Srinivasa Ramanujan

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"Ramanujan" redirects here. For other uses, see Ramanujan (disambiguation).

In this Indian name, the name Srinivasa is a patronymic, not a family name, and the person should
be referred to by the given name, Ramanujan.

Srinivasa Ramanujan

Born 22 December 1887

Erode, Madras Presidency (nowTamil Nadu)

Died 26 April 1920 (aged 32)

Chetput, Madras, Madras Presidency (now Tamil
Nadu)

Residence Kumbakonam, Tamil Nadu

Nationality Indian

Fields Mathematics

Alma mater Government Arts College

 Pachaiyappa's College

Academic advisors G. H. Hardy

J. E. Littlewood

Known for Landau–Ramanujan constant

Mock theta functions
Ramanujan conjecture
Ramanujan prime
Ramanujan–Soldner constant
Ramanujan theta function
Ramanujan's sum
Rogers–Ramanujan identities
Ramanujan's master theorem

Influences G. H. Hardy

Signature

Srinivasa Ramanujan FRS (  pronunciation (help·info)) (22 December 1887 – 26 April 1920) was an

Indian mathematician andautodidact who, with almost no formal training in pure mathematics, made
extraordinary contributions to mathematical analysis,number theory, infinite series, and continued
fractions. Living in India with no access to the larger mathematical community, which was centred in
Europe at the time, Ramanujan developed his own mathematical research in isolation. As a result,
he rediscovered known theorems in addition to producing new work. Ramanujan was said to be a
natural genius by the English mathematician G. H. Hardy, in the same league as mathematicians
such as Euler and Gauss.[1]
Ramanujan was born at Erode, Madras Presidency (now Tamil Nadu) in a Tamil Brahmin family
of Thenkalai Iyengar sect.[2][3][4] His introduction to formal mathematics began at age 10. He
demonstrated a natural ability, and was given books on advancedtrigonometry written by S. L.
Loney that he mastered by the age of 12; he even discovered theorems of his own, and re-
discoveredEuler's identity independently.[5] He demonstrated unusual mathematical skills at school,
winning accolades and awards. By 17, Ramanujan had conducted his own mathematical research
on Bernoulli numbers and the Euler–Mascheroni constant.
Ramanujan received a scholarship to study at Government College in Kumbakonam, which was
later rescinded when he failed his non-mathematical coursework. He joined another college to
pursue independent mathematical research, working as a clerk in the Accountant-General's office at
the Madras Port Trust Office to support himself.[6] In 1912–1913, he sent samples of his theorems to
three academics at the University of Cambridge. G. H. Hardy, recognizing the brilliance of his work,
invited Ramanujan to visit and work with him at Cambridge. He became a Fellow of the Royal
Society and a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. Ramanujan died of illness, malnutrition, and
possibly liver infection in 1920 at the age of 32.
 During his short lifetime, Ramanujan independently compiled nearly 3900 results
(mostly identities and equations).[7] Nearly all his claims have now been proven correct, although a
small number of these results were actually false and some were already known. [8]He stated results
that were both original and highly unconventional, such as the Ramanujan prime and the Ramanujan
theta function, and these have inspired a vast amount of further research. [9] The Ramanujan Journal,
an international publication, was launched to publish work in all areas of mathematics influenced by
his work.[10]
In December 2011, in recognition of his contribution to mathematics, the Government of India
declared that Ramanujan's birthday (22 December) should be celebrated every year as National
Mathematics Day, and also declared 2012 the National Mathematics Year.[11][12]

Contents
  [hide] 

