Srinivasa Ramanujan

Srinivasa Ramanujan Aiyangar[a] (22 December 1887 – 26 April 1920) was an Indian
mathematician. Often regarded as one of the greatest mathematicians of all time, though he had
almost no formal training in pure mathematics, he made substantial contributions to mathematical
analysis, number theory, infinite series, and continued fractions, including solutions to mathematical
problems then considered unsolvable.

Ramanujan initially developed his own mathematical research in isolation. According to Hans
Eysenck, "he tried to interest the leading professional mathematicians in his work, but failed for the
most part. What he had to show them was too novel, too unfamiliar, and additionally presented in
unusual ways; they could not be bothered".[4] Seeking mathematicians who could better understand
his work, in 1913 he began a mail correspondence with the English mathematician G. H. Hardy at
the University of Cambridge, England. Recognising Ramanujan's work as extraordinary, Hardy
arranged for him to travel to Cambridge. In his notes, Hardy commented that Ramanujan had
produced groundbreaking new theorems, including some that "defeated me completely; I had never
seen anything in the least like them before",[5] and some recently proven but highly advanced
results.

During his short life, Ramanujan independently compiled nearly 3,900 results (mostly identities and
equations).[6] Many were completely novel; his original and highly unconventional results, such as
the Ramanujan prime, the Ramanujan theta function, partition formulae and mock theta functions,
have opened entire new areas of work and inspired further research.[7] Of his thousands of results,
most have been proven correct.[8] The Ramanujan Journal, a scientific journal, was established to
publish work in all areas of mathematics influenced by Ramanujan,[9] and his notebooks—containing
summaries of his published and unpublished results—have been analysed and studied for decades
since his death as a source of new mathematical ideas. As late as 2012, researchers continued to
discover that mere comments in his writings about "simple properties" and "similar outputs" for
certain findings were themselves profound and subtle number theory results that remained
unsuspected until nearly a century after his death.[10][11] He became one of the youngest Fellows of
the Royal Society and only the second Indian member, and the first Indian to be elected a Fellow of
Trinity College, Cambridge.

In 1919, ill health—now believed to have been hepatic amoebiasis (a complication from episodes of
dysentery many years previously)—compelled Ramanujan's return to India, where he died in 1920 at
the age of 32. His last letters to Hardy, written in January 1920, show that he was still continuing to
produce new mathematical ideas and theorems.
Srinivasa Ramanujan
His "lost notebook", containing discoveries from
FRS
the last year of his life, caused great excitement
among mathematicians when it was rediscovered
in 1976.

Early life

Ramanujan in 1913

Born Srinivasa Ramanujan

Ramanujan's birthplace on 18 Aiyangar
Alahiri Street, Erode, now in 22 December 1887
Tamil Nadu
Erode, Mysore State,
British India (now in
Tamil Nadu, India)

Died 26 April 1920

(aged 32)
Kumbakonam,
Tanjore District,
Madras Presidency,
British India (now
Thanjavur district,
Ramanujan's home on Tamil Nadu, India)
Sarangapani Sannidhi Street,
Kumbakonam Citizenship British Indian

Ramanujan (literally, "younger brother of Rama", a Education Government Arts

[12]
Hindu deity) was born on 22 December 1887 College
into a Tamil Brahmin Iyengar family in Erode, in Pachaiyappa's

present-day Tamil Nadu.[13] His father, College

Trinity College,
Kuppuswamy Srinivasa Iyengar, originally from
Cambridge (BA)
Thanjavur district, worked as a clerk in a sari
shop.[14][2] His mother, Komalatammal, was a Known for Ramanujan's sum
[15]
housewife and sang at a local temple. They Landau–Ramanujan
lived in a small traditional home on Sarangapani constant
Sannidhi Street in the town of Kumbakonam.[16] Mock theta functions

The family home is now a museum. When Ramanujan

conjecture
Ramanujan was a year and a half old, his mother
Ramanujan prime
gave birth to a son, Sadagopan, who died less
Ramanujan–Soldner
than three months later. In December 1889,
constant
Ramanujan contracted smallpox, but recovered, Ramanujan theta
unlike the 4,000 others who died in a bad year in function
the Thanjavur district around this time. He moved Rogers–Ramanujan
with his mother to her parents' house in identities
Kanchipuram, near Madras (now Chennai). His Ramanujan's master

mother gave birth to two more children, in 1891 theorem

Hardy–Ramanujan
and 1894, both of whom died before their first
asymptotic formula
birthdays.[12]
Ramanujan–Sato

