by Sam Murphy

Created on: July 02, 2007   Last Updated: July 03, 2007

Srinivasa Iyengar Ramanujan (1887-1920) was a brilliant, self-taught Indian mathematician and genius who made many fundamental contributions to analytic number theory, computational and probabilistic number theory, and special functions.

Born into a poor Brahmin family of Vaishnavite sect on the outskirts of the southern city of Chennai (formerly Madras) in India, Ramanujan was to discover in himself a deep and abiding passion and talent for numbers and mathematics, which expressed itself in many hours of problem solving from textbooks, in particular, a book by one E. H. Carr containing a synopsis of about 5000 problems in algebra, calculus, trigonometry and geometry. From about school age in 1897 his practice of keeping notebooks for his solutions had developed, by his college years from 1904 onwards, into genuine researches in which he independently derived results. Moving from college to college in Chennai without obtaining a degree, all the while continuing his private researches into advanced topics such as divergent series, continued fractions, and Bernoulli numbers, Ramanujan's mathematical brilliance impressed all around him, and he began to acquire among the educated classes of Chennai the reputation of genius which would eventually propel him to Cambridge in 1914.

His letter of introduction to G. H. Hardy, Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge and the leading English mathematician of his time, on Jan. 13, 1913, written while working as a lowly postal clerk, and containing 10 pages of dense and deep formulae and identities, is one of the most remarkable documents in the history of mathematics and of science. The enormous distance, and the striking contrasts of position, status, race and religion which separated Ramanujan and Hardy could scarcely be greater, but Hardy's initial skepticism and surprise was converted overnight, upon consultation with his colleague J. E. Littlewood, into a quizzical admiration and awe of the abilities of this lowly Indian clerk who presumed to dictate from afar the results of his private, mostly night-time, researches done on slate. Within a year, Hardy had made the necessary financial and lodging arrangements in Cambridge, as Ramanujan was being groomed in Chennai for his stay in England, and on the 17th of March, 1914, Ramanujan sailed for London.

Arriving at Trinity College in Cambridge in April, 1914, and working under the direction of eminent English number theorists, mainly Hardy, but also to a certain extent J. E.

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