National Mathematics Day is annually celebrated across India on December 22 to mark the birth anniversary of renowned Indian Mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan, who was born on 22nd December 1887 in Erode, Madras Presidency, British India (now Tamil Nadu, India).
- The day is marked to recognise and celebrate the works of Srinivasa Ramanujan and highlight the importance of Mathematics.
22nd December 2022 marks the 135th birth anniversary of Srinivasa Ramanujan.
Aim:
The main objective of the celebration is to raise public awareness about the importance of mathematics for the growth of humanity.
Background:
i. On 26th February 2012, during the ceremony in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, then Prime Minister (PM) Manmohan Singh declared December 22 as the National Mathematics Day to mark the birth anniversary of the legendary Indian Mathematician, Srinivasa Ramanujan, to honour his life and achievements.
- He also declared the year 2012 as the National Mathematics Year.
ii. The first-ever National Mathematics Day was observed on 22nd December 2012.
About Srinivasa Ramanujan:
i. Srinivasa Ramanujan, who studied mathematics at Cambridge University, was chosen as a fellow at the prestigious Royal Society of London, United Kingdom (UK) in 1918.
- He is the 2nd Indian to receive Royal Societ after Ardaseer Cursetjee in 1841.
ii. He is the 1st Indian to be elected as a Fellow of Trinity College.
iii. His contributions to mathematics are fractions, infinite series, number theory, mathematical analysis, etc. which remain indispensable.
iv. An American biographer and science writer, Robert Kanigel authored Srinivasa Ramanujan’s biography “The Man Who Knew Infinity: A Life of the Genius Ramanujan” published in 1991.
- Later, it became a feature film, “The Man Who Knew Infinity” (2015) starring Dev Patel.
v. He passed away on 26th April 1920 in Madras (now Chennai, Tamil Nadu) at the age of 32.
Note: The Royal Society is a Fellowship of many of the world’s most eminent scientists and is the oldest scientific academy in continuous existence.
Works of Srinivasa Ramanujan:
i. With more than 3,900 theorems and results to his credit, he had astounded the West with his intuitive theorems in mathematics.
ii. His infinite pi series is one of his most well-known discoveries.
iii. He produced almost 4000 proofs, identities, conjectures, and equations.
iv. Ramanujan’s work has a significant impact on physics due to the fact that modular forms play a central role in string theory and Two-dimensional conformal field theories (CFTs).
The SASTRA Ramanujan Prize 2022:
i. The SASTRA Ramanujan Prize for 2022 was awarded to Yunqing Tang, Assistant Professor at the University of California, Berkeley, United States of America (USA) for her works in arithmetic and geometry of modular curves and Shimura varieties.
ii. The award was instituted by the Shanmugha Arts, Science, Technology & Research Academy (SASTRA) in Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu, in 2005 with a cash prize of USD 10,000.
iii. It is awarded annually to individuals under the age of 32 who have made excellent contributions to mathematics and have been broadly influenced by Srinivasa Ramanujan.
