Since the early ancient times, Indian scholars including Aryabhata, Brahmagupta, Mahavira and Bhaskara II have made significant contributions in the mathematical field. Today we celebrate the National Mathematics day to honor one such great renowned mathematician of India, Srinivasa Ramanujan for his dedicated work and enormous contribution to the field of mathematics. Marking the 125th birth anniversary of the mathematician at Madras University in 2011, then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh introduced celebration of National Mathematics day every year. The following year 2012 was also celebrated as the Mathematics year.
Since then, every year there are various educational events, competitions and quizzes are held in schools, colleges, institutes and universities all over India.
Major work of Ramanujan includes- The number theory, Infinite series, Continued fractions, Mathematical analysis and Solutions to the most difficult problems.
Know about the legendary mathematician-
The genius magician of mathematics, Srinivasa Ramanujan was born on 22nd Dec 1887 in a Tamil Brahmin Iyengar family in Erode, Tamil Nadu. At the age of two, he contracted small pox, which cost nearly 4000 people their lives in the Thanjavur district. But Ramanujan could survive, survive to thrive.
Ramanujan was a born prodigy showing early signs of a future genius. Not only this, he knew the Puranas too. Ramanujan was mere 12 years old, when he learned trigonometry and develop his own theories. When he turned 15, Ramanujan got a copy of George Shoobridge Carr’s Synopsis of Elementary results in Pure and Applied Mathematics.
At a young age, Ramanujan started working as a clerk to meet his family’s needs. While in spare time, he used to solve mathematical question and worked on theorems. The work of Ramanujan was published in the Journal of the Indian Mathematical Society in 1911.
In 1913, he started a mail correspondence with G.H. Hardy who was an English mathematician, a professor at the University of Cambridge, London. Impressed by his extraordinary work, Hardy called him to Cambridge. In his lifetime, Ramanujan could compile 3900 results which included identities and equations. The original, novel results that came out are the Ramanujan prime, Ramanujan theta function, partition formulae and mock theta functions. This opened new dimensions of work and fields of research.
Ramanujan discovered the theory of divergent series and worked upon the Riemann series, elliptic integrals, hypergeometric series and functional equations of the zeta function. And for your information, the number 1729 is known as the Hardy- Ramanujan number. The Ramanujan journal, a scientific journal publishes all the work in mathematics that has been influenced by Ramanujan. He was one of the youngest and a second Indian in fellows of the Royal society. Also the first Indian to be elected a fellow of Trinity college, Cambridge.
He returned to India in 1919 suffering from Hepatic Amoebiasis, which led to an early death when he was 32 years old. Even today, his work is been used to study the universe; in signal processing, in understanding the black holes.
Significance of the day-
The primary objective to celebrate National Mathematics day is to raise awareness and inform to people the importance of Mathematics in daily life. Basically, the science behind the math and how it is significant for the prosperity and development of mankind. Initiatives are taken to motivate, encourage and develop a keen attitude in the younger generation towards learning mathematics.
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and cultural organization (UNSCO) works together with India to establish an understanding towards mathematical learning. Efforts are undertaken to educate and spread knowledge about Mathematics among learners around the world.
The oldest science academy in Prayagraj, The National Academy of Science (NASI) conducts a workshop on Mathematics and Ramanujan’s work. Experts and speakers from all over the world attend the workshop discussing the contributions of the Mathematician. A two-day workshop on ‘History of Indian maths before 16th century’ was organized in 2019 by NASI.
Shrinivasa Ramanujan is the pride of India. With mathematics, he brought India glory and fortune. His work is studied, appreciated and attributed to be one of the ‘greatest of all times.’ Hardy himself commented, “defeated me completely; I had never seen anything in the least like them before.” The professor was indeed true in his words, there has been nothing like Ramanujan’s work. He had a brief lifetime on Earth, yet he could live enough for the welfare of humanity.