Ramanujan number theory 1729 ramanujan

In 1918, Indian mathematician Srinivas Ramanujan was admitted to the hospital in London, where he was visited by his colleague and long-time friend G H Hardy.

The fellow mathematician had arrived in a taxi which was numbered '1729' and had thought about it on his way to the room, upon entering Ramanujan's room, Hardy blurted "it was rather a dull number," after a brief hello.

When Ramanujan came to know of the number, the mathematician said "No Hardy, it is a very interesting number.

It is the smallest number expressible as the sum of two cubes in two different ways." This conversation, which is the base of the mysterious Hardy-Ramanujan number is documented in his biography 'The man who knew infinity' by Robert Knaigel

THE MYSTERY OF RAMANUJAN NUMBER

Ramanujan explained that 1729 is the only number that is the sum of cubes of two different pairs of numbers: 12³ + 1³, and 10³ + 9³.

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