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Srinivasa Ramanujan Iyengar (22 December 1887 – 26 April 1920) was an Indian mathematician who worked during the early 20th century.

He made substantial contributions to mathematical analysis, number theory, infinite series, and continued fractions, including solutions to mathematical problems then considered unsolvable. Ramanujan initially developed his own mathematical research in isolation. Recognising Ramanujan's work as extraordinary, Hardy arranged for him to travel to Cambridge. In his notes, Hardy commented that Ramanujan had produced groundbreaking new theorems, including some that "defeated me completely; I had never seen anything in the least like them before", and some recently proven but highly advanced results. Throughout his life, Ramanujan independently compiled nearly 3,900 results (mostly identities and equations). Many were completely novel; his original and highly unconventional results, such as the Ramanujan prime, the Ramanujan theta function, partition formulae and mock theta functions, have opened entire new areas of work and inspired further research. The Ramanujan Journal, a scientific journal, was established to publish work in all areas of mathematics influenced by Ramanujan, and his notebooks—containing summaries of his published and unpublished results—have been analysed and studied for decades since his death as a source of new mathematical ideas. He became one of the youngest Fellows of the Royal Society and only the second Indian member, and the first Indian to be elected a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. His last letters to Hardy, written in January 1920, show that he was still continuing to produce new mathematical ideas and theorems.

Ramanujan (literally, "younger brother of Rama", a Hindu deity) was born in British-ruled India on 22 December 1887 into a Tamil Brahmin Iyengar family in Erode, in modern Tamil Nadu. When Ramanujan was a year and a half old, his mother gave birth to a son, Sadagopan, who died less than three months later. After his maternal grandfather lost his job as a court official in Kanchipuram, Ramanujan and his mother moved back to Kumbakonam, and he was enrolled in Kangayan Primary School.

Rao agreed to give Ramanujan another chance, and listened as Ramanujan discussed elliptic integrals, hypergeometric series, and his theory of divergent series, which Rao said ultimately convinced him of Ramanujan's brilliance. With Aiyer's help, Ramanujan had his work published in the Journal of the Indian Mathematical Society.

Ross of Madras Christian College, whom Ramanujan had met a few years before, stormed into his class one day with his eyes glowing, asking his students, "Does Ramanujan know Polish?" The reason was that in one paper, Ramanujan had anticipated the work of a Polish mathematician whose paper had just arrived in the day's mail.

The number 1729 is known as the Hardy–Ramanujan number after a famous visit by Hardy to see Ramanujan at a hospital.

Littlewood 30, David Hilbert 80 and Ramanujan 100.'" During a May 2011 lecture at IIT Madras, Berndt said that over the last 40 years, as nearly all of Ramanujan's conjectures had been proven, there had been greater appreciation of Ramanujan's work and brilliance, and that Ramanujan's work was pervading many areas of modern mathematics and physics.

SASTRA University, a private university based in Tamil Nadu, has instituted the SASTRA Ramanujan Prize of US$10,000 to be given annually to a mathematician not exceeding age 32 for outstanding contributions in an area of mathematics influenced by Ramanujan. House of Ramanujan Mathematics, a museum of Ramanujan's life and work, is also on this campus.

Nandan Kudhyadi directed the Indian documentary films The Genius of Srinivasa Ramanujan (2013) and Srinivasa Ramanujan: The Mathematician and His Legacy (2016) about the mathematician. Ramanujan was mentioned in the 1997 film Good Will Hunting, in a scene where professor Gerald Lambeau (Stellan Skarsgård) explains to Sean Maguire (Robin Williams) the genius of Will Hunting (Matt Damon) by comparing him to Ramanujan.

The Ramanujan Journal – An international journal devoted to Ramanujan

Quick Facts

• Nandan Kudhyadi directed the Indian documentary films The Genius of Srinivasa Ramanujan (2013) and Srinivasa Ramanujan: The Mathematician and His Legacy (2016) about the mathematician.
• Many were completely novel; his original and highly unconventional results, such as the Ramanujan prime, the Ramanujan theta function, partition formulae and mock theta functions, have opened entire new areas of work and inspired further research.
• In his notes, Hardy commented that Ramanujan had produced groundbreaking new theorems, including some that "defeated me completely; I had never seen anything in the least like them before", and some recently proven but highly advanced results.
• Ramanujan initially developed his own mathematical research in isolation.
• He became one of the youngest Fellows of the Royal Society and only the second Indian member, and the first Indian to be elected a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge.

Source material: Wikipedia - "Srinivasa Ramanujan". Adapted and summarized for DiscoverScroll. Original contributors are credited through the linked Wikipedia article. Read original on Wikipedia. CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes were made from the original.