Subbaramiah Minakshisundaram (12 October 1913 - 13 August 1968), also known as Minakshi or SMS, was an Indian mathematician who worked on

partial differential equation In mathematics, a partial differential equation (PDE) is an equation which involves a multivariable function and one or more of its partial derivatives. The function is often thought of as an "unknown" that solves the equation, similar to ho ...

s and heat kernels. In 1946, he worked at the

Institute for Advanced Study The Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) is an independent center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry located in Princeton, New Jersey. It has served as the academic home of internationally preeminent scholars, including Albert Ein ...

in Princeton, America, where he met

Åke Pleijel Åke Vilhelm Carl Pleijel (10 August 1913 – 24 September 1989) was a Swedish mathematician. He completed his PhD in mathematics at Stockholm University in 1940 (with Torsten Carleman as supervisor), and later became Professor of Mathematics at ...

. In 1949, the two wrote a paper together called, ''Some properties of the eigenfunctions of the Laplace-operator on

Riemannian manifold In differential geometry, a Riemannian manifold is a geometric space on which many geometric notions such as distance, angles, length, volume, and curvature are defined. Euclidean space, the N-sphere, n-sphere, hyperbolic space, and smooth surf ...

s'', in which they introduced the Minakshisundaram-Pleijel zeta function. On the 13th of August 1968, Subbaramiah suffered a heart attack and died at the age of 55.

Biography

Early life

Subbaramiah Minakshisundaram was the first of three children, born in 1913 and called "Jeja" by his parents, meaning God. In his early years he learned

Malayalam Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian languages, Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry (union territory), Puducherry (Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of ...

, but when his family moved to Chennai because of his father's job as a sanitary engineer they spoke

Tamil Tamil may refer to: People, culture and language * Tamils, an ethno-linguistic group native to India, Sri Lanka, and some other parts of Asia **Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka ** Myanmar or Burmese Tamils, Tamil people of Ind ...

. His family were Hindus, and as a boy Minakshisundaram would chant the Gayatri Japa and perform the

Sandhyavandanam Sandhyavandanam (, or 'salutation during the twilight') is a mandatory religious ritual centring around the recitation of the Gayatri mantra, traditionally supposed to be performed three times a day by ''Dvija'' communities of Hindus, particula ...

with his grandfather every morning and night. In 1919, Minakshi attended the Calavala Ramanujam Chetty High School, where he displayed a "marked aptitude" for mathematics, and graduated in 1929 with a Secondary School Leaving Certificate. After graduating, he studied at Pachaiyappa's College and went to Loyola College in 1931 to pursue a B.A. in mathematics, which he attained in 1934.

Career

After graduating from Loyola College, Subbaramiah joined the

University of Madras The University of Madras is a public university, public State university (India), state university in Chennai (Madras), Tamil Nadu, India. Established in 1857, it is one of the oldest and most prominent universities in India, incorporated by an ...

as a research scholar and worked in the library. During his time at the University of Madras, Minakshi was influenced by K Ananda Rau, and began studying the summability of

series Series may refer to: People with the name * Caroline Series (born 1951), English mathematician, daughter of George Series * George Series (1920–1995), English physicist Arts, entertainment, and media Music * Series, the ordered sets used i ...

. His first paper, ''Tauberian theorems on Dirichlet's series'', was published in 1936 and expanded upon Rau's theorem. He followed this with two papers, both published in 1937: ''On the extension of a theorem of Caratheodory in the theory of Fourier series'', and, ''The Fourier series of a sequence of functions''.

Marriage

On the 10th of May, 1937, Minakshisundaram married M Parvathi. They had three children together: * K Ramu (born 1943) * K Girija (born 1945) * K Radha (birthdate unknown)

Publications

* Minakshisundaram, S., & Szasz, O. (1947). On Absolute Convergence of Multiple Fourier Series. ''Transactions of the American Mathematical Society'', ''61''(1), 36–53. https://doi.org/10.2307/1990288 * Minakshisundaram, S., & Pleijel, Å. (1949). Some Properties of the Eigenfunctions of The Laplace-Operator on Riemannian Manifolds. ''Canadian Journal of Mathematics,'' ''1''(3), 242-256. * Minakshisundaram, S. (1949). A Generalization of Epstein Zeta Functions. ''Canadian Journal of Mathematics,'' ''1''(4), 320-327. * Minakshisundaram, S., Chandrasekharan, K. (1952). Typical Means. India: Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Bombay. * Minakshisundaram, S. (1953). Eigenfunctions on Riemannian Manifolds. ''The Journal of the Indian Mathematical Society'', ''17''(4), 159–165 * Chandrasekharan, K., & Minakshisundaram, S. (1954). A Note on Typical Means. ''The Journal of the Indian Mathematical Society'', ''18''(1), 107–114

Posthumous works

* Minakshisundaram, S. (2012). Collected Works of S. Minakshisundaram. India: Ramanujan Mathematical Society.

References

External links

S. Minakshisundaram memorial society
1913 births 1968 deaths 20th-century Indian mathematicians Scientists from Kerala {{Asia-mathematician-stub