Srinivasa Ramanujan

mathematician · numbers · India · genius

Numbers came naturally. Srinivasa Ramanujan was born in India in 1887 and showed incredible talent with mathematics from childhood, even though he had very little formal training compared to other mathematicians.

Saw patterns others missed. Ramanujan had an almost magical ability to spot hidden patterns in numbers and infinite series, discovering formulas that seemed to appear to him without him needing to write down the steps.

Letter changed everything. In 1913, Ramanujan wrote a letter to a famous British mathematician named G.H. Hardy showing off his discoveries, and Hardy immediately recognized he had found someone extraordinarily talented.

Traveled to Cambridge. Hardy invited Ramanujan to Cambridge University in England, where the two worked together for five years and published amazing mathematical discoveries that other mathematicians had thought were impossible.

Infinite series master. Ramanujan made groundbreaking contributions to the study of infinite series and continued fractions, which are ways of writing numbers as endless patterns that go on forever in specific mathematical ways.