PM's Speech on the Ramanujan's Birth Anniversary
Chennai, Dec 26: The Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, addressed the
125th Birth Anniversary celebrations of noted mathematician Srinivas
Ramanujan in Chennai today. Following is the text of the Prime
Minister's address:
"We have gathered here today to celebrate the
life and work of a great son of India and of Tamil Nadu, and one of the
greatest mathematicians the world has seen. It is a pleasure to
participate in this function in the memory of Srinivas Ramanujan, whose
extraordinary genius so very brightly lit up the world of mathematics in
the second decade of the last century. Men and women of such dazzling
brilliance and deep intellect are born but rarely. Indeed, Srinivas
Ramanujan´s genius was ranked by the English mathematician G. H. Hardy
in the same class as giants like Euler, Gauss, Archimedes and Isaac
Newton. While we rightly claim Ramanujan as one of our own, he equally
belonged to all humanity like the other great men and women in any
sphere of human thought.
Before I proceed further, let me compliment the Ministry of Human
Resource Development, and my colleague Kapil Sibal, for planning year
long celebrations to mark the 125th birth anniversary of Ramanujan. As a
tribute to the great mathematician, our government has decided to
declare his birthday, that is December 22, as the National Mathematics
Day and the year 2012 as a whole as the National Mathematical Year.
India has a long and glorious tradition of mathematics that we need to
encourage and nurture. I hope these steps will help in providing the
additional impetus to the study of mathematics in our country, apart
from making our people more aware of the work of Ramanujan.
Mathematics seems to have acquired an independent identity as an
intellectual discipline early on in human history. This identity became
more sharply defined in the second half of the millennium before Christ,
thanks to major developments in Greece. In this period, India too made
great strides in mathematics, though in ways very different from the
Greeks. In the early centuries of the Common Era, India was in fact in
the lead in mathematical developments. Aryabhata in the fifth century,
followed by Brahmagupta in the next are reckoned to be among the
all-time great mathematicians. And we taught the world to think of zero
as a number and the modern way of representing all numbers with 10
symbols. This arguably is the single most important mathematical
development in all human history.
Indian mathematics remained in the forefront for almost a thousand years
following Aryabhata. The last name in the great mathematicians we
produced in this period is that of Madhava of Kerala. I understand
Madhava had discovered the essentials of Calculus some two centuries
before Newton and Leibnitz. His work however was not known beyond the
school he had created in Kerala. That school unfortunately did not last
beyond the middle of the 16th century.
Intellectual activity receded into the background in the country for the
next few centuries to revive only in the nineteenth century. In the
early part of the nineteenth century, most of our intellectual energies
were given to humanities and it is towards the end of the century that
India began taking an interest in the sciences. In the second decade of
the 20th century, the country could once again stake a claim to
producing world class mathematics, and that was because of the work of
Srinivasa Ramanujan. Ramanujan came from an economically disadvantaged
background and had but a minimal training in mathematics and yet his
genius overcame formidable difficulties to reach the pinnacle of
greatness. The whole of India is proud of Ramanujam and many an Indian
has been inspired by his shining example. Tamil Nadu of course has a
special claim on him for he was a Tamilian. Along with Sir C. V. Raman
and Subramanyam Chandrashekhar, he is among the three great men of
science and mathematics that Tamil Nadu and India have given to the
world in modern times.
The story of Ramanujan cannot be told without a mention of the Cambridge
mathematician G. H. Hardy, who was responsible for Ramanujan getting
the recognition that was his legitimate due. The parts that Hardy and
Cambridge, which became Ramanujan´s alma-mater, played in the great
mathematician's development represent the very best of the academic
traditions of the West. The stories of the special relationship between
G.H. Hardy and Ramanujan are a part of the folklore of mathematics.
The fascinating and inspiring story of Ramanujan needs to be told to the
world. I am, therefore, very happy that the organizers have chosen this
occasion to honour Professor Robert Kanigel who has written an
excellent biography of Ramanujan and I am very happy that he is present
here among us today. I greet you sir, and I understand that yours is a
book that has made Ramanujan well known to the public at large all over
the world, capturing vividly the atmosphere of the early nineteenth
century academic world in that part of the world as well as in Britain. I
am also happy that on this occasion, a new edition of the Notebooks of
Ramanujan is also being released. These are photographic reproductions
of unpublished mathematical work of Ramanujan, written out in his own
hand in a series of notebooks during the days he spent in the city of
Chennai. The originals, I am told are in the University of Madras and I
congratulate the University authority for preserving them in its
archives.
The Government of India sets great store by science and has pursued a
policy of encouraging scientific activities of diverse kinds. Given our
traditions, we naturally attach special importance to mathematics. Since
Ramanujan, a number of mathematicians from the country have
distinguished themselves by performing at very high levels. However, it
is a matter of concern that for a country of our size the number of
competent mathematicians that we have is badly inadequate. Over more
than the last three decades many of our young men and women with a
natural ability in mathematics have not pursued the discipline at
advanced levels. This has also resulted in a decline in the quality of
our mathematics teachers both at the school and college levels. There is
a general perception in our society that the pursuit of mathematics
does not lead to attractive career opportunities. This perception must
change. This perception may have been valid some years ago but today
there are many new career opportunities available to mathematicians, and
the teaching profession itself has become much more attractive in
recent years.
The mathematical community has a duty to find out ways and means to
address the shortage of top quality mathematicians in our country. It
must reach out to the public particularly in the modern context where
mathematics has tremendous influence on every kind of human behaviour.
In many ways, mathematics can be regarded as the mother science. The
Natural Sciences have had a long symbiotic relationship with
mathematics. Life Sciences did not seem to have much use for mathematics
till about a hundred years ago, but lately mathematical interventions
have had a tremendous impact on Biology. Mathematics has also influenced
the study of Social Sciences in a big way. The work of many of the
Nobel Laureates in Economics is highly mathematical. Students, parents
and people at large need to be more aware of these facts so that the
study of mathematics as an academic discipline gains popularity in our
country. I am happy that the activities planned in the National
Mathematical Year would focus on promotion of mathematics at all levels-
from schools to cutting edge research.
The Ramanujan story illustrates the inadequacy of the university
evaluation system in the early decades of the last century while at the
same time it shows that the system displayed enough flexibility to take
care of mavericks like Ramanujan. There have been many reforms since
those days but there would still be talent which would elude proper
evaluation. Our institutions of higher learning, therefore, must be
sensitive to this problem. A genius like Ramanujan would shine bright
even in the most adverse of circumstances, but we should be geared to
encourage and nurture good talent which may not be of the same caliber
as that of Ramanujan.
Let me end by wishing the National Mathematical Year all success. I
expect the activities initiated during this year would be continued in
the coming years as well, so as to help our country make it to the
forefront of education and research in mathematics. That is my ardent
prayer and with these words I thank you for listening to me patiently.
