Question 1

True or false: Ramanujan was a strict vegetarian who refused to eat meat even while starving in England.

Accepted Answer

True. As an orthodox Brahmin, Ramanujan was vegetarian. This, combined with wartime shortages and his own cooking struggles, contributed to his severe health decline.

Question 2

True or false: Ramanujan and Hardy once solved a famous unsolved problem in a single afternoon after a coin toss.

Accepted Answer

False. No such coin-toss incident is recorded. This sounds like an urban legend. Their collaborations were intense but not that magical or quick.

Question 3

True or false: Ramanujan's first letter to G.H. Hardy contained over 100 theorems, many of which Hardy had never seen.

Accepted Answer

True. The 1913 letter included about 120 formulas. Hardy was stunned, saying some 'seemed scarcely possible to be true.' He invited Ramanujan to Cambridge.

Question 4

True or false: Ramanujan discovered that 1729 is the smallest number expressible as the sum of two cubes in two different ways.

Accepted Answer

True. This is the famous 'taxicab number.' 1729 = 1³ + 12³ and also 9³ + 10³. Hardy noted it, and Ramanujan instantly recognized its significance.

Question 5

True or false: Ramanujan never had any formal training in mathematics before moving to England.

Accepted Answer

False. He had formal education in India, including a college scholarship for math, though he failed other subjects. He self-studied advanced topics but did have some formal exposure.

Question 6

True or false: Ramanujan proved the Riemann Hypothesis before his death but the proof was lost.

Accepted Answer

False. No credible evidence exists that he proved the Riemann Hypothesis. This is a romantic myth. The hypothesis remains unsolved today.

Question 7

True or false: Ramanujan believed a goddess named Namagiri wrote his mathematical formulas in his dreams.

Accepted Answer

True. Ramanujan often said the Hindu goddess Namagiri appeared in his dreams and revealed equations. He credited her for many of his breakthroughs.

Question 8

True or false: Ramanujan independently rediscovered Euler's identity before learning it from textbooks.

Accepted Answer

False. Euler's identity is common knowledge in math. Ramanujan's genius lay in novel discoveries, not rediscovering standard results. No reliable source supports this claim.

Srinivasa Ramanujan Trivia Questions