 1 Early life
 2 Adulthood in India
o 2.1 Attention towards mathematics
o 2.2 Contacting English mathematicians

 3 Life in England
o 3.1 Illness and return to India
o 3.2 Personality and spiritual life

 4 Mathematical achievements
o 4.1 The Ramanujan conjecture
o 4.2 Ramanujan's notebooks

 5 Ramanujan–Hardy number 1729

 6 Other mathematicians' views of Ramanujan
 7 Recognition
 8 In popular culture
 9 See also
 10 Notes
 11 Selected publications by Ramanujan
 12 Selected publications about Ramanujan and his work
 13 External links
o 13.1 Media links
o 13.2 Biographical links
o 13.3 Other links

Early life[edit]
Ramanujan's home on Sarangapani Street, Kumbakonam

Ramanujan was born on 22 December 1887 in Erode, Madras Presidency (now Pallipalayam

Agraharam, Namakkal District, Tamil Nadu), at the residence of his maternal grandparents.[13] His
father, K. Srinivasa Iyengar, worked as a clerk in a sari shop and hailed from the district
of Thanjavur.[14] His mother, Komalatammal, was a housewife and also sang at a local temple.
[15]
 They lived in Sarangapani Street in a traditional home in the town of Kumbakonam. The family
home is now a museum. When Ramanujan was a year and a half old, his mother gave birth to a son
named Sadagopan, who died less than three months later. In December 1889, Ramanujan
had smallpox and recovered, unlike thousands in the Thanjavur District who died from the disease
that year.[16] He moved with his mother to her parents' house in Kanchipuram, near Madras
(now Chennai). In November 1891, and again in 1894, his mother gave birth to two children, but
both children died in infancy.
On 1 October 1892, Ramanujan was enrolled at the local school. [17] In March 1894, he was moved to
a Telugu medium school. After his maternal grandfather lost his job as a court official in
Kanchipuram,[18] Ramanujan and his mother moved back to Kumbakonam and he was enrolled in
the Kangayan Primary School. [19] When his paternal grandfather died, he was sent back to his
maternal grandparents, who were now living in Madras. He did not like school in Madras, and he
tried to avoid attending. His family enlisted a local constable to make sure he attended school.
Within six months, Ramanujan was back in Kumbakonam. [19]
Since Ramanujan's father was at work most of the day, his mother took care of him as a child. He
had a close relationship with her. From her, he learned about tradition and puranas. He learned to
sing religious songs, to attend pujas at the temple and particular eating habits – all of which are part
of Brahmin culture.[20] At the Kangayan Primary School, Ramanujan performed well. Just before the
age of 10, in November 1897, he passed his primary examinations in English, Tamil, geography and
arithmetic. With his scores, he stood first in the district.[21] That year, Ramanujan entered Town
Higher Secondary School where he encountered formal mathematics for the first time. [21]
By age 11, he had exhausted the mathematical knowledge of two college students who were lodgers
at his home. He was later lent a book on advanced trigonometry written by S. L. Loney.[5][22] He
completely mastered this book by the age of 13 and discovered sophisticated theorems on his own.
By 14, he was receiving merit certificates and academic awards which continued throughout his
school career and also assisted the school in the logistics of assigning its 1200 students (each with
their own needs) to its 35-odd teachers.[23] He completed mathematical exams in half the allotted
time, and showed a familiarity with geometry and infinite series. Ramanujan was shown how to solve
cubic equations in 1902 and he went on to find his own method to solve the quartic. The following
year, not knowing that the quintic could not be solved by radicals, he tried (and of course failed) to
solve the quintic.
In 1903 when he was 16, Ramanujan obtained from a friend a library-loaned copy of a book by G. S.
Carr.[24][25] The book was titled A Synopsis of Elementary Results in Pure and Applied
Mathematics and was a collection of 5000 theorems. Ramanujan reportedly studied the contents of
the book in detail.[26] The book is generally acknowledged as a key element in awakening the genius
of Ramanujan.[26] The next year, he had independently developed and investigated the Bernoulli
numbers and had calculated the Euler–Mascheroni constant up to 15 decimal places.[27] His peers at
the time commented that they "rarely understood him" and "stood in respectful awe" of him. [23]
When he graduated from Town Higher Secondary School in 1904, Ramanujan was awarded the K.
Ranganatha Rao prize for mathematics by the school's headmaster, Krishnaswami Iyer. Iyer
introduced Ramanujan as an outstanding student who deserved scores higher than the maximum
possible marks.[23] He received a scholarship to study atGovernment Arts College, Kumbakonam,[28]
[29]
 However, Ramanujan was so intent on studying mathematics that he could not focus on any other
subjects and failed most of them, losing his scholarship in the process.[30] In August 1905, he ran
away from home, heading towards Visakhapatnam and stayed in Rajahmundry [31] for about a month.
[32]
 He later enrolled at Pachaiyappa's College in Madras. He again excelled in mathematics but
performed poorly in other subjects such as physiology. Ramanujan failed his Fellow of Artsexam in
December 1906 and again a year later. Without a degree, he left college and continued to pursue
independent research in mathematics. At this point in his life, he lived in extreme poverty and was
often on the brink of starvation.[33]

