22 Dec: National Mathematics Day

National Mathematics Day is being celebrated today to commemorate the birth anniversary of Srinivasa Ramanujan. Ramanujan is remembered for his contributions to number theory, mathematical analysis, infinite series, and continued fractions. This year, was his 132nd birth anniversary.

About Srinivasa Ramanujan

He was born on 22 December 1887 in Tamil Nadu’s Erode district. In his short life (he died at the age of 32, on 26 April 1920), Ramanujan had a wealth of ideas that have transformed and reshaped 20th-century mathematics.

Without any formal training in pure mathematics, he contributed to number theory, infinite series, and mathematical analysis. His ideas continue to shape mathematics in the 21st century. He also discovered his own theorems and compiled as many as 3900 mathematical results and equations independently.

Ramanujan’s Prime and Theta discoveries had inspired further research on this mathematical subject.  He is also known for the Hardy-Ramanujan number- ‘1729’, which is the smallest number which can be represented as the sum of two different cubes in two different ways. He discovered the number along with British Mathematician G.H. Hardy.

Background

In 2012, Union Government headed by the then Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh, declared 22nd December as ‘National Mathematics Day’ to celebrate the 125th birth anniversary of Srinivasa Ramanujan. The government also declared, the year 2012 as National Mathematics Year.