born Dec. 22, 1887, Erode, India
died April 26, 1920, Kumbakonam
Indian mathematician.
Extremely poor, he was largely self-taught from age 15. In 1913 he began a correspondence with Godfrey H. Hardy (18771947) that took him to England, where he made advances, especially in the theory of numbers, the partition of numbers, and the theory of continued fractions. He published papers in English and European journals, and in 1918 he became the first Indian elected to the Royal Society of London. He died of tuberculosis at age 32, generally unknown but recognized by mathematicians as a phenomenal genius.