Topics covered:
- Science and Technology- developments and their applications and effects in everyday life Achievements of Indians in science & technology; indigenization of technology and developing new technology.
National Mathematics Day 2018
What to study?
For Prelims and Mains: National Mathematics Day- facts and significance.
Context: National Mathematics Day is celebrated every year on December 22.
- It is observed to honor the birth anniversary of the famous mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan who greatly contributed towards mathematical analysis, number theory, infinite series and continued fractions.
National Mathematics Day:
In 2011, on the 125th anniversary of his birth, the Indian Government declared that 22 December will be celebrated every year as National Mathematics Day.
Highlights of Srinivasa Ramanujan’s life:
- In 1911, Ramanujan published the first of his papers in the Journal of the Indian Mathematical Society.
- Ramanujan traveled to England in 1914, where Hardy tutored him and collaborated with him in some research.
- He worked out the Riemann series, the elliptic integrals, hypergeometric series, the functional equations of the zeta function, and his own theory of divergent series.
- The number 1729 is known as the Hardy-Ramanujan number after a famous visit by Hardy to see Ramanujan at a hospital.
- Hardy observed Ramanujan’s work primarily involved fields less known even amongst other pure mathematicians.
- Ramanujan’s home state of Tamil Nadu celebrates 22 December as ‘State IT Day’, memorialising both the man and his achievements, as a native of Tamil Nadu.
Sources: the hindu.