Ramanujan went to Madras to look for opportunities to continue his studies. , he went to the University of Madras with a research scholarship. It was here that he corresponding with G.H. Hardy. Hardy wanted Ramanujan to be brought to England, and in March 1914 Ramanujan a steamer for England.

The four years that Ramanujan in England were his most . In his collaborations with Professor Hardy, he constantly impressed his mentor with his . Ramanujan independently discovered results of Gauss, Kummer and others on hypergeometric series.

One favorite story about Ramanujan a time that Hardy visited him in the hospital. Hardy and Ramanujan liked to discuss the properties of different numbers. On this particular visit, Hardy said to Ramanujan that the number of the taxi that he had arrived in was 1729 -- a very uninteresting number. Ramanujan replied that it was in fact a very interesting number, as it was the smallest number that could be represented as the sum of two in two ways:  

1729 = 10³ + 9³
and
1729 = 12³ + 1³

Ramanujan received many honors in England. He was elected as a fellow of Trinity College, and was the first Indian to be elected to the Royal Society of Mathematicians. But his deteriorated, and he decided to return to India. He was diagnosed with tuberculosis, and died in India a year after he returned from England. He was only 32, but the young genius had left behind a of mathematical information in his notebooks, which have become very famous.