We are sure that while listening to a boring math lesson, especially in high school, we asked, ‘Sir, what are we going to do in real life?’ you asked. Yes, these lessons are often of no use to ordinary people, but today we know that mathematics is actually the foundation of many sciences. For a mathematical genius like Srinivasa Ramanujan, none of this matters because for him mathematics means life.
You may have heard the name Srinivasa Ramanujan for the first time. He is a mathematical genius whose time was ignored, but whose value was understood years later, and after a movie was made about him, he attracted everyone’s attention. Let’s take a closer look at the life of Srinivasa Ramanujan, who unfortunately lived a life full of pain, and see the formulas that illuminate our day by getting out of his extraordinary mind.
Who is Srinivasa Ramanujan? The introverted son of a noble but poor family:
Srinivasa Ramanujan was born on December 22, 1887, in the city of Madras, located in the south of India. His family belonged to the Brahmins, the highest stratum of the caste system in India. But being hierarchically superior didn’t mean they were rich.
Despite living in poverty, Srinivasa had an incredible interest in mathematics, but he was not a good student as he did not attend biology for religious reasons and did not take other classes very warmly because of his interest in mathematics. The interesting thing is that he had a bachelor’s degree in mathematics as an 11-year-old boy. He is said to have invented unique equation solutions at the age of 15.
He met a book, his whole life changed:
Unfortunately, Srinivasa Ramanujan was a socially weak person like many geniuses. The book Synopsis of Elementary Results in Pure and Applied Mathematics, which he encountered in 1903, completely eliminated his social aspect. Srinivasa, who bought this book with only formulas and equations without proofs, worked on this book for two full years without leaving home.
We can say with certainty that this book changed his life because there is no proof in any of the formulas Srinivasa Ramanujan would later develop. It is thought that he applied a similar system in his own equations and formulas, as he was introduced to theoretical mathematics for the first time in this book and liked to evaluate it on the basis of its unproven.
Even though he was forced into marriage, the mathematical fire in him did not go out:
By 1909 Srinivasa Ramanujan had begun to stand out as an unemployed powerless man. According to Indian tradition, his mother found him a daughter and they got married even though he never wanted to. Of course, now that he had a house and a wife to support, he had to get his head out of the formulas.
Srinivasa Ramanujan, who generally found small jobs that would not tire her mind much, succeeded in entering Madras University as a research assistant in 1913. At this point, things moved pretty fast after that. Srinivasa was constantly developing new formulas and equations, while at the same time trying to introduce them to the scientific world by sending these formulas to mathematicians around the world.
Srinivasa Ramanujan was finally noticed by the English mathematician Hardy:
Srinivasa Ramanujan was sending letters everywhere, everywhere. Unfortunately, their formula had a problem; It was not understood by almost anyone because it was far ahead of its time and had no proofs. Srinivasa, who did not receive a negative response, let alone a positive one, to his letters was finally noticed.
The famous English mathematician Godfrey Hardy, who made a name for himself with his book Orders of Infinity, thought it was nonsense when he received one of Srinivasa Ramanujan’s letters. But when they examined the formulas in this letter with his partner, John Edensor Littlewood, another mathematician, they thought that this man would be a genius at best, and invited him to England.
The formulas he wrote were appreciated in England, but were still not fully understood:
Srinivasa Ramanujan eventually went to London in 1914, becoming a student at Cambridge University, barely persuading his mother, as the Brahmins could not cross the water culturally and go to another country. He received his doctorate in 1916. Srinivasa Ramanujan, who was also a member of associations such as the Cambridge Philosophical Society and the Royal Society of London, eventually became a lecturer at Trinity College, Cambridge University.
Srinivasa Ramanujan’s mathematical genius was evident here, but even Hardy, with whom he worked, did not fully understand his formulas. One method they called the parsing count was noteworthy. But at this time Srinivasa’s psychology was not at all good.
Srinivasa Ramanujan, already a socially unsuccessful person, could not stand the difficulties of being in another country and one day threw himself in front of the subway. Fortunately, he was rescued at the last moment. He took a taxi number 1729 on his way home. In a way that even his partner Hardy could not understand, Srinivasa discovered that the number 1729, in two different ways, is the smallest number in the sum of two different cubes of numbers. His mind was working differently.
Srinivasa Ramanujan’s life unfortunately ended at an early age:
Srinivasa Ramanujan could not endure the expatriate and eventually returned to India. When it was revealed that he had tuberculosis, he stayed in the hospital for a while and died on April 26, 1920 at the age of 32. Srinivasa Ramanujan’s birth date, 22 December, is celebrated annually in India as the National Mathematics Day.
The notebook containing the formulas of Srinivasa Ramanujan, which illuminates today’s science, was found years later:
When Srinivasa Ramanujan died, he left behind many different notes and notebooks. One of them was 351 pages and had organized sections. The second was 256 pages, with 21 chapters but 100 irregular pages. The third had 33 uneven pages. At that time, many mathematicians wrote articles about these notebooks.
The real secret of the genius mathematician was revealed in 1976. The 87-page notebook by Srinivasa Ramanujan was completely untidy. Some of the formulas in this notebook, which is known as the lost notebook in the scientific world, are used for black hole behavior. In other words, we can say with certainty that Srinivasa Ramanujan may have explained the facts about the universe, which we have not yet discovered, even today, with mathematical formulas.
Movie about Srinivasa Ramanujan’s life: The Man Who Knew Infinity
- Year: 2015
- Genre: Biography, Drama
- Director: Matt Brown
- Cast: Dev Patel, Jeremy Irons, Toby Jones
- IMDb: 7.2
Even in the movie The Man Who Knew Infinity, adapted from the novel of the same name by Robert Kanigel, we follow the life of the mathematician. The film, which started with Srinivasa Ramanujan’s arrival in England, is an emotional production that tells about his mathematical genius as well as his struggle to exist in a different culture.
We talked about the life of Srinivasa Ramanujan, one of the greatest geniuses in the world of mathematics, and explained some of his contributions to the world of mathematics. How sad that a genius who solved the secret of the universe, albeit theoretically, has left us so early.
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