January 20, 1921] 



NATURE 



661 



Smithsonian Physical Tables. Seventh revised 

 edition. Prepared by F. E. Kowle. Pp. 

 xlvi + 450. (Washington: Smithsonian Institu- 

 tion, 1920.) Price 185. net. 

 SiNXE the sixth edition of this standard volume of 

 tables was reviewed in Nature for July 5, 191 5, 

 extensive changes have been made, in the form 

 of new data on both new and old topics. The 

 volume has grown to 450 pages, and the number 

 of tables given from 409 to 579. TTie new tables 

 include useful material dealing with astrophysics, 

 meteorology, geochemistry, atomic and molecular 

 data, colloids, photography, etc. A great im- 

 provement is the renumbering of the pages ; in 

 the sixth and fifth editions new matter was in- 

 serted without altering the paging, with the result 

 that there was no logical sequence of tables. This 

 fault has now been rectified, and the tables have 

 been arranged in order according to subject. 

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W.C.2. 



Letters to the Editor. 



\The Editor does not hold himself responsible for 

 opinions expressed by his correspondents. Neither 

 can he undertake to return, or to correspond with 

 the writers of, rejected manuscripts intended for 

 this or any other part of Nature. No notice is 

 taken of anonymous communications.] 



The Late Srinivasa Ramanujan. 



In the notice contributed to the issue of Nature 

 for June 17 last. Prof. Hardy was unable to give any 

 account of the late Srinivasa Ramnnujan's early life, 

 and made no attempt to describe his appearance or 

 (haracter. The June number of the Journal of the 

 Indian Mathematical Society has memorial articles by 

 Prof. P. V. Seshu Aiyar, of Madras, and Dewan 

 Bahadur Ramachandra Rao, and the first of these 

 fjives biographical details that have not hitherto been 

 published in England. 



Ramanujan was born at Erode on December 22, 

 1887.' His mother, a shrewd and cultured lady who 

 is still alive, was the dauphtor of a Government 

 official aj Erode, his father a cloth-merchants' 

 accountant at Kumbakonam, and it was in the latter 

 town that his boyhood was spent. .\s is usual with 

 Brahmin boys, he was sent to school at the age of 

 five; before he was seven he was transferred to the 

 Town Hijjh School, and there ho remained until 1004, 

 leading an inactive life and building an astounding 

 edifice of analytical knowledge and discovery on the 

 foundation of Carr's " Synopsis of Pure Mathe- 

 matics," the only book on higher mathematics to 

 which he had access. H.ivinjj matriculated already in 

 1903, he went from the Town School to the Govern- 

 ment College at Kumbakonam, but in January, i()05, 

 his progress was stoppe<l, and a scholarship on which 

 hf was dependent forfeited, owinjr to a weakness in 

 English of which those who recall his fluency and 

 the ranpe of his vocabulary in later life will be sur- 

 prised to learn. 



Of Ramnnujan's next few yean no clear account 



I TM* i% lh« ymr firm bv S««hn Aiyor. «n4 th« ilaM i< r »wl« el Irilk 

 th« iindi>p"l«<1 itstcnMnK itwl Kamanaian w»« t»«i«T-«i» •*•« ha ouoa lo 

 F.nglanH and thirtylvo whan ha diaH : I hara no itonlrt ihal lh« data i tU 

 rofnmonly giv«r« i« daa lo a natural mUiftftranca horn ibaaa tMt 5f um. 



NO. 2673, VOL. 106] 



has come to my notice. After a stay at Vizagapatam, 

 he joined the Pachaiyappa's College at Ma(kas, but, 

 faihng in his first examination, he gave up the idea 

 of t:aking a university course. A nomadic period, 

 during which his own researches progressed, came to 

 an end in the summer of 1909, when he married and 

 returned to Madras in search of permanent employ- 

 ment. There Prof. Seshu Aiyar, who had seen some- 

 thing of him at Kumbakonam in 1904, gave him a 

 letter of introduction to Mr. Ramachandra Rao, at 

 that time district collector at Nellore. Possibly 

 i^manujan was too timid to make direct use of the 

 letter; Mr. Rao's story follows in his own words : — 



" Several years ago, a nephew of mine, perfectly 

 innocent of mathematical knowledge, spoke to me : 

 ' Uncle, I have a visitor who talks of mathematics. 

 I do not understand him. Can you see if there is 

 anything in his talk ? ' And in the plenitude of my 

 mathematical wisdom, I condescended to permit 

 Ramanujan to walk into my presence. A short, un- 

 couth figure, stout, unshaved, not over-clean, with 

 one conspicuous feature — shining eyes — walked in, 

 with a frayed note-book under his arm. . . . He was 

 miserably poor. He had run away from Kumbakonam 

 to get leisure in Madras to pursue his studies. He 

 never craved for any distinction. He wanted leisure; 

 in other words, simple food to be provided for him 

 without exertion on his part, and that he should be 

 allowed to dream on. 



" He opened his note-book and began to explain 

 some of his discoveries. I saw quite at once that 

 there was something out of the way, but my know- 

 ledge did not permit me to judfjc whether he talked 

 sense or nonsense. Suspending judgment, I asked 

 him to come over again. And he did. And then he 

 had gauged my ignorance and showed me some of 

 his simpler results. These transcended existing 

 books, and I had no doubt that he was a remarkable 

 man. Then step by step he led me to elliptic in- 

 tegrals, and hypergeometric series, and at last his 

 theory of divergent series, not yet announced lo the 

 world, converted me. I asked him what he wanted. 

 He said he just wanted a pittance to live on so that 

 he might pursue his researches. It "is a matter of 

 considerable pride to me that I was in some way 

 useful to this remarkable genius in his earlier days. 

 In a year's time, I introduced him to Sir Fjncis 

 Spring (the president of the Madras Port Trust), who 

 gave him a sinecure post in his office." 



The last two sentences conceal that, throughout the 

 interval of a year, not only was Mr. Rao trying lo 

 find some scholarship for which Ram.mujan's original 

 work might qualify him in spite of failure in examina- 

 tions, but he was also maintaining Ramanujan in 

 Madras at his own expense. 



.•\t the Port Trust Ramanujan remained until Dr. 

 G. T. Walker, on an official visit to Madras, was 

 made acquainted with his history, and joined forces 

 with Sir Francis Spring-. Their combined attack on 

 the University and the Government of Madras re- 

 sulted in the creation of a research studentship, which 

 was of sufficient value to set him wholly free, and 

 secured him access to the lectures and the librarv of 

 the university; he was in possession of this student- 

 ship when I mot him in 1914. 



To Prof. Hardy's account of his correspondent* 

 and my intervention I have little to .ndd. My task was 

 an easier one than 1 anticipated. From the Govern- 

 ment and the University of Madras I had every 

 encouragement. On the other hand, R.imanujan wa« 

 ready to put complete confidence in me simpiv be- 

 rauM to him and his friends I came from outside the 

 official machine. The onlv cold water wa« thrown 



