Date: Thursday, November 18, 2004 Time: 3:00 p.m. Room: Little Hall (LIT) 109 Opening Remarks by George E. Andrews Evan Pugh Professor of Mathematics The Pennsylvania State University Refreshments: 4:00 p.m. in LIT 339

Abstract: Ramanujan was born in southern India in 1887 and died there in 1920 at the age of 32. He had only one year of college, but his mathematical discoveries, made mostly in isolation, have made him one of the most influential mathematicians for nearly 100 years. A brief account of Ramanujan's life will be presented. Particular attention will be given to his friends, for whom we shall provide short biographical sketches. Most of Ramanujan's mathematical discoveries were recorded without proofs in notebooks, and a description and history of these notebooks and his famous lost notebook will be given. The geneses of many of Ramanujan's discoveries remain hidden behind an impenetrable fog. As one example, in the only mathematical content of the lecture, we shall discuss his famous 40 identities for the Rogers-Ramanujan functions. The lecture will be accompanied by overhead transparencies depicting Ramanujan, his home, his school, his notebooks, and those influential in his life, including his mother and wife.

 ^* Bruce Berndt is Suzuki Professor of Mathematics at the University of Illinois. He is one of the world's experts on the Indian mathematical genius Srinivasa Ramanujan. He has edited Ramanujan's Notebooks in five volumes published by Springer-Verlag for which he received the Leroy P. Steele Prize of the American Mathematical Society.

This featured lecture is being arranged in connection with the Mathematics Department's Special Year in Number Theory and Combinatorics For more information see the website:
http://www.math.ufl.edu/specialyears/2004-5/.
It is also being arranged in connection with the Additive Number Theory Conference. For more information see the conference website:
http://www.math.ufl.edu/~frank/antconf.html