Andhra Pradesh - Guntur   

Another Ramanujam in the making

Kanduru Srinivasa Raghava

GUNTUR: At a time when every child fears the sight of a mathematics book, here is a humble student from a small town - Tenali in Guntur district - who has earned a seat in Master of Science course in a couple of United States universities, even though he is yet to complete his graduation.

Anyone who came in touch with Kanduru Srinivasa Raghava and his theorems found them to be a class apart -- another Srinivasa Ramanujam in the making.

Walking in the footsteps of the legendary mathematician, Raghava, who hails from a poor family, browsed through ‘Ganita Bharati, Veda Ganitham, plain trigonometry and the popular mathematics book Higher Maths by Hall and Knight, which generated interest in him for number theory, partitions, elliptic functions, Q-series and hyper geometric series.

A student of Viveka Junior College at Tenali, he passed Intermediate with 78 per cent in 2002, but financial constraints forced the only son of late Varadacharyulu, a Sanskrit teacher, to pursue B.Sc. (IT) in correspondence mode from Annamalai University. Attending his classes at the Vijayawada Study Centre, he devotes time on scribbling new theorems and finding proofs for them.

World renowned mathematician George E. Andrews of Pennsylvania State University, in his recommendatory letter to several universities in the US, has written that “this youth has some real zeal in mathematics and his propositions are palpable, worth working on establishing them.”

Another Ramanujam Theory expert Bruce C. Bendt of the University of Illinois jocularly told Raghava in an e-mail that he could not be another ‘Hardy’ for the new Ramanujam in the making, but would allow him to pursue MS taking him as teaching assistant.

Hindu College PG Centre proposes to adopt the boy, while its Maths Department head I. Ramabhadra Sarma guided him through his journey.

Presenting mathematical papers at high-level seminars has become a cakewalk for Raghava by now.

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