Events of Shrinivas Ramanujan - World of Biography

Ramanujan’s headmaster in school M Mahadeva Rao recalled that when a sum would take his other classmates 10 minutes, Ramanujan would solve it in under two minutes. In his primary school final exams, he passed in first division and topped amongst all students in his district. But, because a classmate scored 43 out of 45 in Arithmetic while he got 42, he wept bitterly.

By the time Ramanujan was in his teens, his critical ability in mathematics was so bright that he would not accept even the teacher’s explanations unless convinced. A teacher in fourth grade explaining the rules of division said that when a number was divided by itself the answer would be one. For example, when 4 mangoes were divided among 4 children each would get one. Ramanujan perplexed his teacher by asking if there are no people and no mangoes how can each get one. In other words . Ramanujan was in the fourth form when a senior sent him the equation for solving. Within half a minute, Ramanujan came up with the values x = 9 and y = 4.

At the young age of 13, he was assigned the task of making the school timetable for the six higher sections with 40 students each. This required high analytical skills, but Ramanujan was able to do it without any training.

During his days of work at Madras Port Trust, the manager Narayana Iyer was fascinated by Ramanujan’s mathematical brilliance and let him work on his theorems during office hours. He even mentioned Ramanujan’s talents to Sir Spring the then Chairman. One day amongst the files sent by Ramanujan to Sir Spring, two sheets of his mathematical scribblings were inadvertently included. Sir Spring called Ramanujan to see him the next day. Ramanujan was apprehensive and his mother on hearing it, put in her prayers to God to protect her son. Spring had seen the

papers and was very impressed. On meeting Ramanujan, he feigned anger at first and rebuked him for using duty hours for mathematical pursuits but then gave him a quiet corner in the office where he could work peacefully. He even used his influence to get Ramanujan the recognition he deserved. Shrinivas Ramanujan

During his stay in London at a lodging house, he was provided a breakfast which the landlady assured him was purely vegetarian. He happened to glance at the ingredients on the tin of Ovaltine of which he was partaking and observed that it had some powdered egg. Ramanujan was aghast and left to catch a train to his room. He was caught in an air raid and thought it was a portent sign of the wrath of God.

Hardy, on one of his visits to Ramanujan in the hospital, mentioned that the number of his taxicab was 1729 which he found very ‘dull’. Ramanujan immediately said that far from being dull it was the smallest number expressible as a sum of cubes in two different ways (10³ + 9³ and 12³ + 1³)

Neville while speaking on the life of Ramanujan, after his death recalled with tears streaming down his cheeks about the time Ramanujan accidentally dropped water on a rare book lent to him by Neville. Ramanujan made a frantic search for another copy and having found it handed the two over to Neville with many apologies.

In 1917, Ramanujan was in and out of sanatoriums, feeling sick and lonely in a foreign country. He is believed to have asked his mother to send his wife to join him. His mother brushed off the request saying it would affect his research. Ramanujan is believed to have tried to end his life on the tracks of the underground Railway but was saved as the driver stopped on time. Hardy helped him out of the legal complications.