Srinivasa Ramanujan

It was yet another nice day chatting with Premnath who was showing his school days stuff. As I came across his 10th standard mark sheet I noticed the distinction in his mark sheet. It was not his 10th standard marks but the distinction of his school - Town High School, Kumbakonam.

Ramanujan's work was mainly categorized in number theory and summation formulas. Ramanujan Conjecture is a complex formula involving Fourier coefficients of prime numbers. This was proved later after a decade. He has made 2500+ such formulations and theorems and the collection of which is still a research topic in many Universities. 'Ramanujan Journal', for example, actively focusses on his works. Also, 'The Man Who Knew Infinity: A Life of the Genius Ramanujan' by Robert Kanigel is one of largely pursued books all over the world.

Born on this day 118 years back, being a mediocre student and as a poor clerk to Fellow of Trinity and finally a Fellow of Royal Society (highest honor in science), his short life and plethora of his works was an inspiration to all.

"I remember once going to see [Ramanujan] when he was lying 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.'" -G.H. Hardy