Report: closing ceremony
To celebrate the “National Mathematics Day” on the occasion of 133rd Birth anniversary of Srinivasa Ramanujan, one of the greatest Mathematician of India, Department of Mathematics, JCBUST has organized various events (Expert talk, Debate Competition, PPT presentation, Poster presentation) on 22nd December, 2020. In the end session, the resource person is Prof. Ashok Kumar Agarwal, who is a well-known number theorist in India. Prof Agarwal received his PhD degree from IIT Delhi in 1981 and carried out postdoctoral work from the Pennsylvania State University USA during 1984 to1986 and worked as Assistant professor there only for next 4 years. He worked as professor at Centre for Advanced Study in Mathematics, Panjab University Chandigarh from 1998 to 2011. After that he worked as Emeritus Scientist at CSIR, Govt of India from 2012 to 2014 and an Emeritus Fellow at University Grants Commission Govt of India during 2015 to 2017. Prof. Agarwal has more than 100 publications in the journals of international repute and has visited various international institutes all around the world during his international collaborations. He has won numerous awards and distinctions as following:
1. He chaired number theory session of the 94th Annual Meeting of the American Mathematical Society held at Atlanta, USA in 1988.
2. He was included in Marquis “Who’s who in East America in 1990”
3. He acted as President in Society for Special Functions and their Applications for 2007 to 2017.
4. He is Editor-in-Chief, Society for Special Functions and their Applications since 2000.
5. He is acted as President for Indian Mathematical Society, 2008-09
Due to his endless contributions and achievements, Indian Mathematical Society has announced A. K. AGARWAL AWARD under his name to be given every year for the best publication in any journal in the world in the specified areas.
In his wonderful talk, Prof. Agarwal gives a brief introduction about the legendary genius of India, Srinivasa Ramanujan’s. He was ranked among the all-time greats like Euler and Jacobi. Ramanujan lived just for 32 years but during this short span he produced such theorems and formulae which remain unfathomable in the present age of super computers. He left behind him about 4000 formulae and theorems. Prof. Agarwal also shared his thoughts about Rmanujan’s personality. He was deeply religious and for him the zero represented the Absolute Reality. Researchers are still struggling to understand the source of his remarkable genius in mathematics.
After the talk, the results for the debate, ppt and poster presentations are announced by the corresponding event coordinators. The program is ended by congratulating the winners as well as the participants and with a vote of thanks by Dr. Neetu Gupta.