Adulthood in India[edit]
On 14 July 1909, Ramanujan was married to a ten-year old bride, Janakiammal (21 March 1899 –
13 April 1994).[34] She came from Rajendram, a village close to Marudur (Karur district) Railway
Station. Ramanujan's father did not participate in the marriage ceremony. [35]
After the marriage, Ramanujan developed a hydrocele testis, an abnormal swelling of the tunica
vaginalis, an internal membrane in the testicle.[36] The condition could be treated with a routine
surgical operation that would release the blocked fluid in the scrotal sac. His family did not have the
money for the operation, but in January 1910, a doctor volunteered to do the surgery for free. [37]
After his successful surgery, Ramanujan searched for a job. He stayed at friends' houses while he
went door to door around the city of Madras (now Chennai) looking for a clerical position. To make
some money, he tutored some students at Presidency College who were preparing for their F.A.
exam.[38]
In late 1910, Ramanujan was sick again, possibly as a result of the surgery earlier in the year. He
feared for his health, and even told his friend, R. Radakrishna Iyer, to "hand these [Ramanujan's
mathematical notebooks] over to Professor Singaravelu Mudaliar [the mathematics professor at
Pachaiyappa's College] or to the British professor Edward B. Ross, of the Madras Christian
College."[39] After Ramanujan recovered and got back his notebooks from Iyer, he took a northbound
train from Kumbakonam to Villupuram, a coastal city under French control. [40][41]
Attention towards mathematics[edit]
Ramanujan met deputy collector V. Ramaswamy Aiyer, who had recently founded the Indian
Mathematical Society.[42] Ramanujan, wishing for a job at the revenue department where
Ramaswamy Aiyer worked, showed him his mathematics notebooks. As Ramaswamy Aiyer later
recalled:
I was struck by the extraordinary mathematical results contained in it [the notebooks]. I had no mind
to smother his genius by an appointment in the lowest rungs of the revenue department. [43]
Ramaswamy Aiyer sent Ramanujan, with letters of introduction, to his mathematician friends in
Madras.[42] Some of these friends looked at his work and gave him letters of introduction to R.
Ramachandra Rao, the district collector for Nellore and the secretary of the Indian Mathematical
Society.[44][45][46] Ramachandra Rao was impressed by Ramanujan's research but doubted that it was
actually his own work. Ramanujan mentioned a correspondence he had with Professor Saldhana, a
notable Bombay mathematician, in which Saldhana expressed a lack of understanding for his work
but concluded that he was not a phony.[47] Ramanujan's friend, C. V. Rajagopalachari, persisted with
Ramachandra Rao and tried to quell any doubts over Ramanujan's academic integrity. Rao agreed
to give him another chance, and he listened as Ramanujan discussed elliptic
integrals, hypergeometric series, and his theory of divergent series, which Rao said ultimately
"converted" him to a belief in Ramanujan's mathematical brilliance. [47] When Rao asked him what he
wanted, Ramanujan replied that he needed some work and financial support. Rao consented and
sent him to Madras. He continued his mathematical research with Rao's financial aid taking care of
his daily needs. Ramanujan, with the help of Ramaswamy Aiyer, had his work published in
the Journal of the Indian Mathematical Society.[48]
One of the first problems he posed in the journal was:

