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I, ~ Technology: Physical Sciences and Technology
" ,. Vol. 4 Number II -
88-90, 2009 -

BOOK REVIEW - 1
Reviewer: Devajyoti Biswas
Department of Mathematics, Assam University, Silchar - 788011, India.
E-mail: dj48@rediffmail.com

Mathematical Works of Srinivasa Ramanujan finally over and the Lost Notebook (LNB) was
(2008), The Lost Notebook and Other brought to light on ,22 nd December of 1987,
Unpublished Papers. ISBN: 978-81-7319-947-9, coinciding with SR) birth centenary that was
_ pp. 419 + I v, Narosa Publishing House Pvt. Ltd., celebrated almost in the whole world, especially
New Delhi. in india, England and America. As a noble
endeavour, the new edition of this book along with
Great Indian mathematical wizard Srinivasa
some useful additions, was brought out in 1993,
Ramanujan (SR), born on December 22 of 1887
by the same Narosa and their volume was reissued
in a poor Iyengar family at Erode in Tamilnadu,
with the revised title in 2008.
has occupied a unique position in the History of
Mathematics, especially in the field of Theory of Narosa's enlarged volume titled, The Lost
Numbers. It is indeed surprising to learn that in Notebook and Other Unpublished Papers (2008),
spite of his little formal education, ill health, severe hits been duly enriched with the inclusion of a
hardships and a very brief life span (only 32 113 comprehensive Introduction from George E.
years), this outstanding genius has left behind a Andrews of Pennsylvania State University at
memorable imprint on mathematical thoughts and Pennsylvania, a Short Biography composed by
ideas that have fascinated, stimulated and even S. Raghavan of TIFR and a resourceful Report
motivated many a mathematicians. It has also prepared by none other than G. H. Hardy, FRS of
inspired many school children and even the Trinity College in the University of Cambridge
common people, thereby separating him from that altogether have been accommodated within
other renowned mathematicians of the world. SR the introductory 50pages of this recent edition.
had an uncanny love for mathematics and since Apart from these informative and valued articles,
from childhood, with his inherent talent and own the LNB encompasses first 90 un-paginated
skill, he worked out problems on diverse topics sheets representing SR's work on q-series and
in this basic science and recorded them thereof, other topics. It is followed by a few letters from
in his famous Notebooks. Altogether, he has left SR to G. H. Hardy, (during his stay in English
behind three invaluable Notebooks and a Nursing Homes) on many mathematical topics
considerable amount of unpublished including coefficients in the J/gj and JIg]
Manuscripts(MS). As a mark of respect to this problems as well as the only remnant of SR's
genius, the Notebooks ofSrinivasa Ramanujan, famous letter dated 12th January, 1920 on mock
was published by Tata Institute of Fundamental theta functions and some sheets from the LNB
Research (TIFR) at Mumbai in 1957 and thereafter spreading over 42 pages, its next 84 pages
the same title was reissued in 1984 by Narosa accommodating a hitherto unpublished MS of SR
Publishers. At that time, many scholars from far on the properties ofp(n) and T(n), dealing with
and wide, expressed their cherished hope that in congruence relations satisfied by these
the near future, other of his unpublished materials arithmetical functions, another of its 28 sheets
would be published. As a result of employing copied from his loose papers, held in Trinity
serious efforts and zeal in search of the missing College Library on assorted topics, including
MS, this long awaited release of the volume was notes on Reciprocal Functions, Approximate

