Srinivasa Ramanujan
The man who's mathmatical theories are still teaching the scientist many solutions.
Here is a timeline of his life:
- 1887 (December 22) - Srinivasa Ramanujan was born in Erode, Tamil Nadu, India, to a Tamil-speaking Brahmin family.
- 1892-1897 - Ramanujan attended the Kangayan Primary School in Kumbakonam, where his mathematical abilities began to emerge.
- 1898-1904 - Ramanujan studied at Town Higher Secondary School in Kumbakonam. During this time, he independently developed his own mathematical ideas and started compiling his own theorems and results.
- 1904 - Ramanujan was granted a scholarship to attend Government Arts College in Kumbakonam. However, he was so focused on mathematics that he neglected his other subjects and eventually dropped out.
- 1905 - Ramanujan began working as a clerk in the Madras Port Trust to support himself financially. During his free time, he continued his mathematical research and independently discovered many significant results.
- 1910 - Ramanujan sent a letter containing some of his mathematical work to the renowned British mathematician, G.H. Hardy, who was initially skeptical of its authenticity. However, Hardy recognized Ramanujan's genius and invited him to study at the University of Cambridge in England.
- 1914-1919 - Ramanujan traveled to England and worked closely with Hardy at Trinity College, Cambridge. During this period, he published several papers and made important contributions to number theory, partition theory, and continued fractions.
- 1918 - Ramanujan was awarded the Bachelor of Science degree by research (Ph.D.) from Cambridge University for his work on highly composite numbers, partitions, and hypergeometric series.
- 1919 - Due to health issues and homesickness, Ramanujan returned to India and continued his mathematical research. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London in recognition of his contributions to mathematics.
- 1920 - Ramanujan was diagnosed with tuberculosis, which severely affected his health. Nevertheless, he continued to work on mathematics, despite his deteriorating condition.
- 1923 (April 26) - Srinivasa Ramanujan passed away at the age of 32 in Kumbakonam, Tamil Nadu, India. His death was a significant loss to the mathematical community.
"He (Ramanujan) has left to the scientific world a heritage of his works, which are the most original and profound in India's entire mathematical history."
-- Sir C.V. Raman, Nobel laureate in Physics