Srinivasa Ramanujan was one of the greatest mathematicians ever born. He was a genius, who stunned the world with his intuitive theorems. He would reach conclusions without using the standard forms of reasoning. Mathematicians found his work unfamiliar.

Ramanujan was self taught, and went on to write 3,900 theorems.

Ramanujan lived in great poverty. He would use slate for his workings as paper was expensive. At the age of 15, S Ramanujan got a copy of ‘Synopsis on Elementary Results in Pure and Applied Mathematics’ with either brief proofs or none. He not only solved the 5000 theorems mentioned in it but also developed his own.

When he was 23 years old, he wrote a letter to G H Hardy, a Cambridge mathematician. The letter contained some 120 statements of theorems on infinite series, improper integrals, continued fractions, and number theory. Recognizing Ramanujan’s work as extraordinary, Hardy got him to Cambridge.

Ramanujan passed away at the age of 32 in India. He left behind three notebooks and a sheaf of pages, containing many unpublished results, that mathematicians continue to verify today, a hundred years later.

Ramanujan’s work is finding applications in computer science, string theory and black hole physics.

His birth anniversary, December 22, is celebrated as the National Mathematics Day in India, every year. The film and book, ‘The Man Who Knew Infinity’ is on Ramanujan.

Coming to number 1729 … once when Ramanujan was in hospital in England, G. H. Hardy, visited him and remarked that he had taken taxi number 1729, a rather dull number. Ramanujan replied that this number was actually quite remarkable: it is the smallest number that can be represented in two ways by the sum of two cubes: 1729 = 12³ + 1³, and 10³ + 9³. Years before Ramanujan had observed this number and he remembered it.

Quotes:

• Ramanujan:

  • “I have had no university education but I have undergone the ordinary school course. After leaving school I have been employing the spare time at my disposal to work at mathematics… I am striking out a new path for myself”

  • “An equation for me has no meaning, unless it represents a thought of God”

• Michio Kaku, American theoretical physicist and futurist:

  • “Srinivasa Ramanujan was the strangest man in all of mathematics, probably in the entire history of science. He has been compared to a bursting supernova, illuminating the darkest, most profound corners of mathematics”

What matters most …

In spite of a very humble background and incredible challenges, Srinivasa Ramanujan followed his passion and intuition. Which is why he saw 1729 differently. Imagine if he had stayed with his job as a clerk in the office of the Madras Port Trust. The world would have been so much poorer!

In a world flooded with sensory stimulation and transient information, your intuition is your compass.

Your intuition connects you to your truth. It is your closest friend. It does not lie. 

Trust yourself. Build up the courage to act.

It will make all the difference.

To you and the world.