He waited for a solution to be offered in three issues, over six months, but failed to receive any.
At the end, Ramanujan supplied the 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.
[49]
 Ramanujan wrote his first formal paper for the Journal on the properties of Bernoulli
numbers. One property he discovered was that the denominators
(sequence A027642 in OEIS) of the fractions of Bernoulli numbers were always divisible by
six. He also devised a method of calculating Bn based on previous Bernoulli numbers. One
of these methods went as follows:
It will be observed that if n is even but not equal to zero,

(i) Bn is a fraction and the numerator of   in its lowest terms is a prime number,
(ii) the denominator of Bn contains each of the factors 2 and 3 once and only once,

(iii)   is an integer and   consequently is an odd integer.

In his 17-page paper, "Some Properties of Bernoulli's Numbers", Ramanujan gave three
proofs, two corollaries and three conjectures.[50] Ramanujan's writing initially had many flaws.
As Journal editor M. T. Narayana Iyengar noted:
Mr. Ramanujan's methods were so terse and novel and his presentation so lacking
in clearness and precision, that the ordinary [mathematical reader], unaccustomed to
such intellectual gymnastics, could hardly follow him. [51]
Ramanujan later wrote another paper and also continued to provide problems in the Journal.
[52]
 In early 1912, he got a temporary job in the Madras Accountant General's office, with a
salary of 20 rupees per month. He lasted for only a few weeks.[53] Toward the end of that
assignment he applied for a position under the Chief Accountant of the Madras Port Trust. In
a letter dated 9 February 1912, Ramanujan wrote:
Sir,
I understand there is a clerkship vacant in your office, and I beg to apply for the
same. I have passed the Matriculation Examination and studied up to the F.A. but
was prevented from pursuing my studies further owing to several untoward
circumstances. I have, however, been devoting all my time to Mathematics and
developing the subject. I can say I am quite confident I can do justice to my work if I
am appointed to the post. I therefore beg to request that you will be good enough to
confer the appointment on me.[54]
Attached to his application was a recommendation from E. W. Middlemast, a mathematics
professor at the Presidency College, who wrote that Ramanujan was "a young man of quite
exceptional capacity in Mathematics".[55] Three weeks after he had applied, on 1 March,
Ramanujan learned that he had been accepted as a Class III, Grade IV accounting clerk,
making 30 rupees per month.[56] At his office, Ramanujan easily and quickly completed the
work he was given, so he spent his spare time doing mathematical research. Ramanujan's
boss, Sir Francis Spring, and S. Narayana Iyer, a colleague who was also treasurer of the
Indian Mathematical Society, encouraged Ramanujan in his mathematical pursuits.
Contacting English mathematicians[edit]
In the spring of 1913, Narayana Iyer, Ramachandra Rao and E. W. Middlemast tried to
present Ramanujan's work to British mathematicians. One mathematician, M. J. M.
Hill ofUniversity College London, commented that Ramanujan's papers were riddled with
holes.[57] He said that although Ramanujan had "a taste for mathematics, and some ability",
he lacked the educational background and foundation needed to be accepted by
mathematicians.[58] Although Hill did not offer to take Ramanujan on as a student, he did give
thorough and serious professional advice on his work. With the help of friends, Ramanujan
drafted letters to leading mathematicians at Cambridge University.[59]
The first two professors, H. F. Baker and E. W. Hobson, returned Ramanujan's papers
without comment.[60] On 16 January 1913, Ramanujan wrote to G. H. Hardy. Coming from an
unknown mathematician, the nine pages of mathematics made Hardy initially view
Ramanujan's manuscripts as a possible "fraud". [61] Hardy recognised some of Ramanujan's
formulae but others "seemed scarcely possible to believe". [62] One of the theorems Hardy
found so incredible was found on the bottom of page three (valid for 0 < a < b + 1/2):