On 1 October 1892, Ramanujan was enrolled at series

the local school.[17] After his maternal Awards Fellow of the Royal
grandfather lost his job as a court official in Society (1918)
[18]
Kanchipuram, Ramanujan and his mother
Scientific career
moved back to Kumbakonam, and he was
enrolled in Kangayan Primary School.[19] When his Fields Mathematics
paternal grandfather died, he was sent back to his
Institutions University of
maternal grandparents, then living in Madras. He
Cambridge
did not like school in Madras, and tried to avoid
attending. His family enlisted a local constable to Thesis Highly Composite
make sure he attended school. Within six months, Numbers ([Link]

Ramanujan was back in Kumbakonam.[19] [Link]/web/20

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Since Ramanujan's father was at work most of [Link]/~ni
the day, his mother took care of the boy, and they colas/ramanujanNR.p

had a close relationship. From her, he learned df) (1916)

about tradition and puranas, to sing religious Academic advisors G. H. Hardy

songs, to attend pujas at the temple, and to J. E. Littlewood
maintain particular eating habits—all part of
Signature
Brahmin culture.[20] At Kangayan Primary School,
 K Ananda Rau seated with Ramanujan

One of the first problems he posed in the journal[30] was to find the value of:

He waited for a solution to be offered in three issues, over six months, but failed to receive any. At
the end, Ramanujan supplied an incomplete[59] solution to the problem himself. On page 105 of his
first notebook, he formulated an equation that could be used to solve the infinitely nested radicals
problem.

Using this equation, the answer to the question posed in the Journal was simply 3, obtained by
setting x = 2, n = 1, and a = 0.[60] Ramanujan wrote his first formal paper for the Journal on the
properties of Bernoulli numbers. One property he discovered was that the denominators of the
fractions of Bernoulli numbers (sequence A027642 in the OEIS) are always divisible by six. He also
devised a method of calculating Bn based on previous Bernoulli numbers. One of these methods
follows:

It will be observed that if n is even but not equal to zero,

Bn
1. Bn is a fraction and the numerator of ⁠ n ⁠in its lowest terms is a prime number,

2. the denominator of Bn contains each of the factors 2 and 3 once and only once,
Bn
3. 2n(2n − 1)⁠ n ⁠is an integer and 2(2n − 1)Bn consequently is an odd integer.

In his 17-page paper "Some Properties of Bernoulli's Numbers" (1911), Ramanujan gave three
proofs, two corollaries and three conjectures.[61] His writing initially had many flaws. As Journal
editor M. T. Narayana Iyengar noted:
for mathematics, and some ability", he lacked the necessary educational background and
foundation to be accepted by mathematicians.[70] Although Hill did not offer to take Ramanujan on
as a student, he gave thorough and serious professional advice on his work. With the help of friends,
Ramanujan drafted letters to leading mathematicians at Cambridge University.[71]

The first two professors, H. F. Baker and E. W. Hobson, returned Ramanujan's papers without
comment.[72] On 16 January 1913, Ramanujan wrote to G. H. Hardy, whom he knew from studying
Orders of Infinity (1910).[73][74] Coming from an unknown mathematician, the nine pages of
mathematics made Hardy initially view Ramanujan's manuscripts as a possible fraud.[75] Hardy
recognised some of Ramanujan's formulae but others "seemed scarcely possible to believe".[76]: 494
1
One of the theorems Hardy found amazing was on the bottom of page three (valid for 0 < a < b + ⁠2 ⁠):

Hardy was also impressed by some of Ramanujan's other work relating to infinite series:

