Srinivasa Ramanujan

Background

Srinivasa Ramanujan Iyengar was born in Erode, Mysore Kingdom. The region is now the state of Tamil Nadu in India. His mother’s name was Komalatammal and she was a stay-at-home mom. His father, Kuppuswamy Srinivasa Iyengar, served as a clerk at a garment shop. The family lived in a modest traditional home in the town of Kumbakonam. He also had a brother who tragically passed away at the age of three months. His mother also gave birth to two more children between 1891 and 1894; however, both of them passed away shortly after their birth.

In 1892, Ramanujan began attending a local school. Thereafter, he was enrolled in Kangayan Primary School. Very close to his mother, he learned about religion and tradition from her. Young Ramanujan was brilliant in academics and when he was just 10 years old, he passed his examination with the best scores in his district in the subjects of geography, Tamil, English, and arithmetic. Clearly a child prodigy, he became a master of mathematical knowledge at the mere age of 11 and received awards and merit certificates throughout his high school years.

Interestingly, his excellence in math backfired when he was in college as he performed poorly in other subjects. As a result, he dropped out of college but continued to work on a collection of mathematical theorems, concepts, and ideologies. A breakthrough in his career took place when he got acquainted with V. Ramaswamy Iyer, who was the founder of the Indian Mathematical Society. Aiming for a job at the institution, Ramanujan showed Iyer his math notebook, who was struck by the mathematician’s extraordinary skills. Ramanujan then began sharing his works with international mathematicians, such as M.G.M Hill, J.E. Littlewood, and G.H. Hardy, who examined his work and arrived at the conclusion that Ramanujan was a true genius.