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

The first result had already been determined by a mathematician named Bauer.
The second one was new to Hardy, and was derived from a class of functions
called ahypergeometric series which had first been researched by Leonhard
Euler and Carl Friedrich Gauss. Compared to Ramanujan's work on integrals,
Hardy found these results "much more intriguing". [63] After he saw Ramanujan's
theorems on continued fractions on the last page of the manuscripts, Hardy
commented that "they [theorems] defeated me completely; I had never seen
anything in the least like them before".[64] He figured that Ramanujan's theorems
"must be true, because, if they were not true, no one would have the
imagination to invent them".[64] Hardy asked a colleague, J. E. Littlewood, to
take a look at the papers. Littlewood was amazed by the mathematical genius
of Ramanujan. After discussing the papers with Littlewood, Hardy concluded
that the letters were "certainly the most remarkable I have received" and
commented that Ramanujan was "a mathematician of the highest quality, a man
of altogether exceptional originality and power". [65] One colleague, E. H. Neville,
later commented that "not one [theorem] could have been set in the most
advanced mathematical examination in the world". [66]
On 8 February 1913, Hardy wrote a letter to Ramanujan, expressing his interest
for his work. Hardy also added that it was "essential that I should see proofs of
some of your assertions".[67] Before his letter arrived in Madras during the third
week of February, Hardy contacted the Indian Office to plan for Ramanujan's
trip to Cambridge. Secretary Arthur Davies of the Advisory Committee for Indian
Students met with Ramanujan to discuss the overseas trip. [68] In accordance
with his Brahmin upbringing, Ramanujan refused to leave his country to "go to a
foreign land".[69] Meanwhile, Ramanujan sent a letter packed with theorems to
Hardy, writing, "I have found a friend in you who views my labour
sympathetically."[70]
To supplement Hardy's endorsement, a former mathematical lecturer at Trinity
College, Cambridge, Gilbert Walker, looked at Ramanujan's work and
expressed amazement, urging him to spend time at Cambridge. [71] As a result of
Walker's endorsement, B. Hanumantha Rao, a mathematics professor at an
engineering college, invited Ramanujan's colleague Narayana Iyer to a meeting
of the Board of Studies in Mathematics to discuss "what we can do for S.
Ramanujan".[72] The board agreed to grant Ramanujan a research scholarship
of 75 rupees per month for the next two years at the University of Madras.
[73]
 While he was engaged as a research student, Ramanujan continued to
submit papers to the Journal of the Indian Mathematical Society. In one
instance, Narayana Iyer submitted some theorems of Ramanujan on summation
of series to the above mathematical journal adding "The following theorem is
due to S. Ramanujan, the mathematics student of Madras University". Later in
November, British Professor Edward B. Ross of Madras Christian College,
whom Ramanujan had met a few years before, stormed into his class one day
with his eyes glowing, asking his students, "Does Ramanujan know Polish?"
The reason was that in one paper, Ramanujan had anticipated the work of a
Polish mathematician whose paper had just arrived by the day's mail. [74] In his
quarterly papers, Ramanujan drew up theorems to make definite integrals more
easily solvable. Working off Giuliano Frullani's 1821 integral theorem,
Ramanujan formulated generalisations that could be made to evaluate formerly
unyielding integrals.[75]
Hardy's correspondence with Ramanujan soured after Ramanujan refused to
come to England. Hardy enlisted a colleague lecturing in Madras, E. H. Neville,
to mentor and bring Ramanujan to England. [76] Neville asked Ramanujan why
he would not go to Cambridge. Ramanujan apparently had now accepted the
proposal; as Neville put it, "Ramanujan needed no converting and that his
parents' opposition had been withdrawn".[66] Apparently, Ramanujan's mother
had a vivid dream in which the family Goddess, the deity of Namagiri,
commanded her "to stand no longer between her son and the fulfilment of his
life's purpose".[66] Ramanujan then set sail for England, leaving his wife to stay
with his parents in India.