The first result had already been determined by G. Bauer in 1859. The second was new to Hardy, and
was derived from a class of functions called hypergeometric series, which had first been researched
by Euler and Gauss. Hardy found these results "much more intriguing" than Gauss's work on
integrals.[77] After seeing Ramanujan's theorems on continued fractions on the last page of the
manuscripts, Hardy said the theorems "defeated me completely; I had never seen anything in the
least like them before",[78] and that they "must be true, because, if they were not true, no one would
have the imagination to invent them".[78] Hardy asked a colleague, J. E. Littlewood, to take a look at
the papers. Littlewood was amazed by Ramanujan's genius. After discussing the papers with
Littlewood, Hardy concluded that the letters were "certainly the most remarkable I have received"
and that Ramanujan was "a mathematician of the highest quality, a man of altogether exceptional
originality and power".[76]: 494–495 One colleague, E. H. Neville, later remarked that "No one who was
in the mathematical circles in Cambridge at that time can forget the sensation caused by this
letter... not one [theorem] could have been set in the most advanced mathematical examination in
the world".[63]
Examples of the most intriguing of these formulae include infinite series for π, one of which is given
below:

This result is based on the negative fundamental discriminant d = −4 × 58 = −232 with class number
h(d) = 2. Further, 26390 = 5 × 7 × 13 × 58 and 16 × 9801 = 3962, which is related to the fact that

This might be compared to Heegner numbers, which have class number 1 and yield similar
formulae.

Ramanujan's series for π converges extraordinarily rapidly and forms the basis of some of the
fastest algorithms used to calculate π. Truncating the sum to the first term also gives the
9801√ 2
approximation ⁠ 4412 ⁠for π, which is correct to six decimal places; truncating it to the first two
terms gives a value correct to 14 decimal places .

One of Ramanujan's remarkable capabilities was the rapid solution of problems, illustrated by the
following anecdote about an incident in which P. C. Mahalanobis posed a problem:

Imagine that you are on a street with houses marked 1 through n. There is a house
in between (x) such that the sum of the house numbers to the left of it equals the
sum of the house numbers to its right. If n is between 50 and 500, what are n and x?'
This is a bivariate problem with multiple solutions. Ramanujan thought about it and
gave the answer with a twist: He gave a continued fraction. The unusual part was
that it was the solution to the whole class of problems. Mahalanobis was astounded
and asked how he did it. 'It is simple. The minute I heard the problem, I knew that
the answer was a continued fraction. Which continued fraction, I asked myself.
Then the answer came to my mind', Ramanujan replied."[117][118]

His intuition also led him to derive some previously unknown identities, such as
for all θ such that and , where Γ(z) is the gamma function, and related to a
special value of the Dedekind eta function. Expanding into series of powers and equating
coefficients of θ0, θ4, and θ8 gives some deep identities for the hyperbolic secant.

In 1918, Hardy and Ramanujan studied the partition function P(n) extensively. They gave a non-
convergent asymptotic series that permits exact computation of the number of partitions of an
integer. In 1937, Hans Rademacher refined their formula to find an exact convergent series solution
to this problem. Ramanujan and Hardy's work in this area gave rise to a powerful new method for
finding asymptotic formulae called the circle method.[119]

In the last year of his life, Ramanujan discovered mock theta functions.[120] For many years, these
functions were a mystery, but they are now known to be the holomorphic parts of harmonic weak
Maass forms.

The Ramanujan conjecture

Although there are numerous statements that could have borne the name Ramanujan conjecture,
one was highly influential in later work. In particular, the connection of this conjecture with
conjectures of André Weil in algebraic geometry opened up new areas of research. That Ramanujan
conjecture is an assertion on the size of the tau-function, which has a generating function as the
discriminant modular form Δ(q), a typical cusp form in the theory of modular forms. It was finally
proven in 1973, as a consequence of Pierre Deligne's proof of the Weil conjectures. The reduction
step involved is complicated. Deligne won a Fields Medal in 1978 for that work.[7][121]

In his paper "On certain arithmetical functions", Ramanujan defined the so-called delta-function,
whose coefficients are called τ(n) (the Ramanujan tau function).[122] He proved many congruences
for these numbers, such as τ(p) ≡ 1 + p11 mod 691 for primes p. This congruence (and others like it
that Ramanujan proved) inspired Jean-Pierre Serre (1954 Fields Medalist) to conjecture that there is
a theory of Galois representations that "explains" these congruences and more generally all modular
forms. Δ(z) is the first example of a modular form to be studied in this way. Deligne (in his Fields
Medal-winning work) proved Serre's conjecture. The proof of Fermat's Last Theorem proceeds by
first reinterpreting elliptic curves and modular forms in terms of these Galois representations.
Without this theory, there would be no proof of Fermat's Last Theorem.[123]