December 22nd every year is celebrated as National mathematics day in India. This day commemorates the birth anniversary of the legendary mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan. Ramanujan was a self-taught mathematician who discovered his own theorems. He independently compiled around 3900 results and is known for his contributions in Hypergeometric series, the Riemann series, the elliptic integrals, the theory of divergent series, and the functional equations of the zeta function.
Board in a Tamil Brahmin family on December 22, 1887, at Erode, Tamil Nadu. Ramanujan never had any formal training in the subject but the maths prodigy has been awarded numerous laurels, some of them which include being elected as a fellow of the prestigious Royal Society for his research on elliptic functions and theory of number and the first-ever Indian to be elected as a fellow of Trinity College.
Former Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh declared 22 December as national mathematics day in 2012 after visiting the Madras University on Ramanujan’s 125th birth anniversary to mark the importance of mathematics in daily life and to encourage people to develop self-learning and integrate mathematics in our lives.
Ramanujan is also known as “The Man Who Knew Infinity” because the love he had for the subject was infinite. Ramanujan’s life is nothing short of a roller coaster experience some failures but that never let him lose hope, he tutored students while studying and also contributed to the journal of Indian Mathematical Society. At the young age of 26, he was invited to the University of Cambridge for his statements on 120 mathematical theorems on infinite series continued fractions improper integrals, and number theory.
Ramanujan believed in himself and never lost hope in the work that he did. The groundbreaking work done by Ramanujan for the Indian Mathematical Society and his contributions made in the subject will forever inspire future generations. He made India proud with his sheer dedication and passion towards the subjects and he will always be remembered for the hard work he put into solving the equations.