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which would allow him to be admitted to the first job, a temporary post in the Accountant
University of Madras. He attended lectures General’s Office in Madras. It was then
at Pachaiyappa’s College but became ill after suggested that he approach Ramachandra Rao
three months study. He took the First Arts who was a Collector at Nellore. Ramachandra
examination after having left the course. He Rao was a founder member of the Indian
passed in mathematics but failed all his other Mathematical Society who had helped start
subjects and therefore failed the examination. the mathematics library. He writes :-
This meant that he could not enter the
Srinivasa Aiyangar Ramanujan University of Madras. In the following years A short uncouth figure, stout, unshaven, not
he worked on mathematics developing his over clean, with one conspicuous feature-
Born: 22 December 1887 in Erode, Tamil Nadu state, India own ideas without any help and without any shining eyes- walked in with a frayed
Died: 26 April 1920 in Kumbakonam, Tamil Nadu state, India real idea of the then current research topics notebook under his arm. He was miserably
other than that provided by Carr’s book. poor. ... He opened his book and began to
explain some of his discoveries. I saw quite
Continuing his mathematical work at once that there was something out of the
Ramanujan studied continued fractions and way; but my knowledge did not permit me to
Srinivasa Ramanujan was one of India’s the book was to have a rather unfortunate divergent series in 1908. At this stage he judge whether he talked sense or nonsense.
greatest mathematical geniuses. He made effect on the way Ramanujan was later to write became seriously ill again and underwent an ... I asked him what he wanted. He said he
substantial contributions to the analytical down mathematics since it provided the only operation in April 1909 after which he took wanted a pittance to live on so that he might
theory of numbers and worked on elliptic model that he had of written mathematical him some considerable time to recover. He pursue his researches.
functions, continued fractions, and infinite arguments. The book contained theorems, married on 14 July 1909 when his mother
series. formulae and short proofs. It also contained arranged for him to marry a ten year old girl S Ramachandra Rao told him to return to
an index to papers on pure mathematics Janaki Ammal. Ramanujan did not live with Madras and he tried, unsuccessfully, to
Ramanujan was born in his grandmother’s which had been published in the European his wife, however, until she was twelve years arrange a scholarship for Ramanujan. In
house in Erode, a small village about 400 km Journals of Learned Societies during the first old. 1912 Ramanujan applied for the post of clerk
southwest of Madras. When Ramanujan was half of the 19th century. The book, published in the accounts section of the Madras Port
a year old his mother took him to the town of in 1856, was of course well out of date by the Trust. In his letter of application he wrote:-
Kumbakonam, about 160 km nearer Madras. time Ramanujan used it.
His father worked in Kumbakonam as a clerk I have passed the Matriculation Examination
in a cloth merchant’s shop. In December By 1904 Ramanujan had begun to undertake and studied up to the First Arts but was
1889 he contracted smallpox. deep research. He investigated the series prevented from pursuing my studies further
∑(1/n) and calculated Euler’s constant to owing to several untoward circumstances. I
When he was nearly five years old, Ramanujan 15 decimal places. He began to study the have, however, been devoting all my time to
entered the primary school in Kumbakonam Bernoulli numbers, although this was entirely Mathematics and developing the subject.
although he would attend several different his own independent discovery.
primary schools before entering the Town High Despite the fact that he had no university
School in Kumbakonam in January 1898. At Ramanujan, on the strength of his good education, Ramanujan was clearly well known
the Town High School, Ramanujan was to do school work, was given a scholarship to the to the university mathematicians in Madras
well in all his school subjects and showed Government College in Kumbakonam which for, with his letter of application,
himself an able all round scholar. In 1900 he he entered in 1904. However the following Ramanujan included a
began to work on his own on mathematics year his scholarship was not renewed Ramanujan continued to develop his reference from E W
summing geometric and arithmetic series. because Ramanujan devoted more and more mathematical ideas and began to pose Middlemast who was
of his time to mathematics and neglected his problems and solve problems in the Journal the Professor of
Ramanujan was shown how to solve cubic other subjects. Without money he was soon of the Indian Mathematical Society. He Mathematics at
equations in 1902 and he went on to find his in difficulties and, without telling his parents, devoloped relations between elliptic modular The Presidency
own method to solve the quartic. The following he ran away to the town of Vizagapatnam equations in 1910. After publication of College in
year, not knowing that the quintic could not about 650 km north of Madras. He continued a brilliant research paper on Bernoulli Madras
be solved by radicals, he tried (and of course his mathematical work, however, and at this numbers in 1911 in the Journal of the Indian Middlemast,
failed) to solve the quintic. time he worked on hypergeometric series and Mathematical Society he gained recognition a graduate
investigated relations between integrals and
It was in the Town High School that series. He was to discover later that he had for his work. Despite his lack of a university of St John’s
education, he was becoming well known in College,
Ramanujan came across a mathematics book been studying elliptic functions. the Madras area as a mathematical genius. Cambridge,
by G S Carr called Synopsis of elementary wrote:-
results in pure mathematics. This book, with In 1906 Ramanujan went to Madras where In 1911 Ramanujan approached the founder
its very concise style, allowed Ramanujan to he entered Pachaiyappa’s College. His aim of the Indian Mathematical Society for advice I can strongly
teach himself mathematics, but the style of was to pass the First Arts examination
on a job. After this he was appointed to his recommend

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