Ramanujan: Essays and Surveys


Book Description

This book contains essays on Ramanujan and his work that were written especially for this volume. It also includes important survey articles in areas influenced by Ramanujan's mathematics. Most of the articles in the book are nontechnical, but even those that are more technical contain substantial sections that will engage the general reader. The book opens with the only four existing photographs of Ramanujan, presenting historical accounts of them and information about other people in the photos. This section includes an account of a cryptic family history written by his younger brother, S. Lakshmi Narasimhan. Following are articles on Ramanujan's illness by R. A. Rankin, the British physician D. A. B. Young, and Nobel laureate S. Chandrasekhar. They present a study of his symptoms, a convincing diagnosis of the cause of his death, and a thorough exposition of Ramanujan's life as a patient in English sanitariums and nursing homes. Following this are biographies of S. Janaki (Mrs. Ramanujan) and S. Narayana Iyer, Chief Accountant of the Madras Port Trust Office, who first communicated Ramanujan's work to the Journal of the Indian Mathematical Society. The last half of the book begins with a section on ``Ramanujan's Manuscripts and Notebooks''. Included is an important article by G. E. Andrews on Ramanujan's lost notebook. The final two sections feature both nontechnical articles, such as Jonathan and Peter Borwein's ``Ramanujan and pi'', and more technical articles by Freeman Dyson, Atle Selberg, Richard Askey, and G. N. Watson. This volume complements the book Ramanujan: Letters and Commentary, Volume 9, in the AMS series, History of Mathematics. For more on Ramanujan, see these AMS publications Ramanujan: Twelve Lectures on Subjects Suggested by His Life and Work, Volume 136.H, and Collected Papers of Srinivasa Ramanujan, Volume 159.H, in the AMS Chelsea Publishing series.




Number Theory in the Spirit of Liouville


Book Description

A gentle introduction to Liouville's powerful method in elementary number theory. Suitable for advanced undergraduate and beginning graduate students.




Mathematical Reviews


Book Description




Advances in the Theory of Numbers


Book Description

The theory of numbers continues to occupy a central place in modern mathematics because of both its long history over many centuries as well as its many diverse applications to other fields such as discrete mathematics, cryptography, and coding theory. The proof by Andrew Wiles (with Richard Taylor) of Fermat’s last theorem published in 1995 illustrates the high level of difficulty of problems encountered in number-theoretic research as well as the usefulness of the new ideas arising from its proof. The thirteenth conference of the Canadian Number Theory Association was held at Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada from June 16 to 20, 2014. Ninety-nine talks were presented at the conference on the theme of advances in the theory of numbers. Topics of the talks reflected the diversity of current trends and activities in modern number theory. These topics included modular forms, hypergeometric functions, elliptic curves, distribution of prime numbers, diophantine equations, L-functions, Diophantine approximation, and many more. This volume contains some of the papers presented at the conference. All papers were refereed. The high quality of the articles and their contribution to current research directions make this volume a must for any mathematics library and is particularly relevant to researchers and graduate students with an interest in number theory. The editors hope that this volume will serve as both a resource and an inspiration to future generations of researchers in the theory of numbers.




Number Theory And Its Applications Ii


Book Description

The aim of the book is to give a smooth analytic continuation from basic subjects including linear algebra, group theory, Hilbert space theory, etc. to number theory. With plenty of practical examples and worked-out exercises, and the scope ranging from these basic subjects made applicable to number-theoretic settings to advanced number theory, this book can then be read without tears. It will be of immense help to the reader to acquire basic sound skills in number theory and its applications.Number theory used to be described as the queen of mathematics, that is, there is no practical use. However, with the development of computers and the security of internet communications, the importance of number theory has been exponentially increasing daily. The raison d'être of the present book in this situation is that it is extremely reader-friendly while keeping the rigor of serious mathematics and in-depth analysis of practical applications to various subjects including control theory and pseudo-random number generation. The use of operators is prevailing rather abundantly in anticipation of applications to electrical engineering, allowing the reader to master these skills without much difficulty. It also delivers a very smooth bridging between elementary subjects including linear algebra and group theory (and algebraic number theory) for the reader to be well-versed in an efficient and effortless way. One of the main features of the book is that it gives several different approaches to the same topic, helping the reader to gain deeper insight and comprehension. Even just browsing through the materials would be beneficial to the reader.







Ramanujan's Lost Notebook


Book Description

​​​​In the spring of 1976, George Andrews of Pennsylvania State University visited the library at Trinity College, Cambridge, to examine the papers of the late G.N. Watson. Among these papers, Andrews discovered a sheaf of 138 pages in the handwriting of Srinivasa Ramanujan. This manuscript was soon designated, "Ramanujan's lost notebook." Its discovery has frequently been deemed the mathematical equivalent of finding Beethoven's tenth symphony. This volume is the fourth of five volumes that the authors plan to write on Ramanujan’s lost notebook.​ In contrast to the first three books on Ramanujan's Lost Notebook, the fourth book does not focus on q-series. Most of the entries examined in this volume fall under the purviews of number theory and classical analysis. Several incomplete manuscripts of Ramanujan published by Narosa with the lost notebook are discussed. Three of the partial manuscripts are on diophantine approximation, and others are in classical Fourier analysis and prime number theory. Most of the entries in number theory fall under the umbrella of classical analytic number theory. Perhaps the most intriguing entries are connected with the classical, unsolved circle and divisor problems. Review from the second volume: "Fans of Ramanujan's mathematics are sure to be delighted by this book. While some of the content is taken directly from published papers, most chapters contain new material and some previously published proofs have been improved. Many entries are just begging for further study and will undoubtedly be inspiring research for decades to come. The next installment in this series is eagerly awaited." - MathSciNet Review from the first volume: "Andrews and Berndt are to be congratulated on the job they are doing. This is the first step...on the way to an understanding of the work of the genius Ramanujan. It should act as an inspiration to future generations of mathematicians to tackle a job that will never be complete." - Gazette of the Australian Mathematical Society​