such as Muramatsu Shigekiyo, Seki Takakazu, Kamata Toshikiyo, Takebe Katahiro, and Matsunaga Aryabhata usedp the perimeter of a 384-sided poly- Yoshisuke all made calculations of π, and accomplished results gon to find π ≈ 9:8684. Later Aryabhata would comparable to their European mathematician counterparts. publish an “approximation” for his square root value, 3.1416. Note that his approximation is Muramatsu’s Method more accurate than his official value! Shigekiyo Muramatsu published Sanso in 1663. Muramatsu served the Asano family and possibly had a math insti- Brahmagupta (640 AD) tute in Edo (present day Tokyo). In his Brahmagupta used a pattern of inscribed polygons that work, Sanso, Muramatsu arranged prob- increased in the number of sides to calculate the perime- lems published earlier in Japanese math- ter of a circle.p Using these data points, he came to believe ematics texts without answers. Mura- that π = 10: matsu classified these problems into dif- ferent levels according to how difficult he thought they’d be to learn. Asano Crest It is in this book that he also showed the calculation of π from the regular inscribed polygon of 32,768 sides. He correctly obtained the Ramanujan (1887-1920) value 3.1415926. Thus, this book was the first to contain a mathematical calculation of π in Japan. 1 Srinivasa Ramanujan found several formulas for π.
[Show full text]
Ancient India and Mathematics Sundar Sarukkai
11 Ancient India and Mathematics Sundar Sarukkai ne way to approach this very broad topic is to list There are some things in all that the ancient Indian mathematicians did – common between Indian and Oand they did do an enormous amount of Greek Mathematics but there Mathematics: arithmetic (including the creation of decimal are also significant differences – place notation, the invention of zero), trigonometry (the not just in style but also in the detailed tables of sines), algebra (binomial theorem, larger world view (which influences, for solving quadratic equations), astronomy and astrology example, the completely different ways of understanding (detailed numerical calculations). Later Indian the nature of numbers in the Greek and the Indian Mathematics, the Kerala school, discovered the notions of traditions). This difference has led many writers to claim infinite series, limits and analysis which are the precursors that Indians (and Chinese among others) did not possess to calculus. the notions of Science and Mathematics. The first, and enduring response, to the question of Science and Since these details are easily available I am not going to list Mathematics in ancient non-Western civilizations is one of them here. What is of interest to me is to understand in skepticism. Did the Indians and Chinese really have Science what sense these activities were 'mathematical'. By doing and Mathematics as we call it now? This skepticism has so, I am also responding to the charge that these people been held over centuries and by the most prominent were not doing Mathematics but something else. This is a thinkers of the west (and is in fact so widespread as to charge similar to that addressed to Science in ancient India include claims that Indians did not 'have' philosophy, logic – the claim here is that what was being done in metallurgy, and even religion).
[Show full text]
Editors Seek the Blessings of Mahasaraswathi
OM GAM GANAPATHAYE NAMAH I MAHASARASWATHYAI NAMAH Editors seek the blessings of MahaSaraswathi Kamala Shankar (Editor-in-Chief) Laxmikant Joshi Chitra Padmanabhan Madhu Ramesh Padma Chari Arjun I Shankar Srikali Varanasi Haranath Gnana Varsha Narasimhan II Thanks to the Authors Adarsh Ravikumar Omsri Bharat Akshay Ravikumar Prerana Gundu Ashwin Mohan Priyanka Saha Anand Kanakam Pranav Raja Arvind Chari Pratap Prasad Aravind Rajagopalan Pavan Kumar Jonnalagadda Ashneel K Reddy Rohit Ramachandran Chandrashekhar Suresh Rohan Jonnalagadda Divya Lambah Samika S Kikkeri Divya Santhanam Shreesha Suresha Dr. Dharwar Achar Srinivasan Venkatachari Girish Kowligi Srinivas Pyda Gokul Kowligi Sahana Kribakaran Gopi Krishna Sruti Bharat Guruganesh Kotta Sumedh Goutam Vedanthi Harsha Koneru Srinath