श्रीनिवास रामानुजन Srinivasa Ramanujan

Life and career

  1. 1887 · Born in Erode. Born on 22 December 1887 in his grandmother’s house in Erode. He was the third of five children. His father was a clerk in a silk merchant’s shop in Kumbakonam. His mother sang devotional songs to add to the family income. (MacTutor History of Mathematics (St Andrews): Srinivasa Aiyangar Ramanujan · MacTutor: Ramanujan, Srinivasa (Dictionary of National Biography entry))
  2. 1898 · Town High School, Kumbakonam. He entered the Town High School in January 1898. By 13 he could solve every problem in Loney’s Trigonometry on his own. The family home on Sarangapani Sannidhi Street had three rooms around a courtyard. SASTRA University bought it in 2003 and it is now a museum. (MacTutor History of Mathematics (St Andrews): Srinivasa Aiyangar Ramanujan · Encyclopedia.com: Ramanujan, Srinivasa Aaiyangar · Krishnaswami Alladi: A pilgrimage to Ramanujan’s hometown (2005))
  3. 1903 · Carr’s Synopsis. At about 15 he found G. S. Carr’s Synopsis of Elementary Results in Pure and Applied Mathematics. It listed thousands of results with few proofs. He set out to prove them himself. The book shaped his style of stating results without proof. (Britannica: Srinivasa Ramanujan · Encyclopedia.com: Ramanujan, Srinivasa Aaiyangar · Frank Aiello: Ramanujan’s Thoughts from God (arXiv 1707.03379))
  4. 1906 · Lost scholarships and failed exams. He entered Government College, Kumbakonam in 1904 but lost his scholarship by neglecting other subjects. In 1906 he joined Pachaiyappa’s College in Madras. He passed mathematics in the First Arts exam and failed the rest. That closed the University of Madras to him. (MacTutor History of Mathematics (St Andrews): Srinivasa Aiyangar Ramanujan · Britannica: Srinivasa Ramanujan)
  5. 1909 · Marriage to Janaki. On 14 July 1909 he married Janaki in a match arranged by his mother. She was a child and did not live with him for about three more years. He fell seriously ill in 1908 and had an operation in April 1909. (MacTutor History of Mathematics (St Andrews): Srinivasa Aiyangar Ramanujan · MacTutor: Ramanujan, Srinivasa (Dictionary of National Biography entry))
  6. 1912 · First paper and the Port Trust. In 1910 he met V. Ramaswamy Aiyer, founder of the Indian Mathematical Society. In 1911 he published a paper on Bernoulli numbers in its journal. On 1 March 1912 he began work as a clerk at the Madras Port Trust. (MacTutor History of Mathematics (St Andrews): Srinivasa Aiyangar Ramanujan · ThePrint: Srinivasa Ramanujan, self-taught mathematician whose genius survives more than a century on (22 December 2020) · Britannica: Srinivasa Ramanujan)
  7. 1913 · The letter to Hardy. On 16 January 1913 he wrote to G. H. Hardy at Trinity College and enclosed pages of theorems. Hardy replied on 8 February. In May the University of Madras gave him a two-year scholarship. (Surya Teja Gavva (Rutgers University): The life of Ramanujan · MacTutor History of Mathematics (St Andrews): Srinivasa Aiyangar Ramanujan)
  8. 1914 · Namakkal and the voyage to England. His mother at first opposed the journey. Before he left he spent three days at the Namagiri temple in Namakkal. He dreamt that the goddess allowed him to go. He sailed on 17 March 1914 and reached London on 14 April. He moved into Trinity on 30 April. (IMSc (Chennai): Namagiri and Ramanujan’s visit to Namakkal · MacTutor History of Mathematics (St Andrews): Srinivasa Aiyangar Ramanujan · Wikipedia: Srinivasa Ramanujan)
  9. 1916 · BA by Research. Cambridge awarded him a BA by Research on 16 March 1916. His thesis was on highly composite numbers. The degree was renamed a PhD from 1920. (MacTutor History of Mathematics (St Andrews): Srinivasa Aiyangar Ramanujan · ThePrint: Srinivasa Ramanujan, self-taught mathematician whose genius survives more than a century on (22 December 2020))
  10. 1917 · Illness and sanatoria. He first appeared unwell in the spring of 1917. He moved between a Cambridge nursing home and sanatoria at Wells and Matlock and then nursing homes in London. Doctors suspected a gastric ulcer, then cancer, then tuberculosis. (G. H. Hardy: Obituary of Srinivasa Ramanujan, Proceedings of the Royal Society A (1921) · IMSc: D. A. B. Young on Ramanujan’s illness (after Notes and Records of the Royal Society, 1994))
  11. 1918 · Partitions, the Royal Society and Trinity. With Hardy he published an asymptotic formula for the number of partitions of a whole number. His name went on the Royal Society’s election list in February and his election was confirmed on 2 May. Trinity elected him a Fellow in October. He was the first Indian Fellow of Trinity and the second Indian Fellow of the Royal Society. (MacTutor History of Mathematics (St Andrews): Srinivasa Aiyangar Ramanujan · Wikipedia: Srinivasa Ramanujan · MacTutor: Ramanujan, Srinivasa (Dictionary of National Biography entry))
  12. 1920 · Return, mock theta functions and death. He sailed for India on 27 February 1919 and landed on 13 March. On 12 January 1920 he wrote to Hardy about new functions he called mock theta functions. He died on 26 April 1920 at 32. (MacTutor History of Mathematics (St Andrews): Srinivasa Aiyangar Ramanujan · Surya Teja Gavva (Rutgers University): The life of Ramanujan · Wikipedia: Ramanujan’s lost notebook)
  13. 1976 · The lost notebook is found. His widow gave his papers to the University of Madras. Some reached Hardy in 1923 and then G. N. Watson. After Watson’s death they went to Trinity’s Wren Library in 1968. George Andrews found them there in spring 1976. Narosa published a facsimile on 22 December 1987. (Wikipedia: Ramanujan’s lost notebook · Uncovering Ramanujan’s “Lost” Notebook: An Oral History (arXiv 1208.2694))
  14. 2025 · From National Mathematics Day to new physics. On 26 December 2011 Prime Minister Manmohan Singh declared 22 December National Mathematics Day and 2012 National Mathematics Year. In 2025 an IISc team showed that his 1914 formulas for π arise in logarithmic conformal field theories. The paper appeared in Physical Review Letters. (Wikipedia: National Mathematics Day (India) · India TV: Competent mathematicians badly inadequate, says PM (26 December 2011) · IISc: How Ramanujan’s formulae for pi connect to modern high energy physics (3 December 2025) · ThePrint: In Ramanujan’s 111-year-old formula IISc paper finds links with black holes and quantum theory (31 October 2025))

Overview · Life · Ideas · Books · Videos · Debates · People I learn from