Mathematics from God

The plaque on the door is a testament to one of the world’s greatest mathematical geniuses, Srinvasa Ramanjuan, who lived here just over 100 years ago. Srinvasa made substantial contributions to mathematical analysis, number theory, infinite series and continued fractions. Some of his solutions to mathematical problems are still considered to be unsolvable. He became one of the youngest Fellows of the Royal Society and only the second Indian member, and the first Indian to be elected a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge.

And yet, Srinvasa had no formal training. Even more controversially, Srinvasa said a goddess told him what to say.

Born in India in 1913 Srinavasa began corresponding with Professor Hardy at the University of Cambridge, who invited him to the UK.

Many of Srinavasa’s equations were original and highly unconventional. His results have opened entire new areas of work and inspired a vast amount of further research. Nearly all his claims have now been proven correct. This includes results named after him such as the Ramanjuan prime, the Ramanjuan theta function.

Srinavasa was a deeply religious Hindu and said that his mathematical knowledge was revealed to him by his family godess. "An equation for me has no meaning," he once said, "unless it expresses a thought of God.”

The number 1729 is known as the Hardy–Ramanujan number after a famous visit by Professor Hardy to see Ramanujan. In Hardy's words:

I remember once going to see him when he was ill at Putney. I had ridden in taxicab number 1729 and remarked that the number seemed to me rather a dull one, and that I hoped it was not an unfavorable 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."

The two different ways are

1729 = 13 + 123 = 93 + 103.

Generalizations of this idea are now referred to as taxicab numbers. Only six taxi cab numbers have been discovered so far, and computers are now searching for more.

In 1919 ill health compelled Ramanujan's return to India, where he died aged 32.