Srinivasa Ramanujan was born on December 22, 1887, in Erode, India. Now although Ramanujan would go to school as a child, it is through his own self-teachings based upon mathematical books that would allow him to gather the knowledge of an intellectual prodigy. An example of this is at the age of 13, Ramanujan was given a book written by S. L. Loney on advanced trigonometry. He would go on to master these theories and even derived his own theories based on the information. Around the age of 15 Ramanujan received a key book that would serve a vital role in his math journey. This book was A Synopsis of Elementary Results in Pure and Applied Mathematics. It held thousands of theorems that Ramanujan not only learned from, but also verified and developed from. Srinivasa Ramanujan's talent would get him a scholarship to the Government College in Kumbakonam, unfortunately, he would lose this scholarship as he would focus only on math and ignore all other subjects. As a result, Ramanujan ran away from home in the pursuing of a college that would accept him. He enrolled at Pachaiyappa's College, but fail his Fellow of Arts exam due to his low score in every subject, but math. This led to him dropping out of college completely, to study math independently.
In 1911, Srinivasa Ramanujan met the founder of the Indian Mathematical Society. Through evidence of work, Ramanujan was able to get a job at Madras as well as financial aid to take care of him. Here he would complete many of his works including his nested radical formula. Later on, Ramanujan sent drafted letters of work to mathematical professors at Cambridge. Although two of the professors ignored his letters, the third, G.H. Hardy recognized Ramanujan’s genius and decided to help him This led to a research scholarship and trip to Cambridge. Ramanujan would spend 5 years in Cambridge working with Hardy on many ideas and theories that would grant him his earning in many awards including Fellow of the Royal Society. Unfortunately, Srinivasa Ramanujan died at a young age of the 32 due to heart problems he had his whole life, that only progress worse as he got older.
Biography
