Thread by @INSIGHTUK2

"An equation for me has no meaning, unless it expresses a thought of God”, Ramanujan credited his mathematical prowess to divinity.

He left us 100 years before but his work continues to amaze the world till today.

A #thread dedicated to mathematics genius Srinivasa Ramanujan🙏

Born on 22-Dec-1887 in Erode, Tamil Nadu, India, Ramanujan was a child prodigy who,
👉Exhausted two mathematics graduates at just the age of 11
👉Mastered book on advance trigonometry by S. L. Loney at the age of 13
👉Discovered sophisticated theorems on this own at the age of 13

👉Received merit certificates/awards in mathematics ability at the age of 14
👉Made a teacher allocation chart for his school assigning 1200 students to 35 teachers
👉At just 15, he already developed his own method to solve the quartic (polynomial of degree 4)

#Ramanujan

In 1910, Ramanujan met V. Ramaswamy Aiyer, founder of Indian Mathematical Society for a job.

Mr Aiyer was stuck by the extraordinary work done by Ramanujan.

He remarked, “I have no mind to smother his genius by an appointment in the lowest rugs of the revenue department” 🙂

Aiyer referred Ramanujan to Ramachandra Rao, district collector for Nellore who was also the Secretary of the Indian Mathematics Society.

Once his initial skepticism was eroded by Ramanujan's brilliance, he helped publishing his work in the journal of the Mathematical Society🧮

Ramanujan sent his papers to G.H. Hardy (famous British mathematician).

Such an extraordinary work coming from an unknown source, initially he viewed these manuscripts as a possible fraud 🤨

#SrinivasaRamanujan

After seeing Ramanujan's theorems on continued fractions, Hardy remarked,

"Ramanujan's work has defeated me completely, I had never seen anything like them before. They must be true, because if they were not true, no one would have the imagination to invent them".
#Ramanujan

Later on Hardy invited Ramanujan to England to join research work at Cambridge.

Ramanujan's work left a deep impression on contemporary mathematicians.

While Littlewood said, "I can believe that he's at least a Jacobi", Hardy said, "I can compare him only with Euler or Jacobi".

Hardy and Ramanujan had highly contrasting personalities.

It was a clash💥of different cultures, beliefs, and working styles.

While Hardy was an atheist and an apostle of proof, Ramanujan was a deeply religious man who relied strongly on his intuition and insights.

Ramanujan spent ~5 years in Cambridge & published his findings there.

Some of the key contributions of Ramanujan's are -

📝infinite series for 'pi' (Ramanujan's PI formula) - fastest algorithms for calculation of PI
📝influential circle method in partition number theory

📝Ramanujan's conjecture played a key role in the famous Langlands program (single biggest project in modern mathematical research) - Ramanujan thus effectively changed the course of 20th century mathematics
📝groundbreaking research related to Fermat’s Last Theorem

#Ramanujan

📝Ramanujan was the 1st to discover K3 surfaces in 1910
📝his Theta function (special functions of several complex variables) lies at the heart of String Theory in physics
📝his mock modular forms have the potential to unlock the secret of Black Holes

#Ramanujan

Unfortunately on health front Ramanujan was not so lucky. He fell sick while he was in England. Later on diagnosed with TB & severe vitamin deficiency.

He returned to India in 1919 & died at the age of 32 on 26th Apr, 1920.

Our world lost a genius so early🙏

#Ramanujan

A very nice movie was made in Hollywood on Ramanujan's life "The man who knew infinity".

Would recommend anyone who like to know more about his life to watch the movie 🙏

#SrinivasaRamanujan