Ramanujan’s Growing Influence

Abstract

In the first half of the twentieth century, the only source to understanding Ramanujan’s work was Hardy’s lectures, besides the papers of Ramanujan. Students today are much more fortunate in that there are several books about Ramanujan’s life, the mathematics in his Notebooks, and about the work in his research papers. Now there is also a journal devoted to all areas of mathematics influenced by Ramanujan. With Ramanujan’s mathematics continuing to play a major role in current research, this article describes how these books and the journal would be helpful in attracting students to a study of Ramanujan’s work and how they could be used to offer courses at school and college levels.

This article appeared in The Hindu, India’s national newspaper in December 2003 in connection with the start of the annual Ramanujan conferences at SASTRA University.