Leonhard Euler: Most Prolific Mathematician in History

Abstract

With the exception of Ramanujan, the Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler was unrivalled in the manipulation of infinite series. Euler laid the foundations of the theory of partitions where Ramanujan excelled by the use of identities for infinite series and products. After describing the life of Euler, a selection of some of his great contributions are discussed, some of which have strong links with the work of Ramanujan, such as the theory of partitions and q-hypergeometric series, the Ramanujan taxi-cab equation, and sums involving the roots of unity.

A slightly abridged version of this article appeared in The Hindu, India’s National Newspaper, in December 2001 for Ramanujan’s 114th birth anniversary.