The Rogers--Ramanujan identities are a pair of infinite series—infinite product identities that were first discovered in 1894. Over the past several decades these identities, and identities of similar type, have found applications in number theory, combinatorics, Lie algebra and vertex operator algebra theory, physics (especially statistical mechanics), and computer science (especially algorithmic proof theory). Presented in a coherant and clear way, this will be the first book entirely devoted to the Rogers—Ramanujan identities and will include related historical material that is unavailable elsewhere.
The aim of these lecture notes is to provide a self-contained exposition of several fascinating formulas discovered by Srinivasa Ramanujan. Two central results in these notes are: (1) the evaluation of the Rogers-Ramanujan continued fraction — a result that convinced G H Hardy that Ramanujan was a “mathematician of the highest class”, and (2) what G. H. Hardy called Ramanujan's “Most Beautiful Identity”. This book covers a range of related results, such as several proofs of the famous Rogers-Ramanujan identities and a detailed account of Ramanujan's congruences. It also covers a range of techniques in q-series.
This volume reflects the contributions stemming from the conference Analytic and Combinatorial Number Theory: The Legacy of Ramanujan which took place at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign on June 6-9, 2019. The conference included 26 plenary talks, 71 contributed talks, and 170 participants. As was the case for the conference, this book is in honor of Bruce C Berndt and in celebration of his mathematics and his 80th birthday.Along with a number of papers previously appearing in Special Issues of the International Journal of Number Theory, the book collects together a few more papers, a biography of Bruce by Atul Dixit and Ae Ja Yee, a preface by George Andrews, a gallery of photos from the conference, a number of speeches from the conference banquet, the conference poster, a list of Bruce's publications at the time this volume was created, and a list of the talks from the conference.
Starting from simple generalizations of factorials and binomial coefficients, this book gives a friendly and accessible introduction to q q-analysis, a subject consisting primarily of identities between certain kinds of series and products. Many applications of these identities to combinatorics and number theory are developed in detail. There are numerous exercises to help students appreciate the beauty and power of the ideas, and the history of the subject is kept consistently in view. The book has few prerequisites beyond calculus. It is well suited to a capstone course, or for self-study in combinatorics or classical analysis. Ph.D. students and research mathematicians will also find it useful as a reference.
The First Edition of the book is a collection of articles, all by the author, on the Indian mathematical genius Srinivasa Ramanujan as well as on some of the greatest mathematicians in history whose life and works have things in common with Ramanujan. It presents a unique comparative study of Ramanujan’s spectacular discoveries and remarkable life with the monumental contributions of various mathematical luminaries, some of whom, like Ramanujan, overcame great difficulties in life. Also, among the articles are reviews of three important books on Ramanujan’s mathematics and life. In addition, some aspects of Ramanujan’s contributions, such as his remarkable formulae for the number pi, his path-breaking work in the theory of partitions, and his fundamental observations on quadratic forms, are discussed. Finally, the book describes various current efforts to ensure that the legacy of Ramanujan will be preserved and continue to thrive in the future. This Second Edition is an expanded version of the first with six more articles by the author. Of note is the inclusion of a detailed review of the movie The Man Who Knew Infinity, a description of the fundamental work of the SASTRA Ramanujan Prize Winners, and an account of the Royal Society Conference to honour Ramanujan’s legacy on the centenary of his election as FRS.
The subject of $q$-series can be said to begin with Euler and his pentagonal number theorem. In fact, $q$-series are sometimes called Eulerian series. Contributions were made by Gauss, Jacobi, and Cauchy, but the first attempt at a systematic development, especially from the point of view of studying series with the products in the summands, was made by E. Heine in 1847. In the latter part of the nineteenth and in the early part of the twentieth centuries, two Englishmathematicians, L. J. Rogers and F. H. Jackson, made fundamental contributions. In 1940, G. H. Hardy described what we now call Ramanujan's famous $ 1\psi 1$ summation theorem as ``a remarkable formula with many parameters.'' This is now one of the fundamental theorems of the subject. Despite humble beginnings,the subject of $q$-series has flourished in the past three decades, particularly with its applications to combinatorics, number theory, and physics. During the year 2000, the University of Illinois embraced The Millennial Year in Number Theory. One of the events that year was the conference $q$-Series with Applications to Combinatorics, Number Theory, and Physics. This event gathered mathematicians from the world over to lecture and discuss their research. This volume presents nineteen of thepapers presented at the conference. The excellent lectures that are included chart pathways into the future and survey the numerous applications of $q$-series to combinatorics, number theory, and physics.
The aim of this lecture notes is to provide a self-contained exposition of several fascinating formulas discovered by Srinivasa Ramanujan. Two central results in these notes are: (1) the evaluation of the Rogers–Ramanujan continued fraction — a result that convinced G H Hardy that Ramanujan was a “mathematician of the highest class”, and (2) what G H Hardy called Ramanujan's “Most Beautiful Identity”. This book covers a range of related results, such as several proofs of the famous Rogers–Ramanujan identities and a detailed account of Ramanujan's congruences. It also covers a range of techniques in q-series.
This book contains contributions from the proceedings at The Fields Institute workshop on Special Functions, q-Series and Related Topics that was held in June 1995. The articles cover areas from quantum groups and their representations, multivariate special functions, q-series, and symbolic algebra techniques as well as the traditional areas of single-variable special functions. The book contains both pure and applied topics and reflects recent trends of research in the various areas of special functions.
"The son of a prominent Japanese mathematician who came to the United States after World War II, Ken Ono was raised on a diet of high expectations and little praise. Rebelling against his pressure-cooker of a life, Ken determined to drop out of high school to follow his own path. To obtain his father’s approval, he invoked the biography of the famous Indian mathematical prodigy Srinivasa Ramanujan, whom his father revered, who had twice flunked out of college because of his single-minded devotion to mathematics. Ono describes his rocky path through college and graduate school, interweaving Ramanujan’s story with his own and telling how at key moments, he was inspired by Ramanujan and guided by mentors who encouraged him to pursue his interest in exploring Ramanujan’s mathematical legacy. Picking up where others left off, beginning with the great English mathematician G.H. Hardy, who brought Ramanujan to Cambridge in 1914, Ono has devoted his mathematical career to understanding how in his short life, Ramanujan was able to discover so many deep mathematical truths, which Ramanujan believed had been sent to him as visions from a Hindu goddess. And it was Ramanujan who was ultimately the source of reconciliation between Ono and his parents. Ono’s search for Ramanujan ranges over three continents and crosses paths with mathematicians whose lives span the globe and the entire twentieth century and beyond. Along the way, Ken made many fascinating discoveries. The most important and surprising one of all was his own humanity."
