The Ramanujan Essays

Ramanujan’s Early Work on Continued Fractions

“I had never seen anything in the least like [it] before” — G.H. Hardy

On or about the 31st of January 1913, mathematician G.H. Hardy of Trinity College at Cambridge University received a parcel of papers from Madras, India. The package included a cover letter where a young clerk by the name of Srinivasa Ramanujan (1887–1920) provided an introduction of himself and his precarious situation, as well as various mathematical claims about the domain…