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National Mathematics Day holds great significance as it honours the remarkable contributions of legendary Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan and motivates future generations of mathematicians.
National Mathematics Day 2024 theme is Mathematics: The Bridge to Innovation and Progress. (Image: Shutterstock)
National Mathematics Day is celebrated every year on December 22, marking the birth anniversary of the legendary Indian Mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan. While this day commemorates his immense contributions during his lifetime to mathematics, it reminisces about the importance of mathematics in daily life and how it modernised society.
National Mathematics Day 2024: Theme
The theme for National Mathematics Day 2024 will be “Mathematics: The Bridge to Innovation and Progress.” This theme projects that the concepts of mathematics are basic to several other developments in the field of science and technology. It is an effort to inspire and motivate young minds and problem-solving skills among students to understand the beauty of mathematics as a tool for innovation.
National Mathematics Day 2024: History
It was officially launched by then Prime Minister of India, Dr Manmohan Singh in December 2012, in conjunction with the 125th birth anniversary of S. Ramanujan. This was done in a bid to ensure that the generations to come in India emulate others by endeavouring in mathematics.
Ramanujan was born in 1887 and, in his short life span till the age of 32 years, he made outstanding findings in number theory, infinite series and continued fractions.
National Mathematics Day 2024: Significance
National Mathematics Day is significant as it pays tribute to the contributions of Ramanujan and inspires future generations of mathematicians.
The curriculum encourages appreciation of the subject of mathematics beyond mere rote learning, developing an understanding and interest in it.
The day is supposed to showcase the role of mathematics in activities forming the core of technology, engineering, economics and health care.
Different activities and competitions are held so that, through the means of mathematics, students may develop critical thinking and analyse any problem.
Contributions of Srinivasa Ramanujan
Srinivasa Ramanujan made immense, path-breaking contributions to mathematics. These include:
- Number Theory: The part played in the development of the theory of partition functions and the distribution of prime numbers. His magic number, 1729, is the smallest number that could be expressed as the sum of two cubes in two ways.
- Infinite Series: He developed an efficient series to calculate π, which finds real application in numerical methods.
- Mock Theta Functions: These are the functions which were originally discovered by Ramanujan and have great significance in modern modular form theory.
- Continued Fractions: His work laid foundational principles for computational mathematics.
Srinivasa Ramanujan’s Quotes
- “An equation means nothing to me unless it expresses a thought of God.”
- “While asleep, I had an unusual experience. There was a red screen formed by flowing blood… Suddenly a hand began to write on the screen. I became all attention.”
- “(1729) is a very interesting number; it is the smallest number expressible as a sum of two cubes in two different ways, the two ways being 13 + 123 and 93 + 103.”
- “I have not trodden through the conventional regular course which is followed in a University course, but I am striking out a new path for myself.”
- “While asleep, I had an unusual experience. There was a red screen formed by flowing blood, as it were. I was observing it. Suddenly a hand began to write on the screen. I became all attention. That hand wrote a number of elliptic integrals. They stuck to my mind. As soon as I woke up, I committed them to writing.”
