PDF chapter test TRY NOW
Ramanujan was born in Erode in Tamil Nadu on December 22, 1887. His father was a petty clerk in a cloth shop. From early childhood it was evident that he was a prodigy. Senior students used to go to his dingy house to get their difficulties in mathematics solved. At the age of 13, Ramanujan was able to get Loney’s Trigonometry from a college library. Not only did he master this rather difficult book but also began his own research. He came forth with many mathematical theorems and formulae not given in the book, though they had been discovered much earlier by great mathematicians.
Explanation:
Ramanujan, who was the brilliant boy who came with the question which later took great mathematicians a long while to solve, was enthusiastic about Maths from a very young age. He was born in Erode in Tamil Nadu on December \(22\), \(1887\). He was born before the Indian Independence and therefore was exposed to a different kind of education system. He went to an all boys school in Kumbakonam. He did not belong to a rich family and came from a moderate background. His father worked in a cloth shop. But his humble background did not stop him from researching or following his passion for Maths.
He was a genius and had a curious mind from a very early age. When his classmates were solving simple arithmetic like addition and subtraction, Ramanujan was solving the sums from the college syllabus. In fact, students who were considerably elder to him and in higher classes solved their doubts with him. He lived in a dingy house, but it did not matter as Ramanujan's brilliance overshadowed all his poverty. He was a living proof that familial circumstances did not matter to sharpen one's knowledge.
A Dingy House in Kumbakkonam
At a very young age of \(13\), he visited college libraries as he wanted to expand his knowledge in Mathematics. He chanced upon a book called "Plane Trigonometry" by a famous Mathematician called S.L. Loney, which was published in 1912. Loney was a very early influence on Ramanujan as his books explained trigonometric equations easily. Trigonometry is a branch of Mathematics, which focuses on the relationship between the angles and side lengths of a triangle. Trigonometry is mostly used in making inclined roofs, to make maps, to analyze the height of buildings etc. Not only did Ramanujan explore Loney's book, but he also researched and introduced new theorems and formulae and added to it.
Trigonometry
Words with Difficult Meaning:
| S.No | Words | Meaning |
1 | Petty | In small scale |
2 | Prodigy | A highly talented child |
3 | Dingy | Dirty and dark |
4 | Theorems | A rule in mathematics that can prove itself to be true |
5 | Moderate | Average |
6 | Inclined roof | Slanted roof |
Reference:
State Council of Educational Research and Training (2019). Term-2 English Standard-9. From Zero to Infinity (pp. 81-93). Published by the Tamil Nadu Textbook and Educational Services Corporation.
Register for free to see more content