Life in England[edit]

Ramanujan (centre) with other scientists at Trinity College

Whewell's Court, Trinity College, Cambridge

Ramanujan boarded the S.S. Nevasa on 17 March 1914, and at 10 o'clock in

the morning, the ship departed from Madras.[77] He arrived in London on 14
April, with E. H. Neville waiting for him with a car. Four days later, Neville took
him to his house on Chesterton Road in Cambridge. Ramanujan immediately
began his work with Littlewood and Hardy. After six weeks, Ramanujan moved
out of Neville's house and took up residence on Whewell's Court, just a five-
minute walk from Hardy's room. [78] Hardy and Ramanujan began to take a look
at Ramanujan's notebooks. Hardy had already received 120 theorems from
Ramanujan in the first two letters, but there were many more results and
theorems to be found in the notebooks. Hardy saw that some were wrong,
others had already been discovered, while the rest were new breakthroughs.
[79]
 Ramanujan left a deep impression on Hardy and Littlewood. Littlewood
commented, "I can believe that he's at least a Jacobi",[80] while Hardy said he
"can compare him only with [Leonhard] Euler or Jacobi." [81]
Ramanujan spent nearly five years in Cambridge collaborating with Hardy and
Littlewood and published a part of his findings there. Hardy and Ramanujan had
highly contrasting personalities. Their collaboration was a clash of different
cultures, beliefs and working styles. Hardy was an atheist and an apostle of
proof and mathematical rigour, whereas Ramanujan was a deeply religious man
and relied very strongly on his intuition. While in England, Hardy tried his best to
fill the gaps in Ramanujan's education without interrupting his spell of
inspiration.
Ramanujan was awarded a B.A. degree by research (this degree was later
renamed PhD) in March 1916 for his work on highly composite numbers, the
first part of which was published as a paper in the Proceedings of the London
Mathematical Society. The paper was over 50 pages with different properties of
such numbers proven. Hardy remarked that this was one of the most unusual
papers seen in mathematical research at that time and that Ramanujan showed
extraordinary ingenuity in handling it.[citation needed] On 6 December 1917, he was
elected to the London Mathematical Society. He became a Fellow of the Royal
Society in 1918, becoming the second Indian to do so, following Ardaseer
Cursetjee in 1841, and he was one of the youngest Fellows in the history of the
Royal Society. He was elected "for his investigation in Elliptic functions and the
Theory of Numbers." On 13 October 1918, he became the first Indian to be
elected a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge.[82]
Illness and return to India[edit]
Plagued by health problems throughout his life, living in a country far away from
home, and obsessively involved with his mathematics, Ramanujan's health
worsened in England, perhaps exacerbated by stress and by the scarcity
of vegetarian food during the First World War. He was diagnosed
with tuberculosis and a severe vitamin deficiency and was confined to a
sanatorium.
Ramanujan returned to Kumbakonam, Madras Presidency in 1919 and died
soon thereafter at the age of 32. His widow, S. Janaki Ammal, moved to
Mumbai, but returned to Chennai (formerly Madras) in 1950, where she lived
until her death in 1994.[35]
A 1994 analysis of Ramanujan's medical records and symptoms by Dr. D.A.B.
Young concluded that it was much more likely he had hepatic amoebiasis, a
parasitic infection of the liver widespread in Madras, where Ramanujan had
spent time. He had two episodes of dysentery before he left India. When not
properly treated, dysentery can lie dormant for years and lead to hepatic
amoebiasis,[6] a difficult disease to diagnose, but once diagnosed readily cured.
[6]

