Puliyakot Keshava Menon (1917 – 22 October 1979) was an Indian
mathematician
A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems.
Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, structure, space, models, and change.
History
On ...
best known as Director of the
Joint Cipher Bureau.
His sudden demise on 22 October 1979, ended active research in the areas of
number theory
Number theory (or arithmetic or higher arithmetic in older usage) is a branch of pure mathematics devoted primarily to the study of the integers and arithmetic function, integer-valued functions. German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777â ...
,
combinatorics
Combinatorics is an area of mathematics primarily concerned with counting, both as a means and an end in obtaining results, and certain properties of finite structures. It is closely related to many other areas of mathematics and has many appl ...
, algebra and
cryptography
Cryptography, or cryptology (from grc, , translit=kryptós "hidden, secret"; and ''graphein'', "to write", or ''-logia'', "study", respectively), is the practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of adver ...
.
Early life
P. Kesava Menon was born (1917) in Alathur, which is now part of the Palakkad District of Kerala state in
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
. His mother, Devaky Amma, hailed from the Kunissery Puliyakot family and, as per custom, Kesava Menon took his family name from his mother. His father, A K Krishnan Unni Kartha, hailed from Aiyiloor in the Palghat district. Menon grew up on Alathur under his uncle's supervision and hence his primary and high school education was conducted in modest surrounding at Alathur itself.
Higher education
As was the custom for bright students from landed families those days, Menon had to travel to Madras city and join the
Madras Christian College
Madras Christian College (MCC) is a liberal arts and sciences college in Chennai, India. Founded in 1837, MCC is one of Asia's oldest extant colleges. The college is affiliated to the University of Madras but functions as an autonomous institu ...
for his higher studies. There, he completed his MA in Mathematics and was awarded a scholarship to pursue research under the guidance of Prof R Vaidyanathaswamy. In 1941, the
University of Madras awarded him a MSc Degree with a thesis entitled "Contributions to the theory of multiplicative arithmetic functions".
Educator
Thereafter he was appointed lecturer at the
Annamalai University
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, image = Annamalai University logo.png
, image_size = 225px
, motto = "With Courage and Faith"
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, type ...
, where he served for two years, before joining the staff of Madras Christian College again as a professor and warden of Seliyur Hall. He was devoted to his research work along with teaching, and, in 1948, he submitted his dissertation on "Contributions to the theory of numbers" for which he was conferred the highest and rarest degree of Doctor of Science (DSc).
He theorized and published the classical inequality theory, which is today known as "Kesava Menon's classical inequality theorem"
He published a paper on the subject of the continued fraction of the mathematician
Ramanujan, as noted here in the Journal of the London Mathematical Society
See also
*
Menon design
*
Menon's identity
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Menon, P. Kesava
People from Palakkad district
1917 births
1979 deaths
Academic staff of Annamalai University
20th-century Indian mathematicians
Scientists from Kerala
Indian number theorists