500 Words Essay on Srinivasa Ramanujan
Ramanujan is referred to as an Indian Mathematician who lived during the British period and who contributed substantially to mathematics analysis, number theory, infinite series and continued fractions. He has been described by many as a simple person with pleasant manners.
He was well versed with the Brahmin culture and followed particular eating habits. Just before turning 10 years old, he passed his primary education in English, Tamil, geography and arithmetic. His scores were the best in the district. In the same year, he encountered formal mathematics for the first time.
Education
At the age of sixteen, he acquired a library copy of ‘A Synopsis of Elementary Results in Pure and Applied Mathematics’ from a friend. He studied the contents of the book thoroughly. The next year, he developed and investigated the Bernoulli numbers and calculated Euler’s constant up to 15 decimals. His peers could hardly understand his nature, and were always in awe because of his brilliance. Due to his extraordinary mind, he received a scholarship to study at Government Arts College, Kumbakonam. But he lost this scholarship because of his firm determination towards studying only maths and ignoring other subjects.
Later, too he failed in subjects like English, Sanskrit and physiology. In 1906, he flunked his Fellow of Arts exam in December. Without a FA degree, he left college and decided to study independently in mathematics through research and referring books. Such a condition caused him extreme poverty, and he reached the brink of starvation.
Ramanujan met deputy collector V. Ramaswamy Aiyer in 1910, who was the founder of the Mathematical society and wished to work in the revenue department. When Ramanujan showed his mathematics book to him, he stated that he was struck by the extraordinary mathematical results contained in Ramanujan’s books. As he advanced further in maths, he even wrote his formal paper on the properties of Bernoulli numbers.
A journal editor M.T. Narayana Iyengar noted that Ramanujan’s methods and presentation was terse and lacked precision and clearness. An ordinary person could hardly follow him. In England, he was awarded a Bachelor of Arts by Research degree. He was also elected to the London Mathematical Society. Ramanujan was the first Indian to be elected a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge.
Achievements of Srinivasa Ramanujan
At the age of 12, he had completely read Loney’s book on Plane Trigonometry and A Synopsis of Elementary Results in Pure and Applied Mathematics, which were way beyond the standard of a high school student
In 1916, he was granted a Bachelor of Science degree “by research” at the Cambridge University
In 1918, he became the first Indian to be honoured as a Fellow of the Royal Society
In 1997, The Ramanujan Journal was launched to publish work “in areas of mathematics influenced by Ramanujan”
The year 2012 was declared as the National Mathematical Year as it marked the 125th birth year of one of the greatest Indian mathematicians
Since 2021, his birth anniversary, December 22, is observed as the National Mathematicians Day every year in India.