1729: What’s so particular in regards to the Hardy-Ramanujan quantity?
Srinivasa Ramanujan’s mathematical expertise can’t be outlined by simply one in every of his many achievements throughout his brief life. Often known as “the person who knew infinity,” he found his personal theorems and independently compiled roughly 3,900 outcomes.
The Hardy-Ramanujan quantity is probably not his biggest contribution to arithmetic, nevertheless it stands out as being notably memorable. This was an anecdote talked about in his biography ‘The Man Who Knew Infinity” by Robert Knaigel.
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When British Mathematician GH Hardy visited a sick Ramanujan on the hospital, he travelled in a taxi cab with the quantity 1729. Hardy discovered it to be an abnormal quantity, however Ramanujan mentioned it was not and defined that it’s the smallest quantity that may be expressed because the sum of two cubes in two other ways.
1729 is the sum of cubes of 1 (1^3=1) and 12 (12^3=1728). It can be expressed because the sum of cubes of 9 and 10 (9^3=729, 10^3=1000).
The quantity 1729 is understood to the world because the Hardy-Ramanujan quantity or the taxicab quantity.
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Srinivasa Ramanujan didn’t obtain any formal coaching in pure arithmetic however made impactful contributions to the sector. His areas of labor embody infinite collection, continued fractions, quantity idea and mathematical evaluation.
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He additionally made notable contributions just like the hypergeometric collection, the Riemann collection, the elliptic integrals, the idea of divergent collection, and the purposeful equations of the zeta perform.
Ramanujan’s birthday, December 22, is well known as Nationwide Arithmetic Day in India. In 2012, then-Prime Minister Manmohan Singh declared at the present time to honour the nice mathematician.
