Sander Pieter Zwegers (born April 16, 1975) is a Dutch mathematician who made a connection between

Maass form In mathematics, Maass forms or Maass wave forms are studied in the theory of automorphic forms. Maass forms are complex-valued smooth functions of the upper half plane, which transform in a similar way under the operation of a discrete subgroup \ ...

s and

Srinivasa Ramanujan Srinivasa Ramanujan (; born Srinivasa Ramanujan Aiyangar, ; 22 December 188726 April 1920) was an Indian mathematician. Though he had almost no formal training in pure mathematics, he made substantial contributions to mathematical analysis, ...

mock theta function In mathematics, a mock modular form is the holomorphic part of a harmonic weak Maass form, and a mock theta function is essentially a mock modular form of weight . The first examples of mock theta functions were described by Srinivasa Ramanuj ...

s in 2002. He was born in

Oosterhout Oosterhout (; from ''ooster'', "eastern", and ''hout'', "woods") is a municipality and a city in the southern Netherlands. The municipality had a population of in . Population centers The municipality of Oosterhout includes the following pla ...

. After a period at the

Max-Planck Institute The Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science (german: Max-Planck-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Wissenschaften e. V.; abbreviated MPG) is a formally independent non-governmental and non-profit association of German research institutes. ...

in Bonn, he became an assistant professor at the

University College Dublin University College Dublin (commonly referred to as UCD) ( ga, Coláiste na hOllscoile, Baile Átha Cliath) is a public research university in Dublin, Ireland, and a collegiate university, member institution of the National University of Ireland ...

in 2008. Since 2011, he has been is professor of

number theory Number theory (or arithmetic or higher arithmetic in older usage) is a branch of pure mathematics devoted primarily to the study of the integers and integer-valued functions. German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777–1855) said, "Math ...

at the

University of Cologne The University of Cologne (german: Universität zu Köln) is a university in Cologne, Germany. It was established in the year 1388 and is one of the most prestigious and research intensive universities in Germany. It was the sixth university to ...

Research

In 1976, the American mathematician George Andrews found what is nowadays known as the "

Lost Notebook Ramanujan's lost notebook is the manuscript in which the Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan recorded the mathematical discoveries of the last year (1919–1920) of his life. Its whereabouts were unknown to all but a few mathematicians until i ...

" of Ramanujan. It contains many remarkable results, including the mysterious

mock theta functions In mathematics, a mock modular form is the holomorphic part of a harmonic weak Maass form, and a mock theta function is essentially a mock modular form of weight . The first examples of mock theta functions were described by Srinivasa Ramanujan ...

. This notebook contains what many specialists regard as Ramanujan’s deepest work. It was Sander Zwegers who, as a PdD student, had groundbreaking ideas how to fit the mock theta functions into a broader context. His 2002 PhD thesis has led to numerous publications and international conferences.Peter Lynch
Timely reminder of a mathematical genius
The Irish Times, Dec 6, 2012. Zwegers' general area of interest is number theory. More specifically, he studies modular forms and variations thereof, such as Maass forms, mock modular forms, (indefinite) theta functions, and (Maass) Jacobi forms.

Works

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References

External links

* 1975 births 21st-century Dutch mathematicians Living people Number theorists People from Oosterhout {{Europe-mathematician-stub