Thursday, April 21, 2016

R for Ramanujan




Welcome to the "Believe it or Not- That's Incredible India!" series. India is home to some of the most astonishing wonders in the world. The rich culture, heritage, food, scriptures, architectural marvels and scores of known and unknown facts come together to create this multicolored melange that is India. Throughout this month, read about the various believe it or not facts about India and know what goes into the making of this incredible country!

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This man hardly needs an introduction! Srinivasa Ramanujan - the world renowned Mathematician who dazzled the world with his genius, continues to amaze us even today! Here are some interesting facts about him-

He was the man who knew infinity – literally! His infinite series for ‘pi’ was one of his most celebrated findings.

He has to his credit 3900 identities and mathematical equations. And this, after having no formal education in mathematics! Most of his findings were intuitive and were later found to be true!

He was the youngest mathematician to be inducted as Fellow of the Royal Society at the age of 31!  

1729 is known as the Ramanujan -Hardy number. Do you know the story behind it? It's a pretty interesting one. 
Godfrey Hardy was a professor of mathematics at Cambridge University. One day he went to visit Srinivasa Ramanujan who was ill. When Ramanujan heard that Hardy had come in a taxi he asked him what the number of the taxi was. Hardy said that it was just a boring number: 1729.
Ramanujan replied that 1729 was not a boring number at all: it was a very interesting one. He explained that it was the smallest number that could be expressed by the sum of two cubes in two different ways.
This story is very famous among mathematicians. 1729 is sometimes called the “Hardy-Ramanujan number”.

Ramanujan’s Magic Square-
The magic in the square is that the numbers in any row, any column, all diagonals, the corner numbers, the center square…in fact in many other permutations and combinations… all adds up to 139! What’s more, the first row is his date of birth- 22-12-1887! Howzatt for a genius?

As a mark of recognition of his genius, his birth anniversary, 22nd December, is celebrated every year as the National Mathematics Day.


Believe it or Not – That’s Incredible India!

There's a biopic soon to be released titled 'The Man Who Knew Infinity', Here's a link to the official trailer.


Memories...



These memories…
They are like pearls
Hidden
Inside oysters of the mind
That I have dived deep for and sourced
From the unfathomable depths
of the ocean bed.

Silently
I open them- the oysters
Unsure of what each one holds
Did they all make the pearls,
Or are some empty?

Will I have enough
Of these precious beads
To be strung together into
A neck piece?
Or will I be left
Empty handed as I walk
Alone on the shore
Fading into the sunset?









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