Ramanujan Prize

Why in News

The Ramanujan Prize for Young Mathematicians from developing countries has been given to Professor Neena Gupta.

  • She is a mathematician at the Indian Statistical Institute in Kolkata and has been awarded for her outstanding work in affine algebraic geometry and commutative algebra.
  • She is the third woman to receive the Ramanujan Prize.
  • Her solution for solving the Zariski cancellation problem, a fundamental problem in Algebraic Geometry, earned her the 2014 Young Scientists Award of the Indian National Science Academy.

Key Points

  • About:
    • The Ramanujan Prize for Young Mathematicians from developing countries has been awarded annually since 2005.
    • It is administered by the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) jointly with the Department of Science and Technology (DST) Government of India and the International Mathematical Union (IMU).
      • ICTP: Founded in 1964 by the late Nobel Laureate Abdus Salam, it seeks to accomplish its mandate by providing scientists from developing countries with the continuing education and skills that they need to enjoy long and productive careers.
      • IMU: It is an international non-governmental and non-profit scientific organization, with the purpose of promoting international cooperation in mathematics.
      • DST: The DST has agreed to fund the Prize, starting with the 2014 Prize.
        • It has been supported by DST in the memory of Srinivasa Ramanujan, a genius in pure mathematics who was essentially self-taught and made spectacular contributions to elliptic functions, continued fractions, infinite series, and analytical theory of numbers.
  • Eligibility & Prize:
    • It is awarded to a researcher from a developing country who is less than 45 years of age on 31st December of the year of the award, and who has conducted outstanding research in a developing country.
    • Researchers working in any branch of the mathematical sciences are eligible.
    • The Prize carries a USD 15,000 cash award.

Srinivasa Ramanujan 

  • Ramanujan was born on 22nd December 1887 in a village Erode (400 km from Chennai, then known as Madras).
  • The famous British mathematician Godfrey Harold Hardy recognised his talent in 1913. He went to Cambridge, on Godfrey Harold Hardy’s invitation.
  • Ramanujam made substantial contributions to the analytical theory of numbers and worked on elliptic functions.
  • He also worked on the partition of the whole number, hypergeometric series and Euler's constant.
  • His papers were published in English and European journals, and in 1918 he was elected to the Royal Society of London.
  • He died on April 26th, 1920, at the age of 32, just after returning to India after a long illness.
  • In India, December 22nd is celebrated as National Mathematics Day in the memory of Srinivasa Ramanujan.

Source: PIB