Author: Bruce C Berndt
Robert A Rankin/
Editor(s): Bruce C Berndt / Robert A Rankin
Publisher: Hindustan Book Agency
Year: 2003
Language: English
Pages: 347
ISBN/UPC (if available): 8185931356
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 Novel 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.
Contents
Preface
Photograph Credits
Citations for Previously Published Papers
PART: I
THE LIFE OF RAMANUJAN
The Four Photographs of Ramanujan
The Books Studied by Ramanujan in India
The Influence of Carr’s Synopsis on Ramanujan
The Notebooks of Srinivasa Ramanujan
A Recently Discovered Letter Giving Ramanujan’s Examination Scores
On Ramanujan
The Ramanujan Family Record
PART: II
RAMANUJAN’S ILLNESS
Ramanujan As a Patient
Ramanujan’s Illness
An Incident in the Life of S Ramanujan, FRS: Conversations with G H Hardy, FRS and J E Littlewood, FRS and Their Sequel
PART: III
S JANAKI
S Janaki Ammal (Mrs. Ramanujan)
Conversation I Didn’t Understand His Work, but I Knew His Worth
PART: IV
S NARAYANA IYER
A Short Biography of S Narayana Iyer
The Distribution of Primes
Some Theorems in Summation
PART: V
E H NEVILLE
Srinivasa Ramanujan
University Lectures in Madras
PART: VI
RAMANUJAN’S MANUSCRIPTS AND NOTEBOOKS
Ramanujan’s Manuscripts and Notebooks
Ramanujan’s Manuscripts and Notebooks, II
An Overview of Ramanujan’s Notebooks
PART: VII
NONTECHNICAL ARTICLES ON RAMANUJAN’S WORK
Ramanujan and Pi
Related Developments Since 1988
Reflections around theramanujan Centenary
The Problems Submitted by Ramanujan to the Journal of the Indian Mathematical Society
PART: VIII
SOMEWHAT MORE TECHNICAL ARTICLES ON RAMANUJAN’S WORK
A Walk through Ramanujan’s Garden
Ramanujan and Hypergeometric and Basic Hypergeometric Series
The Final Problem: An Account of the Mock Theta Functions