Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Rare manuscripts of Ramanujan to be digitised

One of the most prized possessions of the old Madras University library — a set of three handwritten notebooks of mathematical genius Srinivasa Ramanujan — will be digitised and given to a few other libraries to preserve them for posterity and make them accessible to more researchers.

Mathematicians from around the world have, till date, been visiting the Chepauk campus library to go through the treasure trove of formulae and equations written down by Ramanujan, who was a research scholar, sponsored by the Board of Studies in Mathematics, at the university.

Mathematicians believe that the three manuscripts and a fourth one acquired by Prof G A Andrews from a library in England make a full compilation of Ramanujan’s contribution to the field of mathematics.
Scholars of advanced mathematics rate the work, titled Manuscript Book of Srinivasa Ramanujan, as “contemporary mathematics”. The Tata Institute of Fundamental Research created a facsimile edition of the book in 1957 and made two volumes of Ramanujan’s writings. The original manuscripts have also been laminated, though the writing has faded in some places.

Full report here Indian Express

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