Srinivasa Ramanujan (1887 - 04/1920) was a prodigious, self-taught mathematician from a poor Indian family near Madras. He was invited to the UK by an eminent Cambridge mathematician, Godfrey Hardy (1877-1947), to whom he had sent some 100 of the theorems that he had derived. He arrived in the UK 03/1914. He suffered from chronic ill-health. Hardy visited him 01/1919 here at 2 Colinette Road which was then a nursing home.

Supposedly it is of this visit that Hardy recounted the following story. 'I had ridden in taxi cab No. 1729, and remarked that the number (7-13-19) seemed to me rather a dull one, and that I hoped it would not be an unfavourable omen. 'No' he replied 'it is a very interesting one number; it is the smallest number expressible as the sum of two cubes in two different ways.'

We regret that the webmasters of this site have to leave the reader to work out whether these two mathematicians are talking about 1729 or 7-13-19 or any part thereof.

Srinivasa Ramanujan was the second Indian to be elected to the Royal Society. He returned to India shortly after Hardy's visit.

O/S Co-ords:2318.7527
Source(s):

The Wandsworth Historian

Chambers Biographical Dictionary