Mathematician Ramanujan. The greatest ever.
Born 22 December 1887(1887-12-22)
Erode, Tamil Nadu, India
Died 26 April 1920 (aged 32)
Chetput, (Madras), Tamil Nadu, India
Trinity College, Cambridge
Academic advisors G. H. Hardy and J. E. Littlewood
Known for Landau-Ramanujan constant
Mock theta functions
Ramanujan theta function
Ramanujan and his theorems are referred to in Sylvia Nasar's A Beautiful Mind, a biography of mathematician John Forbes Nash.
He is the subject of David Leavitt's new novel The Indian Clerk, released September 2007. The novel is set during Ramanujan's sojourn in England, where he went at the invitation of Cambridge mathematician G.H. Hardy and his colleague J.E. Littlewood.
He was referred to in the film Good Will Hunting as an example of mathematical genius.
His biography was highlighted in the Vernor Vinge book The Peace War as well as Douglas Hofstadter's Gödel, Escher, Bach.
The character Amita Ramanujan in the CBS TV series Numb3rs (2005–) was named after him.
The short story "Gomez", by Cyril Kornbluth, mentions Ramanujan by name as a comparison to its title character, another self-taught mathematical genius.
In the novel Uncle Petros and Goldbach's Conjecture by Apostolos Doxiadis, Ramanujan is one of the characters.
In the novel Earth by David Brin, the character Jen Wolling uses a representation of Sri Ramanujan as her computer interface.
In the novel The Peace War by Vernor Vinge, a young mathematical genius is referred to as "my little Ramanujan" accidentally. Then it is hoped the young man doesn't get the connection because, like Ramanujan, the boy is doomed to die prematurely.
The character "Yugo Amaryl" in Isaac Asimov's Prelude to Foundation is based on Ramanujan.
The theatre company Complicite has created a production based around the life of Ramanjuan called A Disappearing Number - conceived and directed by Simon McBurney
The PBS television show Nova episode "The Man Who Loved Numbers", about Ramanujan, was first broadcast on March 22, 1988.
The Helix comic book series Time Breakers features Ramanujan as a character. In the story, his meeting with Hardy was made possible by the time travelling main characters, who know that Ramanujan's discoveries are vitally important to their own work and ensure that his work at Cambridge will unfold as history demands.
The eponymous character in J.M.Coetzee's novel 'Elizabeth Costello: Eight Lessons' uses Ramanujan to discuss God, reason and being human.