Written by an distinguished mathematician and teacher, this undergraduate text uses a combinatorial approach to accommodate both math majors and liberal arts students. In addition to covering the bas
The theory of integer partitions is a subject of enduring interest. A major research area in its own right, it has found numerous applications, and celebrated results such as the Rogers-Ramanujan identities make it a topic filled with the true romance of mathematics. The aim in this introductory textbook is to provide an accessible and wide ranging introduction to partitions, without requiring anything more of the reader than some familiarity with polynomials and infinite series. Many exercises are included, together with some solutions and helpful hints. The book has a short introduction followed by an initial chapter introducing Euler's famous theorem on partitions with odd parts and partitions with distinct parts. This is followed by chapters titled: Ferrers Graphs, The Rogers-Ramanujan Identities, Generating Functions, Formulas for Partition Functions, Gaussian Polynomials, Durfee Squares, Euler Refined, Plane Partitions, Growing Ferrers Boards, and Musings.
Special functions, natural generalizations of the elementary functions, have been studied for centuries. The greatest mathematicians, among them Euler, Gauss, Legendre, Eisenstein, Riemann, and Ramanujan, have laid the foundations for this beautiful and useful area of mathematics. This treatise presents an overview of special functions, focusing primarily on hypergeometric functions and the associated hypergeometric series, including Bessel functions and classical orthogonal polynomials, using the basic building block of the gamma function. In addition to relatively new work on gamma and beta functions, such as Selberg's multidimensional integrals, many important but relatively unknown nineteenth century results are included. Other topics include q-extensions of beta integrals and of hypergeometric series, Bailey chains, spherical harmonics, and applications to combinatorial problems. The authors provide organizing ideas, motivation, and historical background for the study and applica
The theory of integer partitions is a subject of enduring interest. A major research area in its own right, it has found numerous applications, and celebrated results such as the Rogers-Ramanujan identities make it a topic filled with the true romance of mathematics. The aim in this introductory textbook is to provide an accessible and wide ranging introduction to partitions, without requiring anything more of the reader than some familiarity with polynomials and infinite series. Many exercises are included, together with some solutions and helpful hints. The book has a short introduction followed by an initial chapter introducing Euler's famous theorem on partitions with odd parts and partitions with distinct parts. This is followed by chapters titled: Ferrers Graphs, The Rogers-Ramanujan Identities, Generating Functions, Formulas for Partition Functions, Gaussian Polynomials, Durfee Squares, Euler Refined, Plane Partitions, Growing Ferrers Boards, and Musings.
Special functions, natural generalizations of the elementary functions, have been studied for centuries. The greatest mathematicians, among them Euler, Gauss, Legendre, Eisenstein, Riemann, and Ramanujan, have laid the foundations for this beautiful and useful area of mathematics. This treatise presents an overview of special functions, focusing primarily on hypergeometric functions and the associated hypergeometric series, including Bessel functions and classical orthogonal polynomials, using the basic building block of the gamma function. In addition to relatively new work on gamma and beta functions, such as Selberg's multidimensional integrals, many important but relatively unknown nineteenth century results are included. Other topics include q-extensions of beta integrals and of hypergeometric series, Bailey chains, spherical harmonics, and applications to combinatorial problems. The authors provide organizing ideas, motivation, and historical background for the study and applica
This book develops the theory of partitions. Simply put, the partitions of a number are the ways of writing that number as sums of positive integers. For example, the five partitions of 4 are 4, 3+1, 2+2, 2+1+1, and 1+1+1+1. Surprisingly, such a simple matter requires some deep mathematics for its study. This book considers the many theoretical aspects of this subject, which have in turn recently found applications to statistical mechanics, computer science and other branches of mathematics. With minimal prerequisites, this book is suitable for students as well as researchers in combinatorics, analysis, and number theory.
This volume is the second of approximately four volumes that the authors plan to write on Ramanujan's lost notebook, which is broadly interpreted to include all material published in The Lost Noteboo
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 dis
In the library at Trinity College, Cambridge in 1976, George Andrews of Pennsylvania State University discovered a sheaf of pages in the handwriting of Srinivasa Ramanujan. Soon designated as "Ramanuj
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 dis
George E Andrews is the Evan Pugh Professor of Mathematics at Pennsylvania. He is also the President of American Mathematical Society (AMS) during 2009–2011. George Andrews has been a world pioneer in
From July 31 through August 3,1997, the Pennsylvania State University hosted the Topics in Number Theory Conference. The conference was organized by Ken Ono and myself. By writing the preface, I am af