Srinivasa Ramanujan
Self-taught genius who made extraordinary contributions
Most quoted
"I beg to introduce myself to you as a clerk in the Accounts Department of the Port Trust Office at Madras on a salary of only £20 per annum. I am now about 23 years of age. I have had no University education but I have undergone the ordinary school course. After leaving school I have been employing the spare time at my disposal to work at Mathematics. I have not trodden through the conventional regular course which is followed in a University course, but I am striking out a new path for myself. I have made a special investigation of divergent series in general and the results I get are termed by the local mathematicians as 'startling'."
— from First letter to G.H. Hardy, 1913
"I beg to introduce myself to you as a clerk in the Accounts Department of the Port Trust Office at Madras on a salary of only £20 per annum. I am now about 23 years of age. I have had no University education but I have undergone the ordinary school course. After leaving school I have been employing the spare time at my disposal to work at Mathematics."
— from Letter to G.H. Hardy, 1913
"I remember once going to see him when he was ill at Putney. I had ridden in taxi cab number 1729 and remarked that the number seemed to me rather a dull one, and that I hoped it was not an unfavourable omen. 'No,' he replied, 'it is a very interesting number; it is the smallest number expressible as the sum of two cubes in two different ways.'"
— from Recounted by G.H. Hardy, 1918
All quotes by Srinivasa Ramanujan (688)
The Rogers-Ramanujan identities are identities of beauty.
I regret not having more time to prove my conjectures.
Mathematics is the music of reason.
From my childhood, numbers fascinated me.
The asymptotic formula for partitions came to me intuitively.
I thank God for the gift of mathematics.
In solitude, I converse with infinity.
My notebooks contain the essence of my soul.
The circle method is a tool for the infinite.
England's weather is cold, but the warmth of knowledge sustains me.
Hypergeometric series are endless adventures.
I am not a scholar by training, but by divine grace.
The number e^{pi sqrt(163)} is almost an integer.
Friendship with Hardy changed my life.
Mathematics knows no boundaries of caste or creed.
The zeta function hides deep secrets.
My illness cannot dim the light of discovery.
Infinite series sum to finite truths.
I dedicate my work to the goddess.
The taxicab took me to a number story.
Contemporaries of Srinivasa Ramanujan
Other Mathematicss born within 50 years of Srinivasa Ramanujan (1887–1920).