Why do we celebrate National Mathematics Day on 22nd December?

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22nd December is a special day for Mathematics and India as the day is dedicated to celebrating the achievements of great mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan.

The mystical mathematician Ramanujan was born on this day in 1887 and the former Prime minister Dr. Manmohan Singh declared this day as National Mathematics Day in honor of Ramanujan in 2012.

Ramanujan was an Indian maths prodigy and gave 3500 mathematical formulae to the world which other scientists have still not able to prove completely.

Due to continuous ill health, the maths prodigy died young at the age of 32 but before he died, he unrevealed many mystic wonders of mathematics to the world.

Ramanujan’s journey to be a mathematician was unexpected with many lows and highs. He was a genius from a very young age. He started his formal education at local schools and before he even turnedturned 10, he scores best in the district in his primary examinations in subjects like English, Tamil, geography, and arithmetic.

The first encounter of Ramanujan with formal mathematics was in his Town Higher Secondary School. The boy from Town Higher Secondary School become a child prodigy at the age of 11. The 11-year-old child acquired knowledge of a college student and then he mastered the book written by S. L. Loney on advanced trigonometry till he reaches 13. At 13, he discovered sophisticated theorems, and from the age of 14 till the end of his school days he received many awards and merit certificates.

Ramanujan obtained a library copy of ‘A Synopsis of Elementary Results in Pure and Applied Mathematics’ by G. S. Carr’s from his friend and thoroughly read the book when he was only 16. The G.S. Carr’s book has a collection of 5,000 theorems and it is believed to be an element for him in awakening genius. In the consecutive year, he developed and investigated the Bernoulli numbers and calculated the Euler–Mascheroni constant up to 15 decimal places.
He received the K. Ranganatha Rao award for mathematics from his principal when he graduated.

During his adulthood, he struggled a lot for jobs and also offered tuitions to students at Presidency College who were preparing for their F.A. exam for earning income.
With the help of V. Ramaswamy Aiyer, founder of the Indian Mathematical Society Ramanujan published his work in the Journal of the Indian Mathematical Society.

V. Ramaswamy Aiyer later said about Ramanujan, “I was struck by the extraordinary mathematical results contained in [the notebooks]. I had no mind to smother his genius by an appointment in the lowest rungs of the revenue department”.

His career observes an unexpected twist in 1913 when his 10-page letter with statements of theorems on infinite series, improper integrals, continued fractions, and number theory reached professor GH Hardy and Hardy invited him to the University of Cambridge.

In his notes, Hardy commented about Ramanujan’s theorems, “ I had never seen anything in the least like them before”.
Ramanujan was only 26 years old when he reached Cambridge university and became one of the youngest Fellows of the Royal Society. He was also the second Indian member, and the first Indian to be elected a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge.

Hans Eysenck, a German-born British psychologist commented on Rmanjuan’s mathematical journey, “He tried to interest the leading professional mathematicians in his work, but failed for the most part. What he had to show them was too novel, too unfamiliar, and additionally presented in unusual ways; they could not be bothered”.

The story of this math prodigy was also portrayed by British actor Dev Patel in a 2015 film “The Man Who Knew Infinity” based on a Kanigel’s book.

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