UNITED STATES, January 23, 2015 (by Robert Schneider with Benjamin Phelan): Srinivasa Ramanujan was a super genius born into extreme poverty in an obscure part of southern India, who taught himself mathematics from a standard textbook, and in total isolation became a mathematician of such power that one hundred years after his death, at the age of thirty-two, the meaning of much of his work is still a mystery. In the middle of what I thought would be my life’s work, writing and producing music, I heard his story; now I find myself in graduate school studying number theory.
Read more of this lengthy and interesting essay on Ramanujan and the authors own studies at ‘source’.