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)
I hope you will be able to help me to publish my work.
I am very anxious to get your opinion on my work.
I have no doubt that you will find my work interesting.
I am very grateful for your kindness and your help.
I hope to hear from you soon.
I am very much obliged to you for your kind letter.
I am very glad to know that you are interested in my work.
I am sending you some more of my theorems.
I hope you will be able to help me to publish them.
I am very anxious to get your opinion on them.
I have no doubt that you will find them interesting.
An equation for me has no meaning, unless it expresses a thought of God.
To preserve my brains I must eat meat.
I am not a mathematician, I am a seer.
It is God who gave me these ideas.
I have found a companion in my dreams.
The goddess Namagiri inspires me with formulas in my dreams.
No, it is not a dream. It is a reality.
I can write down the most complicated formulas, but I cannot prove them.
My work is not for the present, but for the future.
Contemporaries of Srinivasa Ramanujan
Other Mathematicss born within 50 years of Srinivasa Ramanujan (1887–1920).