Bressoud’s “Easy Proof of the Rogers-Ramanujan Identities” and some unexpected consequences

When/Where:

March 11, 2014, at 1:55pm, in LIT 368

Abstract:

A multiple series generalization of the Rogers-Ramanujan identities (analytic form) was given in 1974. We begin this talk with a brief discussion of that result and its proof. Then in 1983, David Bressoud published: “An easy proof of the Rogers-Ramanujan identities,” and the first half of the paper is exactly that. The paper concludes with a multiple series generalization that has unexpected consequences. We shall examine the Bressoud paper in light of the Bailey chain machinery and examine the unexpected consequences.