C. P. Ramanujam Biography 
C. P. Ramanujam was a famous Indian mathematician who lived in the 20th century. This short-lived genius lived during the period, 9 January 1938 – 27 October 1974. Like his namesake Srinivasa Ramanujan – world famous mathematician from Tamil nadu, Ramanujam also had a very short life. Ramanujam was only 36 when he died with an overdose of barbiturates given as a part of treatment. He was diagnosed in 1964 with schizophrenia with severe depression, yet he made a mark of his own in the field of Indian mathematics. His progress and deep understanding of algebraic geometry was phenomenal.
His full name was Chakravarthi Padmanabhan Ramanujam. He was born on 9 January 1938 in Madras of Madras Presidency in British India. He was the eldest of seven children to his parents. His father’s name is Chakravarthi Srinivasa Padmanabhan. His schooling was completed at Kumbakonam and intermediate from Loyola College in Madras in the mid-1950s. Apart from mathematics, he loved music. He moved to Mumbai and joined Tata Institute of Fundamental Research at the age of 18, to specialize in Mathematics. Famous mathematicians, Raghavan Narasimhan and S. Ramanan, who were friends then also joined TIFR very soon.
During his first year at TIFR, as a part of curriculum he wrote the notes of Max Deuring's lectures on Algebraic functions of one variable, for which he received appreciation. K. G. Ramanathan was his doctorial advisor. Later he took up Waring's problem in algebraic number fields and got interesting results which earned him promotion as associate professor. He took his doctoral examination in 1967. In 1964 he was diagnosed with schizophrenia, which later affected his life severely, and led to his ultimate death in 1974.
Published: September 01, 2018
Updated: September 01, 2018