Nandakumar Hamsa Ramesha Sanjana Srinivas HCCC Y&E Balajyothi class S Srinivasan Kapil Gururangan Saurabh Karmarkar Karthik Gururangan Sneha Koneru Komal Sharma Sadhika Malladi Katyayini Satya Srivishnu Goutam Vedanthi Kaushik Amancherla Saransh Gupta Medha Raman Varsha Narasimhan Mahadeva Iyer Vaishnavi Jonnalagadda M L Swamy Vyleen Maheshwari Reddy Mahith Amancherla Varun Mahadevan Nikky Cherukuthota Vaishnavi Kashyap Narasimham Garudadri III Contents Forword VI Preface VIII Chairman’s Message X President’s Message XI Significance of Maha Kumbhabhishekam XII Acharya Bharadwaja 1 Acharya Kapil 3 Adi Shankara 6 Aryabhatta 9 Bhadrachala Ramadas 11 Bhaskaracharya 13 Bheeshma 15 Brahmagupta Bhillamalacarya 17 Chanakya 19 Charaka 21 Dhruva 25 Draupadi 27 Gargi
[Show full text]
Ramanujan in Bronze
MATHEMATICAL PERSPECTIVES BULLETIN (New Series) OF THE AMERICAN MATHEMATICAL SOCIETY Volume 53, Number 4, October 2016, Pages 673–679 http://dx.doi.org/10.1090/bull/1541 Article electronically published on June 30, 2016 ABOUT THE COVER: RAMANUJAN IN BRONZE GERALD L. ALEXANDERSON, WITH CONTRIBUTIONS FROM LEONARD F. KLOSINSKI Srinivasa Ramanujan’s name is one of the best known in the history of mathe- matics. The romantic story of someone born into a family of modest means, raised in a small city in southern india, and who goes on to become one of the greatest mathematicians in all of recorded history has been told again and again. So beyond giving a memory-refreshing outline of the story I shall try to avoid repeating too many well-known facts. The young Ramanujan learned some mathematics by reading a few available but long out-of-date mid-19th century English books, one by G. S. Carr (A Synopsis of Elementary Results in Pure and Applied Mathematics), a collection of formulas and statements of theorems, seldom with any proofs. He then proceeded to collect in notes amazing conjectures while learning, largely on his own, whole parts of number theory and analysis. He did not survive long in college because he was not interested in most of the required curriculum. He only cared about mathematics. In 1911–1912 he and other Indian mathematicians started sending his discoveries to prominent mathematicians in England, but these were essentially ignored until he sent some of his work to the greatest English mathematician of the time, G. H.
[Show full text]
Equation Solving in Indian Mathematics
U.U.D.M. Project Report 2018:27 Equation Solving in Indian Mathematics Rania Al Homsi Examensarbete i matematik, 15 hp Handledare: Veronica Crispin Quinonez Examinator: Martin Herschend Juni 2018 Department of Mathematics Uppsala University Equation Solving in Indian Mathematics Rania Al Homsi “We owe a lot to the ancient Indians teaching us how to count. Without which most modern scientific discoveries would have been impossible” Albert Einstein Sammanfattning Matematik i antika och medeltida Indien har påverkat utvecklingen av modern matematik signifi- kant. Vissa människor vet de matematiska prestationer som har sitt urspring i Indien och har haft djupgående inverkan på matematiska världen, medan andra gör det inte. Ekvationer var ett av de områden som indiska lärda var mycket intresserade av. Vad är de viktigaste indiska bidrag i mate- matik? Hur kunde de indiska matematikerna lösa matematiska problem samt ekvationer? Indiska matematiker uppfann geniala metoder för att hitta lösningar för ekvationer av första graden med en eller flera okända. De studerade också ekvationer av andra graden och hittade heltalslösningar för dem. Denna uppsats presenterar en litteraturstudie om indisk matematik. Den ger en kort översyn om ma- tematikens historia i Indien under många hundra år och handlar om de olika indiska metoderna för att lösa olika typer av ekvationer. Uppsatsen kommer att delas in i fyra avsnitt: 1) Kvadratisk och kubisk extraktion av Aryabhata 2) Kuttaka av Aryabhata för att lösa den linjära ekvationen på formen 푐 = 푎푥 + 푏푦 3) Bhavana-metoden av Brahmagupta för att lösa kvadratisk ekvation på formen 퐷푥2 + 1 = 푦2 4) Chakravala-metoden som är en annan metod av Bhaskara och Jayadeva för att lösa kvadratisk ekvation 퐷푥2 + 1 = 푦2.
