Know your scientist: Srinivasa Ramanujan

Srinivasa Ramanujan is a decorated mathematician and autodidact who originated from  Erode, Madras, India. Born on 22 December 1887. He had no formal pure mathematical education but that didn't stop him from making strides in fields of mathematics like number theory, mathematical analysis, continued fractions and infinite series.

Ramanujan was extremely intelligent and had also built a vast knowledge in subjects besides mathematics. He attained distinctions among his peers in arithmetic, English, geography, and Tamil in 1897.

In his later years, Ramanujan academical honours landed him a scholarship to Government Arts College in Kumbakonam. However, he refused to study any other subject besides mathematics and got expelled. He later secured admission into another college but yet again, he did not study anything besides mathematics.

While working for the Chief Accountant of the Madras Port Trust, he sent his mathematical work to a renowned British mathematician named G.H.Hardy. Hardy then presented Ramanujan papers to his co-workers at Trinity College. That’s where his genius became internationally noticed.

After receiving numerous awards and a Ph.D. in mathematics from Cambridge he became a member of the London Mathematical Society in 1917.  A year later he became a Fellow of the Royal Society. Ramanujan passed away in 1920 after a long battle with tuberculosis. Many of his mathematical theorems are still in use today.