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)
No, it is not a theorem. It is a formula.
I am not a mathematician; I am a mystic.
My brain is like a sieve.
I have to get up early in the morning to do my mathematics.
It is not a proof, it is a revelation.
I have to write down my results before I forget them.
Mathematics is not a subject for the faint-hearted.
I am not a genius; I am just a normal person.
I have to go to sleep to dream about mathematics.
The goddess Namagiri inspires me in my dreams.
I have to eat to think about mathematics.
My theorems are like my children.
I am not interested in proving theorems; I am interested in discovering them.
I have to pray to understand mathematics.
I am not a mathematician, I am a medium.
I have to walk to clear my head for mathematics.
My notebooks are my life.
I am not a scholar; I am a seer.
I have to meditate to find new mathematical truths.
I am not a scientist; I am an artist.
Contemporaries of Srinivasa Ramanujan
Other Mathematicss born within 50 years of Srinivasa Ramanujan (1887–1920).