National Mathematics Day is celebrated to recognise the achievements of Srinivasa Ramanujan

National Mathematics Day is celebrated every year on December 22 to recognize the achievements of the Indian Mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan who was born on this date in 1887. In 2012, former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had declared December 22 as National Mathematics Day.

Hyderabad: Country Remembers 'The Man Who Knew Infinity, Srinivasa Ramanujan.

• आज प्रख्यात गणितज्ञ श्री श्रीनिवास रामानुजन की जन्म जयंती के उपलक्ष्य में राष्ट्रीय गणित दिवस के अवसर पर उनके कृतित्व का वंदन करता हूं।
  
  गणित के क्षेत्र में अध्ययन और अनुसंधान करने वाले शिक्षकों, शोधकर्ताओं और विद्यार्थियों को शुभकामनाएं देता हूं। #NationalMathematicsDay pic.twitter.com/KwWVhJYGvJ

  — Vice President of India (@VPSecretariat) December 22, 2020 " class="align-text-top noRightClick twitterSection" data="

  आज प्रख्यात गणितज्ञ श्री श्रीनिवास रामानुजन की जन्म जयंती के उपलक्ष्य में राष्ट्रीय गणित दिवस के अवसर पर उनके कृतित्व का वंदन करता हूं।
  
  गणित के क्षेत्र में अध्ययन और अनुसंधान करने वाले शिक्षकों, शोधकर्ताओं और विद्यार्थियों को शुभकामनाएं देता हूं। #NationalMathematicsDay pic.twitter.com/KwWVhJYGvJ

  — Vice President of India (@VPSecretariat) December 22, 2020

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  आज प्रख्यात गणितज्ञ श्री श्रीनिवास रामानुजन की जन्म जयंती के उपलक्ष्य में राष्ट्रीय गणित दिवस के अवसर पर उनके कृतित्व का वंदन करता हूं।
  
  गणित के क्षेत्र में अध्ययन और अनुसंधान करने वाले शिक्षकों, शोधकर्ताओं और विद्यार्थियों को शुभकामनाएं देता हूं। #NationalMathematicsDay pic.twitter.com/KwWVhJYGvJ

  — Vice President of India (@VPSecretariat) December 22, 2020

• Remembering one of the greatest mathematicians #SrinivasaRamanujan on his birth anniversary, which is also celebrated as #NationalMathematicsDay.
  
  He made extraordinary contributions to mathematical analysis, number theory, infinite series & continued fractions. pic.twitter.com/MuhNXhUnZY

  — Bhrugu Baxipatra (@BhruguBJP) December 22, 2020 " class="align-text-top noRightClick twitterSection" data="

  Remembering one of the greatest mathematicians #SrinivasaRamanujan on his birth anniversary, which is also celebrated as #NationalMathematicsDay.
  
  He made extraordinary contributions to mathematical analysis, number theory, infinite series & continued fractions. pic.twitter.com/MuhNXhUnZY

  — Bhrugu Baxipatra (@BhruguBJP) December 22, 2020

  ">

  Remembering one of the greatest mathematicians #SrinivasaRamanujan on his birth anniversary, which is also celebrated as #NationalMathematicsDay.
  
  He made extraordinary contributions to mathematical analysis, number theory, infinite series & continued fractions. pic.twitter.com/MuhNXhUnZY

  — Bhrugu Baxipatra (@BhruguBJP) December 22, 2020

National Mathematics Day is celebrated to recognise the achievements of Srinivasa Ramanujan

National Mathematics Day Significance

• The main objective behind the celebration is to raise awareness among people about the importance of mathematics for the development of humanity.
• We can’t ignore that several initiatives are taken to motivate, enthuse, and inculcate a positive attitude towards learning mathematics among the younger generation of the country.
• On this day, training is also provided to the mathematics teachers and students through camps and highlights the development, production, and dissemination of teaching-learning materials (TLM) for Mathematics and research in related areas.

National Mathematics Day is celebrated to recognise the achievements of Srinivasa Ramanujan

How is National Mathematics Day celebrated?

• National Mathematics Day is celebrated in various schools, colleges, universities, and educational institutions in India. Even UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation) and India had agreed to work together to spread mathematics learning and understanding. Along with this, various steps were taken to educate the students in mathematics and spread knowledge to the students and learners all over the world.
• All the states of India celebrate National Mathematics Day in different ways. Various competitions and mathematical quizzes are conducted at schools, colleges, and universities. Mathematics talent and students from all over India participate in these programs and workshops.

National Mathematics Day is celebrated to recognise the achievements of Srinivasa Ramanujan

Who was Srinivasa Ramanujan, and why is his work in mathematics important?

• At age 12, despite lacking a formal education, he had excelled at trigonometry and developed many theorems by himself.
• After finishing secondary school in 1904, Ramanujan became eligible for a scholarship to study at the Government Arts College, Kumbakonam, but could not secure the same since he did not do well in other subjects.
• At 14, Ramanujan ran away from home and enrolled at Pachaiyappa’s College in Madras, where he would only excel in mathematics without managing to wade through remaining subjects, and was unable to graduate with a Fellow of Arts degree.
• Living in dire poverty, Ramanujan then pursued independent research in mathematics.
• Ramanujan was soon noticed in Chennai’s mathematics circles. In 1912, Ramaswamy Iyer, founder of the Indian Mathematical Society, helped him get a clerk position at the Madras Port Trust.
• Ramanujan then began sending his work to British mathematicians. His breakthrough arrived in 1913, when the Cambridge-based GH Hardy wrote back and called him to London.
• In 1914, Ramanujan arrived in Britain, where Hardy got him into Trinity College, Cambridge. In 1917, Ramanujan was elected to be a member of the London Mathematical Society.
• In 1918, he also became a Fellow of the Royal Society, becoming one of the youngest to achieve the feat.
• His success in England notwithstanding, Ramanujan could not get accustomed to the country’s diet and returned to India in 1919. Ramanujan’s health continued to deteriorate, and he died in 1920 at the age of 32.

National Mathematics Day is celebrated to recognise the achievements of Srinivasa Ramanujan

Contributions to mathematics and legacy

• Ramanujan’s genius has been regarded by mathematicians to be at par with Euler and Jacobi from the 18th and 19th centuries, respectively.
• His work in the number theory is especially regarded, and he made advances in the partition function. Ramanujan was recognized for his mastery of continued fractions and had worked out the Riemann series, elliptic integrals, hypergeometric series, and the functional equations of the zeta function.
• After his death, Ramanujan left behind three notebooks and some pages containing unpublished results, on which mathematicians continued to work for many years.
• The Dev Patel-starrer ‘The Man Who Knew Infinity’ (2015) was a biopic on the mathematician, which was directed by Matthew Brown.

Interesting Facts about Ramanujan

• When Ramanujan was thirteen, he could work out Loney’s Trigonometry exercises without any help!
• He never had any friends in school because his peers rarely understood him at school & were always in awe of his mathematical acumen!
• As a young man, he failed to get a degree, as he did not clear his fine arts courses, although he always performed exceptionally well in mathematics.
• Because paper was expensive, poor Ramanujan often used to derive his results on a ‘slate’ to jot down results of his derivations.
• He was the first Indian to be elected a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge.
• When Ramanujan got married in 1909, he was 12 and his wife Janaki was just 10.
• Srinivasa Ramanujan was the only second Indian to be offered a fellowship in the Royal Society.
• There is a dedicated museum situated in Chennai, in the glorious memory of Srinivasa Ramanujan.