[Show full text]
Mathematics Newsletter Volume 21. No4, March 2012
MATHEMATICS NEWSLETTER EDITORIAL BOARD S. Ponnusamy (Chief Editor) Department of Mathematics Indian Institute of Technology Madras Chennai - 600 036, Tamilnadu, India Phone : +91-44-2257 4615 (office) +91-44-2257 6615, 2257 0298 (home) [email protected] http://mat.iitm.ac.in/home/samy/public_html/index.html S. D. Adhikari G. K. Srinivasan Harish-Chandra Research Institute Department of Mathematics, (Former Mehta Research Institute ) Indian Institute of Technology Chhatnag Road, Jhusi Bombay Allahabad 211 019, India Powai, Mumbai 400076, India [email protected] [email protected] C. S. Aravinda B. Sury, TIFR Centre for Applicable Mathematics Stat-Math Unit, Sharadanagar, Indian Statistical Institute, Chikkabommasandra 8th Mile Mysore Road, Post Bag No. 6503 Bangalore 560059, India. Bangalore - 560 065 [email protected], [email protected] [email protected] M. Krishna G. P. Youvaraj The Institute of Mathematical Sciences Ramanujan Institute CIT Campus, Taramani for Advanced Study in Mathematics Chennai-600 113, India University of Madras, Chepauk, [email protected] Chennai-600 005, India [email protected] Stefan Banach (1892–1945) R. Anantharaman SUNY/College, Old Westbury, NY 11568 E-mail: rajan−[email protected] To the memory of Jong P. Lee Abstract. Stefan Banach ranks quite high among the founders and developers of Functional Analysis. We give a brief summary of his life, work and methods. Introduction (equivalent of middle/high school) there. Even as a student Stefan revealed his talent in mathematics. He passed the high Stefan Banach and his school in Poland were (among) the school in 1910 but not with high honors [M].
[Show full text]
Srinivasa Ramanujan
The Millennium School, Kurukshetra E-Newsletter Millennium Mail Volume 1 Part-III (October - December) 2017 Srinivasa Ramanujan The bygone quarter was remarkable due to the sprinkling hues of Dussehra, Diwali, Guruparv, Ganitostav, etc. Each occasion commemoratively illuminated the various constructive aspects of every student. It was enthralling to watch the cumulative endeavours of the students to showcase their talent under the expertise of their respective mentors. Our progressive Millenniumites marked their presence not merely in the prestigious district level competitions, but also at the state, zonal and national level events. Their confidence and cogence carved the formidable turns of their life more scintillating. Each one looked energized and zestful. Kudos to the growing aficionados! Happy reading! Editor Facilitator Vijay Sharma DUSSEHRA CELEBRATION School celebrated Dussehra. Life history of Lord Rama was depicted. Learners dressed up as Lord Rama, Sita, Lakshamana and Hanumana presented the tableau. The effigy of Ravana was burnt as a mark of victory of good over evil. GANDHI JAYANTI CELEBRATION The learners of Little Millennium celebrated Gandhi Jayanti. The reached school in the get up of the Father of Nation. They were acquainted with the Gandhian philosophy with the help of interactive activities. PAYJAMA PARTY Learners of Little Millennium celebrated Payjama Party. All the learners came in their night suits. Night scene was depicted and they enjoyed disco night on melodious tunes. They also listened to the bed time stories eagerly. RUN ON SHAPE Activity run on shape was organised by the Little Millennium under the theme ‘Shapes’. Learners ran on the track of different shapes. The purpose of the activity was to enhance their physical strength, coordination and balance skills.
[Show full text]