Interesting story behind the number 1729

1729 is not an ordinary number in the contemporary era of mathematics as it is known as the Ramanujan-Hardy number.

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All the credit for its popularity should go only to the Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan Aiyangar.

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Professor GH Hardy once visited Ramanujan when he was hospitalized after several ailments.

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Hardy pointed out at random that he had come in a taxi that had the number 1729 on it which seemed too dull and ordinary to him.

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Upon hearing this, Ramanujan immediately indicated without any second thought that 1729 was indeed a special number.

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He observed that 1729 is the smallest number that can be represented as the sum of two cubes in two different ways.

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This story is very famous among mathematicians. 1729 is called the Ramanujan-Hardy number".

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