Page 30 - Ramanujan Yatra
P. 30
The Enigma named
Srinivasa Ramanujan
Dr. T.V. Venkateswaran
s he rummaged through the yellowing old pages, in a box full of loose sheets, Ken Ono froze. Scribble at the corner of a page attracted his attention. His heart stopped a beat. Ken Ono is a mathematician, then at Emory University and was the math consultant for the Dev Patel and Jeremy Irons stared Hollywood movie The Man Who Knew Infinity. He and number theorists Andrew Granville were at the Ramanujan archive at Cambridge. “From the bottom of one of the boxes I pulled out this sheet,” recalls Ono. On the right bottom corner of the page, in characteristic handwriting of Ramanujan was two equations.
13 + 123; 93 + 103.
The solution to the equations is 1729.
PRELUDE
Before his eventual return to India, and subsequent tragic death, Ramanujan was seriously ill and was admitted to a hospital in England. He was in a dilemma. He longed to be with his wife, Janaki, and missed home-cooked food. He knew, leaving England would cost his progress in mathematics. His attempt to bring his wife to England met with failure. His mother put her foot down, saying Janaki will be a distraction to Ramanujan’s mathematics. Vile Englishmen, in Ramanujan’s absence, his mother reasoned, may seduce Janaki. Meanwhile, domestic discord had flared between Janaki and Ramanujanʼs mother resulting in both not writing to him as often as earlier.
His illness was also a riddle. While most doctors diagnosed him to be suffering
Ramanujan
YATRA
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