Ramanujan to England

After some initial skepticism, Hardy replied with comments, requesting proofs for some of the discoveries, and began to make plans to bring Ramanujan to Cambridge. Ramanujan was at first apprehensive to travel overseas due to religious reasons, but eventually his well wishers prevailed upon him and he agreed to come to England.

Ramanujan sailed from India on 17 March 1914. It was a calm voyage except for three days on which Ramanujan was seasick. He arrived in London on 14 April 1914 and was met by Neville. After four days in London they went to Cambridge and Ramanujan spent a couple of weeks in Neville's home before moving into rooms in Trinity College on 30th April. Right from the beginning, however, he had problems with his diet. The outbreak of World War I made obtaining special items of food harder and it was not long before Ramanujan had health problems. He spent nearly five years in Cambridge collaborating with Hardy and Littlewood and published a part of his findings there. Hardy and Ramanujan had highly contrasting personalities. Their collaboration was a clash of different cultures, beliefs and working styles. Hardy was an atheist and an apostle of proof, insisting on mathematical rigor, whereas, Ramanujan was a deeply religious man and relied very strongly on his intuition. While in England, Hardy tried his best to fill the gaps in Ramanujans education without interrupting his spell of inspiration. Ramanujan was awarded a B.A. degree in March 1916 for his work on Highly composite numbers which was published as a paper in the Journal of the London Mathematical Society. He was the second Indian to become a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1918 and he became one of the youngest Fellows in the entire history of the Royal Society. He was elected "for his investigation in Elliptic Functions and the Theory of Numbers. " On 13 October 1918 he became the first Indian to be elected a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge."

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