Most of us first hear about the irrational number π (pi)—rounded off as 3.14, with an infinite number of decimal digits—in school, where we learn about its use in the context of a circle. More recently, scientists have developed supercomputers that can estimate up to trillions of its digits.

. . .

Ramanujan's formulas and their legacy

In 1914, just before he sailed from Madras to Cambridge, the famous Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan published a paper listing 17 mathematical formulas to calculate pi. They were highly efficient and helped compute pi faster than other methods at the time. Even with very few mathematical terms in them, the formulas still yielded many correct decimal digits of pi.

The formulas were so foundational that they form the basis for modern computational and mathematical techniques—even the ones used by supercomputers—to compute digits of pi.

. . .

The study shows that Ramanujan's century-old formulas have a hitherto hidden application in making current high-energy physics calculations faster and more tractable. Even without this, however, Sinha and Bhat say they were just baffled by the beauty of Ramanujan's mathematics.

"We were simply fascinated by the way a genius working in early 20th century India, with almost no contact with modern physics, anticipated structures that are now central to our understanding of the universe," says Sinha.

. . .