George E. Andrews

Affiliation: Pennsylvania State University

Email: andrews@math.psu.edu

Title Of Talk: Reflections on the Rogers-Ramanujan Identities in Statistical Mechanics

Abstract: In this talk, I shall describe my initiation by Rodney Baxter into the world of exactly solved models. Much of the talk will examine how the first discoveries were made that led to today's flourishing interaction between q-series and statistical mechanics. I begin with the events of 1979 surrounding the original hard hexagon model, then move to 1983 for the eight-vertex SOS model and finally to the 1986 lattice gas generalization of the hard hexagon model. The perspective throughout will be that of a somewhat diffident number theorist who was totally amazed that his beloved Rogers-Ramanujan identities possessed importance so far afield from number theory. The impact of physics on the direction of research in partitions and q-series will be emphasized.


Last update made Tue Jan 28 15:16:06 EST 2003.
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