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)
Generating functions generate wonders.
Eternal life through equations.
The Airy function in asymptotics.
Divine inspiration, human effort.
My fellows at Trinity, I am honored.
Numbers' symphony conducts itself.
The struggle for recognition was worth it.
Congruences modulo primes fascinate.
In the end, all converges to God.
The quintuple product identity.
Laughter in the lab: math jokes are prime.
Wisdom: seek and you shall find formulas.
My intuition rarely fails me.
The river of numbers flows endlessly.
Family letters keep me grounded.
The end of the infinite is peace.
Ramanujan's summation method for 1+2+3+... = -1/12.
God’s grace upon my humble efforts.
The mock theta's mystery endures.
In math, every question has an answer.
Contemporaries of Srinivasa Ramanujan
Other Mathematicss born within 50 years of Srinivasa Ramanujan (1887–1920).