Next in who after the Ramanujan series? A mathematician whose work is so deep that it borders on the spiritual, yet who remains a total mystery to the public, we must look at Professor Mahan Mj (also known as Mahan Maharaj/Swami Vidyanathananda).
In the world of logic, he is a ghost; in the world of geometry, he is a king.
Mahan Mj is arguably the only person on Earth who is a Saffron-clad Monk of the Ramakrishna Order & a top-tier global mathematician simultaneously. He is a Prof of Mathematics at TIFR, Mumbai. He lives in a simple monk's cell, owns almost nothing, & wears only his saffron robes, yet he solves problems that baffle the minds at Harvard & Oxford.
Most people think science & religion are at war. Mahan Mj proves they are 2 sides of the same coin. He treats a complex geometric proof as a form of meditation. When he won the Infosys Prize (₹65 Lakhs), he donated the entire amount to a trust for the education of underprivileged children.
His landmark work resolved key aspects of the long-standing Cannon–Thurston Maps conjecture in hyperbolic geometry & geometric group theory, a problem connected to Bill Thurston’s program that had remained open for decades. This work was so significant that he was an Invited Speaker at the International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM) in 2018, the absolute Olympics of math.
Like many geniuses, his path was not linear. He ranked AIR 67 in IIT-JEE & joined the EE program at IIT Kanpur. Halfway through, he realized that circuits were too noisy for his quiet mind. He fought the system to switch to Mathematics. He completed his PhD at UC Berkeley under Andrew Casson. He could have stayed in the US & lived a life of luxury as a superstar professor. Instead, he returned to India, joined a monastery, & continued his research from a room with a bed & a bookshelf.