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 am not interested in proofs, only in results.
The prime numbers are the atoms of mathematics.
I see numbers as friends, each with its own personality.
The beauty of mathematics is that it is eternal.
I have traveled the lonely path of discovery.
My work is my prayer.
The mock theta functions are my gift to the world.
I am dying. Please take care of my notebooks.
The theory of partitions is like a symphony.
I have a special relationship with the number 24.
Mathematics is not a human invention; it is a discovery.
The continued fractions are the most natural expressions of numbers.
I am a stranger in a strange land.
My results are like ripe fruit, ready to be picked.
The elliptic integrals are the keys to the universe.
I do not compete with other mathematicians. I compete with the universe.
The infinite is the mirror of the finite.
I have no need for fame, only for truth.
The modular equations are the language of the gods.
My illness is a distraction from my work.
Contemporaries of Srinivasa Ramanujan
Other Mathematicss born within 50 years of Srinivasa Ramanujan (1887–1920).