I’m not sure what you mean by “a basic formal education”. Ramanujan attended Government Arts College, Kumbakonam and Pachaiyappa’s College and then he became a mathematical “researcher at the University of Madras”. About 3 years later, Ramanujan wrote his first letter to Hardy. It is certainly true that he did not have the normal formal background of a Ph.D. student, but I think he did take a number of undergraduate math classes.
University education in India for pure sciences is 3 yrs for an undergraduate course, so even if he attended any college he would taken up courses only for the first year. Once he failed his exams in the first yr he cannot continue the education and study second and third yr courses in mathematics, which is why i think he was probably an autodidact in mathematics.
I’m not sure what you mean by “a basic formal education”. Ramanujan attended Government Arts College, Kumbakonam and Pachaiyappa’s College and then he became a mathematical “researcher at the University of Madras”. About 3 years later, Ramanujan wrote his first letter to Hardy. It is certainly true that he did not have the normal formal background of a Ph.D. student, but I think he did take a number of undergraduate math classes.
University education in India for pure sciences is 3 yrs for an undergraduate course, so even if he attended any college he would taken up courses only for the first year. Once he failed his exams in the first yr he cannot continue the education and study second and third yr courses in mathematics, which is why i think he was probably an autodidact in mathematics.