Personality and spiritual life[edit]

Ramanujan has been described as a person with a somewhat shy and quiet
disposition, a dignified man with pleasant manners.[83] He lived a rather Spartan
life while at Cambridge. Ramanujan's first Indian biographers describe him as
rigorously orthodox. Ramanujan credited his acumen to his family
goddess, Mahalakshmi of Namakkal. He looked to her for inspiration in his
work,[84] and claimed to dream of blood drops that symbolised her male
consort, Narasimha, after which he would receive visions of scrolls of complex
mathematical content unfolding before his eyes.[85] He often said, "An equation
for me has no meaning, unless it represents a thought of God." [86][87]
Hardy cites Ramanujan as remarking that all religions seemed equally true to
him.[88] Hardy further argued that Ramanujan's religiousness had been
romanticised by Westerners and overstated—in reference to his belief, not
practice—by Indian biographers. At the same time, he remarked on
Ramanujan's strict observance of vegetarianism.

Mathematical achievements[edit]
In mathematics, there is a distinction between having an insight and having a
proof. Ramanujan's talent suggested a plethora of formulae that could then be
investigated in depth later. It is said that Ramanujan's discoveries are unusually
rich and that there is often more to them than initially meets the eye. As a by-
product, new directions of research were opened up. Examples of the most
interesting of these formulae include the intriguing 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 (note that 5×7×13×58 = 26390 and that
9801=99×99; 396=4×99) and is related to the fact that

Compare to Heegner numbers, which have class number 1 and yield

similar formulae. Ramanujan's series for π converges extraordinarily
rapidly (exponentially) and forms the basis of some of the fastest
algorithms currently used to calculate π. Truncating the sum to the first
term also gives the approximation   for π, which is
correct to six decimal places. See also the more general Ramanujan–
Sato series.
One of his remarkable capabilities was the rapid solution for problems.
He was sharing a room with P. C. Mahalanobis who had 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 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.[89][90]
His intuition also led him to derive some previously unknown identities,
such as
for all  , where   is the gamma function. Expanding into series
of powers and equating coefficients of  ,  , and   gives some
deep identities for the hyperbolic secant.
In 1918, Hardy and Ramanujan studied the partition function P(n)
extensively and gave a non-convergent asymptotic series that
permits exact computation of the number of partitions of an
integer. Hans Rademacher, in 1937, was able to refine 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.[91]
He discovered mock theta functions in the last year of his life.[92] 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[edit]
Main article: Ramanujan–Petersson conjecture
Although there are numerous statements that could have borne the
name Ramanujan conjecture, there is one statement that was very
influential on 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 thetau-function, which has as generating
function 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 his work on Weil conjectures.[93]
Ramanujan's notebooks[edit]
Further information: Ramanujan's lost notebook
While still in Madras, Ramanujan recorded the bulk of his results in
four notebooks of loose leaf paper. These results were mostly
written up without any derivations. This is probably the origin of the
misperception that Ramanujan was unable to prove his results and
simply thought up the final result directly. Mathematician Bruce C.
Berndt, in his review of these notebooks and Ramanujan's work,
says that Ramanujan most certainly was able to make the proofs of
most of his results, but chose not to.
This style of working may have been for several reasons. Since
paper was very expensive, Ramanujan would do most of his work
and perhaps his proofs on slate, and then transfer just the results to
paper. Using a slate was common for mathematics students in
the Madras Presidency at the time. He was also quite likely to have
been influenced by the style of G. S. Carr's book studied in his
youth, which stated results without proofs. Finally, it is possible that
Ramanujan considered his workings to be for his personal interest
alone; and therefore recorded only the results.[94]
The first notebook has 351 pages with 16 somewhat organized
chapters and some unorganized material. The second notebook
 has 256 pages in 21 chapters and 100 unorganised pages, with the
third notebook containing 33 unorganised pages. The results in his
notebooks inspired numerous papers by later mathematicians
trying to prove what he had found. Hardy himself created papers
exploring material from Ramanujan's work as did G. N. Watson, B.
M. Wilson, and Bruce Berndt.[94] A fourth notebook with 87
unorganised pages, the so-called "lost notebook", was
rediscovered in 1976 by George Andrews.[6]
Notebooks 1, 2 and 3 were published as a two-volume set in 1957
by the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai,
India. This was a photocopy edition of the original manuscripts, in
his own handwriting.
In December 2011, as part of the celebrations of the 125th
anniversary of Ramanujan's birth, TIFR republished the notebooks
in a colored two-volume collector's edition. These were produced
from scanned and microfilmed images of the original manuscripts
by expert archivists of Roja Muthiah Research Library, Chennai.

