Bedadyuti Chakraborty
Ramanujan was ill. British mathematician G. H. Hardy came to see Ramanujan in the hospital which was situated in south-west London. Hardy's cab number was 1729 and he pointed the number as a dull one and unfavorable too. "No," Ramanujan replied and then told "it is a very interesting number; it is the smallest number expressible as the sum of two cubes in two different ways."
Those two different ways are these: 1729 =13+123 = 93 +103
Today we know 1729 as Ramanujan's number!
Government of India declared "year 2012" as the "year of Mathematics" to commemorate 125 birth anniversary of this genious mathematician of India, Srinivasan Ramanujan (born in 22 December, 1887). In his short span of life (lived only for 33 years) he contributed to make the foundation strong of modern mathematics (mainly algebra) though he was not having any formal university degree on mathematics.
His credibility was lying within his love and passion towards the subject, mathematics!
He was from a poor family and in his student life he somehow managed a loaned copy of a book by G. S. Carr titled "A Synopsis of Elementary Results in Pure and Applied Mathematics" which was a collection of thousands of theorems. Ramanujan used to solve those problems. This book played a vital role in awakening the "mathematical genius" of Ramanujan.
While working as a clerk in the Accountant-General's office (1912-13) at the Madras Port Trust Office, he used to send samples of his theorems (novel mathematical observations) to different eminent mathematicians at that time. But, he did not receive any reply! But, Ramanujan kept trying.
Once Louis Pasteur told, "chance favors only the prepared mind".
In one fine day, he got a reply from G. H. Hardy of Cambridge University. Hardy acknowledged and praised his work. And finally, with active support from Hardy only, Ramanujan was able to reach Cambridge University, London to carry out research work in mathematics. And, mathemagic began there and the magic started mesmerising the world with the novel approaches in solving the problems and establishing new theories.
Robert Kanigel wrote a biography of Ramanujan which was published in 1991. The name of the book is "The Man Who Knew Infinity". Ramanujan used to like the mathematical problems related to infinity series. And, he used solve those rapidly!
....Journey of his life also moved very fast towards infinity....He died on 26 April, 1920 in India after returning back from England due to his ill health.....!...Magic remains still.....