George Andrews, a professor at Pennsylvania State University, spoke to students and faculty Friday about the Lost Notebooks of Srinivasa Ramanujan, an Indian mathematician who lived during the early twentieth century.
Ramanujan, who died in 1920 at the age of 32, made large contributions to mathematical analysis and was considered a genius by G. H. Hardy, a British mathematician with whom Ramanujan worked. After decades of studying Ramanujan’s formulas, some physicists are putting his equations to use in calculating black holes, which Andrews said could lead to the re-writing of science textbooks.
“Almost a century after his death, his work is starting to be appreciated and studied more in depth,” Andrews said. “People are finally recognizing his genius.”
According to Andrews, many mathematicians who lived during the twentieth century didn’t appreciate Ramanujan’s work. The Indian mathematician, who was kicked out of college twice, sent letters about his ideas to well-known English mathematicians such as Ernest William Hobson and Alan Baker. Many of these letters were ignored.
Ramanujan continued to mail various mathematicians until he reached Hardy, who invited him to England to collaborate with him.
“Hardy had never seen anything like Ramanujan’s work before,” Andrews said. “He knew Ramanujan was onto to something ground-breaking.”
Ramanujan spent about three years in England, from 1915-1918, but fell ill with what Andrews said is believed to be tuberculosis. He spent a year in England recovering until he was fit to return to his home country in India in 1919, where he became a national hero. His face appeared on a postage stamp in 1920.
“Ramanujan is what we would call a child prodigy,” Andrews said.
Three months before his death, Ramanujan wrote a final letter to Hardy about recent findings involving mock theta theory. However, Ramanujan did not send all of his work to Hardy out of the fear that Hardy would steal his ideas.
“These are his private notes,” Andrews said. “He may have wanted to keep something from the British, but he couldn’t keep anything from himself.”
For more than 50 years, 140 pages of Ramanujan’s work were hidden.
That is, until 1976, when Andrews found the missing notebooks in a box donated to the Trinity Library at Cambridge University. Andrews was trying to prove Ramanujan’s previously published theories when he made the discovery. He had already spent several years studying Ramanujan, and he told the audience he instantly recognized Ramanujan’s handwriting.
“How in the world did I get involved in this is what I kept asking myself,” Andrews said. “But I knew I had just discovered a very important document in the history of mathematics.”
Since his discovery, Andrews has become the world’s leading expert on Ramanujan’s work. He has worked to prove Ramanujan’s theories, spending months or years on just one equation at a time. Today, apart from one formula, all of Ramanunjan’s formulas in the “Lost Notebook” have been proven.
“There are certain formulas that you wrestle into the ground and beat it to death, only to discover that it’s a useless formula,” Andrews said. “Ramanujan’s formulas are not so.”
Cagatay Karan, a Ph. D candidate from Turkey, said it was fascinating that Andrews devoted so much time to someone who accomplished a “great deal” as someone so young. Karan said he enjoyed hearing about Ramanujan’s personal story of perseverance and determination.
Michael Singer, a professor of mathematics at the University, said Andrews’ lecture on Ramunjan’s work shows “beautiful math” as well as an interesting human story that everyone can understand.
