The Tamil Brahmin who failed twice in 12th and became a great mathematician

National Mathematics Day 2023:Who does not know the great Indian mathematician Srinivas Ramanujan? The Government of India started celebrating National Mathematics Day from the year 2012 on the birth anniversary of Ramanujan, born in Tamil Nadu on 22 December 1887. Srinivas did not speak anything for the first three years of his childhood. Meanwhile, in the year 1889, his brothers and sisters died due to smallpox and Srinivas was left alone. In such a situation, the parents' worries increased that their only remaining son might remain mute.

However, later when Srinivas started speaking, parents' worries went away, the whole world heard him as a great mathematician. Even today he is an inspiration. 

Surprised the teachers

surprised even the teachers Srinivas had a passion for mathematics since childhood. He was so enthusiastic about studying mathematics that he did not pay attention to any other subject. This was the reason why he failed twice in class 12. It is another matter that at the age of ten, he completed primary education and came to the world by scoring the best marks in the district.His way of asking questions sometimes made teachers uncomfortable. But, his humble nature was loved by everyone. At a very young age he was heard even in Britain. All the major journals of the whole world published them.

The Book that changed the life

When Srinivasa Ramanujan was 15 years old, a friend gifted him George Shoebridge Carr's book Synopsis of Elementary Results in Pure and Applied Mathematics. It is said that till then, out of the thousands of theorems given in this book, there were a large number of such which had not been verified and very brief information was given about them in the book.

This book proved to be no less than a boon for Srinivas and he not only verified all the theorems from this book, but also went a step further and created his own theorems. Due to his talent, he got a scholarship in the year 1903 but he had to lose it the very next year because he did not pay attention to any subject other than mathematics in his studies. Due to this neglect of other subjects, Ramanujan also failed in class 12th.

Did a job as a clerk at Madras Port to run the household

Ramanujan continued his work on mathematics but due to no employment, his financial condition was deteriorating. When he got married in 1909, he thought of doing some work to support his family. While searching for employment, he met a government official, Ramachandra Rao, who was greatly impressed by Ramanujan's work.He supported Ramanujan's research for some time, but Ramanujan did not want to move ahead with anyone's help, so he took a job as a clerk in the Madras Port Trust.

First paper published in the year 1911 Even during his job, Ramanujan's work on mathematics continued and in the year 1911, his first paper was published in the Journal of the Indian Mathematical Society. After this, gradually his work started getting recognition. An Englishman working with Srinivas at the port was greatly impressed by him and on his advice, he started a correspondence with the British mathematician Goodfrey H. Harty in the year 1913.The result of this was that he started getting a special scholarship from Madras University and he also got a grant from Trinity College, Cambridge. Due to this, Srinivas's courage to work in the field of mathematics became even stronger.

Went to England for Study

                   Ramanujan in the middle

Amid protests They started preparing to go to England. It was not easy at that time, because Tamil Brahmins started opposing it. Despite this, Ramanujan went to England in 1914, where Harty helped him move forward and also supported him in some research.It is said that although Ramanujan was not aware of modern developments in the field of mathematics, no mathematician of that time had the same mastery over fractions as him. He worked on Riemann series, elliptic integrals, hypergeometric series and function equations of the zeta function and presented his theory of divergent series to the world. In this, he calculated the value of the sum of a series through a special technique, which is known as Ramanujan Summation.

Contribution of Ramanujan

The last notebook is still guiding mathematicians Ramanujan did a lot of work on mathematics in England and his papers were published in English and European journals. In the year 1918, he was elected to the Royal Society of London, but before that in 1917, he suffered from Tuberculosis (TB). When the situation improved significantly, he decided to return to his country and returned in the year 1919. He died the very next year.

Ramanujan left behind three notebooks and many papers, which are also called the Lost Notebooks. These included many unpublished mathematical results, which mathematicians continued to verify for a long time after his death. He left us at the age of just 37, but even today not only Indians but many countries of the world are benefiting from the mathematics given by him. His contribution was accepted by the Government of India in a different form 92 years after his death and his birthday was recognized as National Mathematics Day.