National Mathematics Day 2020: Who was S Ramanujan? Here's all you need to know about the 'man who knew infinity'
National Mathematics Day or Math Day is observed on Deceber 22to mark the birth anniversary of mathematical genius Srinivasa Ramanujan Aiyangar.
National Mathematics Day was first observed in 2012 when former Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh as he inaugurated a ceremony in honour of the famed Indian mathematician. Since then, it is observed every year on December 22 to honour Ramanujan's work in the field of mathematics.
Born on December 22, 1887, Srinivasa Ramanujan Aiyangar was a famed Indian mathematician who is often called as the "man who knew infinity". Though he had no formal training in pure mathematics, Ramanujan made significant contributions in this field and developed numerous theorems.
When he was just 12, Ramanujan was able to master trigonometry and was eligible for a scholarship at the Government Arts College in Kumbakonam. At the age of 14, he ran from his house and got himself enrolled in Madras' Pachaiyappa College.
1913 was the breakthrough year for Ramanujan when he met English mathematician GH Hardy. A year after meeting Hardy, he went to Trinity College in England. In the years to come, he received a lot of credit for his work and made several contributions in the field of mathematics.
In a famous anecdote, Hardy took a cab to go to Ramanujan. When he got there, he told Ramanujan that the cab’s number, 1729, was “rather a dull one.” Ramanujan said, “No, it's a really interesting number. it's the littlest number expressible as a sum of two cubes in two other ways. That is, 1729 = 1^3 + 12^3 = 9^3 + 10^3. This number is now called the Hardy-Ramanujan number, and also the smallest numbers that may be expressed because the sum of two cubes in n other ways are dubbed taxicab numbers. the following number within the sequence, the tiniest number that may be expressed because the sum of two cubes in three other ways, is 87,539,319.
However, Ramanujan's health started to deteriorate in the 1919s, following which he returned to India. His health, however, didn't improve and he passed away on April 26, 1920, at the mere age of 32.
