Ramanujan, π, and the Universe: How a Century-Old Indian Genius Shapes Modern Astrophysics
Today, 22 December 2025,
on the occasion of the 138th Jayanthi of Srinivasa Ramanujan, which is also the
day when we celebrate the National Mathematics Day in India, it is an honour for
me to be penning this tribute to the legendary mathematician. While commemorating
the 125th birthday of Srinivasan Ramanujan in 2012, we developed an
exhibition “ Srinivasa Ramanujan: The Man Who Knew Infinity”, borrowing the
title of the exhibition from the monumental book authored by Robert Kanigel.
This exhibition was opened at the Visvesvaraya Museum, Bangalore, which I headed
when this exhibition was opened. Some of the images of the exhibition and its
opening accompany this article. Incidentally, as a mark of respect for the
nation to the legendary Ramanujan, the Prime Minister of India, Dr.
Manmohan Singh, had declared that Ramanujan’s birthday will be celebrated as
National Mathematics Day, and ever since, this day is celebrated as Mathematics
Day across India.
Srinivasa Ramanujan is
one of India’s greatest scientific minds, and among the most extraordinary
mathematicians the world has ever known. Over a century after his brief life
ended at just 32, Ramanujan continues to surprise us and remain an enigma — not
merely as a historical genius, but as a living influence on modern
science.
Recent research by Indian
physicists at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru, has once again
brought Ramanujan into contemporary scientific conversation — this time in
connection with modern theoretical physics, including areas that underpin our
understanding of black holes, gravitational waves, and extreme cosmic
phenomena. This serves as a remarkable reminder that ideas born in pure
mathematics can, decades later, illuminate the deepest mysteries of the
universe.
From Kumbakonam to
Cambridge: A Journey Like No Other.
Ramanujan’s story has
been told often, yet it never loses its power. Born in 1887 on this day, 22
December, in Erode and raised in Kumbakonam, Ramanujan had almost no access to
formal mathematical education. What he possessed instead was an extraordinary
intuitive ability to see patterns that eluded trained mathematicians. Ramanujan
attributed his mathematical genius to his deity, Namagiri Thayer.
By his early twenties,
while working as a clerk at the Madras Port Trust, Ramanujan filled notebooks
with thousands of original mathematical results. In 1913, he took the bold step
of writing to G. H. Hardy at Cambridge, enclosing several pages of theorems —
many without proofs, but dazzling in their originality. Perhaps the habit of
recording theorems without formal proofs was shaped, at least in part, by
Ramanujan’s early self-study of G. S. Carr’s Synopsis of Elementary Results, a
mathematical compendium that deliberately avoided proofs and emphasised
results—a format that deeply influenced his early mathematical development.
That letter changed history. Hardy immediately recognised Ramanujan’s genius and brought him to England. Within a few years, Ramanujan became a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and later one of the youngest ever Fellows of the Royal Society — an astonishing rise for a self-taught mathematician from colonial India.
Ramanujan and the Mystery
of π
Among Ramanujan’s many
contributions, his work on π (pi) holds a special place. π — the ratio of a
circle’s circumference to its diameter — is one of the most fundamental
constants in mathematics and science. For centuries, mathematicians tried to
calculate its value more efficiently.
In 1914, Ramanujan
published a paper containing 17 astonishing formulas that allowed π to be
calculated with unprecedented speed and accuracy. Each formula converged so
rapidly that just a few steps produced many correct digits — something unheard
of at the time. Knowing well how intimidating the math equation appears to most
of us, let us not worry about the technicalities of the equation, but one of
his most famous results — often described as almost magical —, looks like this:
Even today, modern
supercomputers calculating trillions of digits of π use algorithms that descend
directly from Ramanujan’s ideas.
Why Physicists Are
Talking About Ramanujan in 2025
Suddenly, there is a newfound interest in Ramanujan. For many decades, Ramanujan’s π formulas were
admired mainly as mathematical marvels. But a natural question lingered: Why do
such extraordinary formulas exist at all?
Fortunately, very recently, Indian academics Professor Aninda Sinha and Faizan Bhat,
working at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru, have worked on
this and have explored this question from a physicist’s perspective. Their
research shows that the same mathematical structures underlying Ramanujan’s π
formulas also appear in a class of modern physical theories known as conformal
field theories.
These theories are not abstract curiosities. They form part of the mathematical language used today to understand: systems that behave similarly at different scales, turbulence and critical phenomena, and theoretical models connected to black holes and gravitational physics. In simple terms, the mathematics Ramanujan discovered intuitively over a century ago turns out to be deeply aligned with the mathematics needed to describe extreme and complex physical systems.
This does not mean
Ramanujan was “calculating black holes” — but it does mean that his insights
anticipated structures that physicists now encounter when probing the universe
at its most fundamental level.
From Pure Thought to
Cosmic Frontiers
One of the striking
lessons from this research is the power of pure mathematics. Ramanujan was not
trying to solve engineering problems or explain astronomical observations. He
followed patterns that felt true to him.
Yet today, similar
mathematical ideas help physicists simplify extremely complex calculations, improve
theoretical models related to gravity and quantum systems, and strengthen the
mathematical backbone of research into gravitational waves and black hole
behaviour. This bridge — from intuition to abstraction, from numbers to the
cosmos — is what makes Ramanujan’s legacy so extraordinary.
A Personal Note
I have had the privilege
of engaging deeply with Ramanujan’s life and work over the years. In 2012,
during the celebration of his 125th birth anniversary, while serving as
Director of the Visvesvaraya Industrial & Technological Museum, Bengaluru,
we developed the exhibition “Ramanujan: The Man Who Knew Infinity.” The
exhibition travelled widely and appealed to thousands of visitors, reaffirming
the power of storytelling in science communication. Some of the images that accompany this write-up are from that exhibition. Incidentally, the title of the
exhibition was borrowed from Robert Kanigel's “ Srinivas Ramanujan: The Man Who Knew Infinity”, which Kanigel was happy to lend us.
I have also written extensively on Ramanujan’s life and contributions: I am sharing some of the blog links and links to downloading my articles below for those who may be interested
Why Ramanujan Still
Matters
As we celebrate Ramanujan’s Jayanthi today, his story reminds us of something profound: Great ideas do not belong to a single time, place, or discipline. A young clerk in Madras, guided by intuition and passion, produced mathematics that continues to resonate — not only in number theory, but in the very equations physicists use to explore the universe.
Ramanujan’s life teaches
us that imagination, when coupled with perseverance, can transcend centuries. That
is why Ramanujan is not merely remembered — he is still relevant.
Listed below are links to the two-part tribute to Ramanujan that I had written, which were published in Dream 2047 in February 2022 and March 2023 issues.
Link to part 1, Feb. 2022 issue
Link to Part 2, March 2022 Issue
Here is a link to my blog tribute paid to Ramanujan on his birth anniversary in 2021.
https://khened.blogspot.com/2021/12/srinivas-ramanujan-namagiri-gifted-math.html
Long live the legacy of Ramanujan, and may he continue to inspire generations to come
Images: Courtesy National Council of Science Museums and Wikipedia
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