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Summation of Series involving Ramanujan:S-
marvellous discoveries on prime numbers, Euler
products for Dirichlet series associated to
modularforms and Forty Identities etc. and lastly,
other unpublished materials including portions of
MS covering 175 pages. Of which, 117 pages
include SR's unpublished work relating to various
of his papers, especially Highly Composite
Number and On certain trigonometrical series ... ,
with Hardy's notings there on, one may find class
invariants listed by SR and a host of interesting
identities of an arithmetic nature. The remaining
portion include interesting letters from J. E.
Littlewood to G. H. Hardy, Hardy to G. N. Watson
etc., with a baring on SR's work and other different
letters of some significance. This section also
includes E. H. Neville's letter on SR, extracted
from Nature of 20th January, 1921. It also contains
a rare group photograph ofSR with others in 1916,
taken in front of Senate House at King's Parade
in Cambridge. It may be worth reporting that a
total of 68 relevant references in research papers
authored by Andrews, Atkin, Hardy, Raghavan,
Rankin, Rogers, SR, Watson and some others
those are enlisted in the present volume, will
obviously draw the attraction of enthusiastic
readers.
Andrews has appraised this document as to include
sources of SR's profound discoveries. While
briefing about this lost document, he has followed
on R. A. Rankin's description that it is a collection
of 87 loose sheets of work only on q-series and
also on other topics which are totalling more than
100 pages of mathematics. However, these sheets
occur in this long MS in a somewhat haphazard
order and some sheets contain writing on both
sides. As the long MS representing the work of
SR subsequent to January 1920, was despatched
to Hardy on 30th August, 1923 from Madras by F.
Dewsbury, the then Registrar of Madras
University, it is now evident that MS was written
after his return to India from England and during
the last year of SR's life. Further in his view, this
document was not at all lost, rather it was only
misplaced and found later on. To justify his
opinion, Andrews has put forward the background
about the reality, how those lose papers came to
Watson's possession and how it was found later
after carrying out a vigorous search. Besides this,
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Andrews has briefly accounted SR's work with
relevant references for the topics including q-
series Transformations, Partial and False Theta
Functions, Continued Fractions, Partitions and
Combinatorics, Theta Type Series involving in
definite Quadratic Forms, the famous discovery
in LNB - Mock Theta Functions, Modular
Equations and Relations.
In the short biography, Raghavan has paid homage
to SR as one of the greatest mathematicians to
have emerged, in last ten centuries. Biographical
sketches on SR may be found in Hardy's
remembrances, memoirs ofP. V. Seshu Aiyar and
R. Ramchandra Rao, an address by E H. Neville,
a review by L. J. Mordell etc. and in the most
rece~t delightful book on , The Man Who Knew
Infinity by R. Kanigel. Although SR is born at
Erode in Southern India but grew up in nearby
Kumbakonam (his father's working place) where
his education in Town High School, had started
at an age around seven. Before he was ten years
old, his extraordinary intellectual abilities came
to prominence and, he stood 1sl in class I, won
prizes and was recognised as quite an abnormal
boy. While at school, he taught himself
s
Trigonometry, rediscovered Euler expressions
for sine and cosine in circular and exponential
functions and studied G. C. Scar's book on, A
Synopsis of Elementary Results in Pure and
Applied Mathematics. After passing the
Matriculation Examination with distinction in
1903, he joined 1sl year Arts class in Government
College at Kombakonam. Because of negligence
to subjects other than Mathematics, he failed to
secure promotion in the 2 nd year class even after a
second attempt. His marriage to Smt. Janaki took
place in 1909 and due to serious illness, his formal
education came to an end. At that time of severe
hardship, with the help of his well wishers, he
could get a clerk's job in Madras Port Trust and
yet, published a paper on, Some Properties of
Bernoulli's Numbers, in JIMS 3 (1911). On the
advice of Seshu Aiyar, he wrote his famous letter
enclosing bare statements of 120 theorems, to G.
H. Hardy in Cambridge and due to the untiring
efforts of great Hardy and others, SR finally
reached England in 1914. In Cambridge, he wrote
several extremely significant papers and his well
known conjectures etc. Early in 1917, due to
serious illness, he was sent to England's Nursing
Homes where Hardy and his friends, often visited
him. However, his best work on congruence
properties C?fp(n) and T(n), was carried outatthat
time. In February 1918, Royal Society of London
honoured him with FRS and a little later, SR was
offered a fellowship ofTrinity College. On March
1919, he returned to India with a highly
deteriorated health condition and unfortunately his
life was cut short on 26th April, 1920. It is reported
that during the last year of his life, he always
remained busy doing his mathematics, in spite of
his severe pain. A Walk Through Ramanujan s
Garden may yet reveal many facts about this
outstanding scholar and his monumental
mathematical achievements of excellence.
In his Report on SR's mathematical work in
England, Hardy has confined himself to such
works (published/completed/on the point of
publication) those were done, since SR's arrival
in England in April 1914. He has remarked that
before coming to England, SR had in his
possession, a mass of unpublished materials
containing hundreds of most curious and
interesting formulae of which, some are definitely
proved and rest are only conjectures. Hardy had
high esteem and love for SR. As a great well-
wisQer, he lamented that progress in mathematical
research being hindered due to the advent of war,
SR's work remained unnoticed and unappreciated
by continental mathematicians. In the report, he
has listed SR's 12 research papers, those except
three, were published during 1914-1916. Out of
which, excluding three based on some definite
integrals, integrals connected with Gauss ssums
and Modular equations and approximations to
pi, the remaining nine papers dealt on infinite
series, highly composite numbers on analytic
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number theory, arithmetical functions etc.,
represent the work done for the most part in
England. Hardy added that although his account
on SR's work is fragmentary and incomplete,
however he attempted to give some idea of SR's
astonishing individuality and power.
The present enlarged volume is worth reading by
one and all. Narosa publishers really deserve our
sincere thanks and great appreciation, for
presenting this invalttable gift to a large number
of readers. Ramanujan is indeed one of the
greatest mathematicians of the world and
ofcourse, of a different category. We are all proud
of Ramanujan (1887-1920), the 20 th century
Indian genius with his uncanny manipulative
ability in arithmetic and algebra, who will always
inspire every scholar in general and the younger
generation in particular. His untimely demise is
an irreparable loss to the world of mathematics.
Hardy has said, "In him, India now possesses a
Pure Mathematician of the first order whose
achievements suggest the brightest hope of its
scientific future". In a letter to the Editor in
Nature, E. H. Neville in 1921, has mentioned him
as a 'lovable man and a great mathematician as
s
well as SR passing away, he considers as a
personal loss'. In his Presidential address to
London Mathematical Society in 1935, G N.
Watson has remarked, Ramanujan sdiscovery of
the mock theta functions makes it obvious that
his skill and ingenuity did not desert him at the
oncoming ofhis untimely end. Nobel Laureate S.
Chandrasekhar has rightly said, " ... he had gon.e
to Cambridge supported by eminent
mathematicians and has returned to Tridia with
every assurance that he could be considered, in
time as one ofthe most original mathematicians
ofthe century ... ".