Science

Srinivasa Ramanujan

A self-taught clerk in Madras; a nine-page letter of theorems brought him to Cambridge.

Born: 1887 · Erode, Tamil Nadu, India
Roots: Tamil Brahmin
Family: Working class; His father clerked in a sari shop; the family took in lodgers to make ends meet.
Education: Self-taught from borrowed books; failed out of college twice for ignoring every subject but mathematics
Started with: A borrowed book; Carr's Synopsis, lent to him at 16, became his entire mathematical education; a clerkship later left time for the notebooks.
Affiliations & societies: Royal SocietyDocumented; Elected a fellow in 1918, among the youngest ever at the time.; Information only — claims like these are often unverifiable and may be wrong.

The pathway

1903 · age 16
A borrowed book
Carr's Synopsis of thousands of theorems becomes his self-education; he works through and extends it alone.
1912 · age 24
Port Trust clerk
Patrons impressed by his notebooks find him an office job that leaves time for mathematics.
1913 · age 25
The letter to Hardy
Nine pages of theorems; Hardy concludes they "must be true, because, if they were not true, no one would have the imagination to invent them."
1914 · age 26
Cambridge
Works with Hardy through the war years.
1918 · age 30
Fellow of the Royal Society
1920 · age 32
Dies in Madras
Returns home ill; a "lost notebook" of final results surfaces in 1976.

Sources

Compiled from these references and contemporaneous press reporting. Figures are approximate; verify before relying on them.