Ramanujan–Hardy number 1729[edit]

Main article: 1729 (number)
The number 1729 is known as the Hardy–Ramanujan number after
a famous anecdote of the British mathematician G. H.
Hardy regarding a visit to the hospital to see Ramanujan. In Hardy's
words:[95]

“
I remember once going to see him when he was ill at Putney.
I had ridden in taxi cab number 1729 and remarked that the
number seemed to me rather a dull one, and that I hoped it
was not an unfavorable omen. "No", he replied, "it is a very
interesting number; it is the smallest number expressible as
the sum of two cubes in two different ways." ”
The two different ways are

1729 = 13 + 123 = 93 + 103.

Generalizations of this idea have created the notion of "taxicab
numbers". Coincidentally, 1729 is also a Carmichael number.

Other mathematicians' views of

Ramanujan[edit]
Hardy said : "The limitations of his knowledge were as startling
as its profundity. Here was a man who could work out modular
equations and theorems... to orders unheard of, whose
mastery of continued fractions was... beyond that of any
mathematician in the world, who had found for himself the
functional equation of the zeta function and the dominant terms
of many of the most famous problems in the analytic theory of
numbers; and yet he had never heard of a doubly periodic
function or of Cauchy's theorem, and had indeed but the
vaguest idea of what a function of a complex variable was...".
[96]
 When asked about the methods employed by Ramanujan to
arrive at his solutions, Hardy said that they were "arrived at by
a process of mingled argument, intuition, and induction, of
which he was entirely unable to give any coherent
account."[97] He also stated that he had "never met his equal,
and can compare him only with Euler or Jacobi."[97]
Quoting K. Srinivasa Rao,[98] "As for his place in the world of
Mathematics, we quote Bruce C. Berndt: 'Paul Erdős has
passed on to us Hardy's personal ratings of mathematicians.
Suppose that we rate mathematicians on the basis of pure
talent on a scale from 0 to 100, Hardy gave himself a score of
25, J.E. Littlewood 30, David Hilbert 80 and Ramanujan 100.'"
Professor Bruce C. Berndt of the University of Illinois, during a
lecture at IIT Madras in May 2011, stated that over the last 40
years, as nearly all of Ramanujan's theorems have been
proven right, there had been a greater appreciation of
Ramanujan's work and brilliance. Further, he stated
Ramanujan's work was now pervading many areas of modern
mathematics and physics.[92][99]
In his book Scientific Edge, noted physicist Jayant
Narlikar spoke of "Srinivasa Ramanujan, discovered by the
Cambridge mathematician Hardy, whose great mathematical
findings were beginning to be appreciated from 1915 to 1919.
His achievements were to be fully understood much later, well
after his untimely death in 1920. For example, his work on
thehighly composite numbers (numbers with a large number of
factors) started a whole new line of investigations in the theory
of such numbers."
During his lifelong mission in educating and propagating
mathematics among the school children in India, Nigeria and
elsewhere, P.K. Srinivasan has continually introduced
Ramanujan's mathematical works.