Departmental Colloquium
Bruce Berndt
UIUC
Ramanujan's Lost Notebook
Abstract: In the spring of 1976, while searching through papers of the late
G. N. Watson at Trinity College, Cambridge, George Andrews found a
sheaf of 138 pages in the handwriting of Srinivasa Ramanujan,
generally regarded as India's greatest mathematician. In view of
the fame of Ramanujan's earlier notebooks, Andrews naturally
called these papers Ramanujan's "lost notebook." This work,
comprising about 650 results with no proofs, arises from the last
year of Ramanujan's life and represents some of his deepest work.
First, we provide a history of the lost notebook. Second, a
general description of the topics found in the lost notebook will
be provided. For some of the topics, such as ranks and cranks of
partitions, we offer some details. The third portion of the
lecture will be devoted to a more detailed discussion of one of
the topics prominently addressed in the lost notebook, namely
continued fractions.
Friday October 9, 2009 at 3:00 PM in SEO 636