[ From The Discovery on India]
Mathematics in India inevitably makes one think of one extraordinary
Figure of resent times. This is Srinivasa Ramanujam. Born into a poor Brahmin family in South India, having no cpportunities for a proper education, he became a clerk in the Madras Port Trust. But he was bubbling with some irrepressible quality of instinctive genius and played about with numbers and equations in his spare time. By a lucky chance he attracted the attention of a mathematician who sent some of his amateur work to Cambridge in England. People there were impressed and a scholarship was arranged for him. So he left his clerk’s job and went to Cambridge and during a very brief period there did work of profound value and amazing originality. The Royal Society of England went rather out of their way made him Fellow, but he died two years later, probably of tuberculosis at the age of thirty-three. Professor Julian Huxley has, I belive, referred to him as the greatest mathematician of the century. [From The Discovery on India]
1) What makes one think highly of Srinivasa Ramanujam?
2) Why did Ramanujam become a clerk?
3) What was Ramanujam doing whenever he found some free time?
4) What helped Ramanujam to go to Cambridge?
5) What did people at Cambridge do for Ramanujam? 6) Describe the work Ramanujam did at Cambridge.
7) How did the Royal Society of England honour Ramanujam?
8) What is the compliment Professor Julian Huxley extended to Ramanujam?
ANSWERS
1) Mathematics makes one think of Ramanujam.
2) because of their poverty and as a result of having no opportunities for proper education.
3) played about with numbers and equations
4) a mathematician sending his work to Cambridge.
5) A scholarship was arranged for him.
6) work of profound value and amazing originality
7) honoured Ramanujam by making him a Fellow of the Society
8) the greatest mathematician of the century