Rinivasa Ramanujan was raised in a poor family and showed early skill by mastering a trigonometry textbook when he was about ten years old. During his high school years he studied a book about advanced math. Summing up of Elementary Results in Mathematics, by George Shoobridge Carr. Carr book included no serious explanation of the concepts being dealt with, just a collection of theorems presented for people who already know the topic. He found the book interesting. He became so obsessed with math, and began making his own book.
After high school he tried to go to college. He was not accepted due to his poor test results on any topic but math. When he was 20 he took a job with a hospital at Madras Port Trust, and after having several papers published in the Journal of the Indian Mathematic al Society, he wanted wider recognition by sending his work to several of the world's most famous mathematicians. In letters, each written by hand and beginning with the line "I beg to introduce myself", he mailed eleven pages of mathematical equations to at least three famous mathematicians, but only Cambridge Hardy responded.
Hardy had been confused by Ramanujan's letter, as it mostly restated well-known math principles. There were occasional findings that Hardy had never seen before, which he recognized to be mathematically sound. He was up past midnight reading the letter and following the theorems with excitement. The two men corresponded, and with Hardy's letter as a recommendation,