5 Mind-Blowing Facts About Srinivasa Ramanujan – The Untold Genius of Infinity
“Every once in a while, a mind emerges that defies all boundaries of convention, formal training, and expectation. Srinivasa Ramanujan was one such mind — perhaps the purest expression of mathematical divinity the world has ever known.” 1. A Humble Beginning in Colonial India Born on December 22, 1887, in the town of Erode—part of what was then the Madras Presidency under British India (modern-day Tamil Nadu)—Srinivasa Ramanujan came from a traditional Brahmin Iyengar family. Raised in the religious and traditional town of Kumbakonam, young Ramanujan showed signs of an extraordinary mind from early childhood. By the time he was five, he had already mastered arithmetic and had an unusual memory for numbers. His early schooling, however, was not marked by consistent success. Though he was a brilliant student in mathematics, his refusal to engage with other subjects such as English, history, or science led to poor academic records. Ramanujan failed to secure a degree from any college, including the Government Arts College in Kumbakonam and later Pachaiyappa’s College in Madras, despite receiving scholarships. His passion lay entirely in mathematics. He would spend hours on calculations, exploring numbers, patterns, and relationships without any formal training or access to advanced texts. Instead of memorizing rules, he derived his own — intuitively and independently. By the age of 15, he had discovered G.S. Carr’s book “A Synopsis of Elementary Results” — a list of 6165 theorems. This book became the foundation of his mathematical journey, and from there, he would go on to rediscover and reimagine centuries of mathematical knowledge on his own. He filled countless notebooks with theorems — many of which wouldn’t be proven until decades after his death. These were not just calculations — they were his form of spiritual worship. 2.Discovering Infinity Without Formal Training In an era without the internet, without digital calculators, and without access to global research, Ramanujan managed to unearth the secrets of the mathematical universe. What made him even more unique was that he had no mentor, no professor, and no formal exposure to mathematical communities or publications. He formulated complex theorems in number theory, continued fractions, algebra, and infinite series. One of his most notable early discoveries was the Ramanujan prime, and later, the Ramanujan theta function — all developed from pure intuition. He was also deeply influenced by his cultural and religious beliefs. Ramanujan was a devout Hindu who believed that his ideas came directly from Goddess Namagiri of Namakkal. He claimed she would visit him in his dreams and present him with formulas and numerical insights. This divine link wasn’t just rhetoric — it reflected the fusion of spiritual and intellectual life in India. For Ramanujan, mathematics was not just a subject — it was a language in which the universe expressed itself, and he was merely a medium. 3. The Letter That Changed History: Ramanujan Writes to Hardy By 1913, Ramanujan was striving for recognition. Despite his brilliance, his unconventional work was rejected or ignored by many mathematicians in India. In a bold move, he wrote a letter to Professor G.H. Hardy at Trinity College, Cambridge. The letter included 11 pages filled with raw, unproven theorems—complex, creative, and beyond standard academic form. Initially, Hardy was skeptical. He even considered the possibility that the letter was a hoax. But after examining the theorems with his colleague J.E. Littlewood, Hardy was stunned. He famously remarked, “They must be true, because if they were not true, no one would have had the imagination to invent them.” This wasn’t just a scholarly letter—it was a bridge. On one end stood a self-taught genius from a temple town in India; on the other, one of the most prestigious mathematical institutions in the British Empire. Moved by the genius in those pages, Hardy immediately extended an invitation to Ramanujan to come to Cambridge. This marked the beginning of a historic collaboration that would reshape the world of mathematics. 4. Cambridge Collaboration: A Genius Meets the World In March 1914, Ramanujan embarked on a life-changing journey from Madras to England. The voyage wasn’t just geographic—it was cultural, spiritual, and intellectual. As a devout Brahmin, he feared breaking his religious dietary codes. He carried food and utensils for the entire trip to maintain his spiritual purity, despite the long and exhausting sea voyage. Arriving at Trinity College, Cambridge, Ramanujan stepped into a modern mathematical world. It was his first exposure to structured academia. Under G.H. Hardy’s guidance, he finally found a collaborator who valued his potential. Their approaches clashed—Ramanujan relied on intuition and divine inspiration, while Hardy demanded logical proofs and formal structures. Yet, it was this contrast that made their partnership legendary. Together, they made groundbreaking contributions to: Between 1914 and 1919, Ramanujan published 21 major research papers. His genius was finally recognized at the highest levels. In 1918, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, becoming one of the youngest and among the first Indians to receive this honor. He was also named a Fellow of Trinity College, a rare and prestigious achievement—especially for a self-taught mathematician from colonial India. This was Ramanujan’s golden era—a time when the world finally saw the full light of a star that had long been hidden. 5. A Mysterious Mathematical Mind: Intuition Over Proof Ramanujan baffled his peers with his ability to “see” the truth of formulas without formal deduction. For instance, he discovered the taxicab number 1729 — the smallest number expressible as the sum of two cubes in two different ways — in a casual hospital conversation with Hardy. He didn’t believe in solving problems traditionally. Instead, he treated mathematics as divine revelation. When asked to provide proofs, he often struggled, not due to lack of understanding, but because he skipped the intermediate steps — they weren’t important to him. His three Notebooks, filled with thousands of results, became priceless documents. The results inside were often decades ahead of their time. Many of them were eventually confirmed to be correct, and some remain unsolved
