![]()
where,
![]()
with
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and
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Here
is the rising factorial:
Some of the ingredients for the proof of Theorem 5, which are detailed in
[11], are the following. Our first step is to write (7.2) as a sum after
replacing the E by K and using (5.7). One then uses an identity of
Clausen's which allows one to write the square of a hypergeometric function
in
terms of a generalized hypergeometric
, namely, for all k one has
Even with Theorem 5, our work is not complete. We still have to compute
For N=58 given that Ramanujan [26] and Weber [38] have
calculated for us, verification by this method is somewhat easier though
it still requires a tractable form of
. Actually, more sophisticated
number-theoretic techniques exist for computing
(these numbers are called
singular moduli). A description of such techniques, including a
reconstruction of how Ramanujan might have computed the various singular moduli
he presents in [26] is presented by Watson in a long series of
papers commencing with [36]; and some more recent derivations are given
in [11] and [30]. An inspection of Theorem 5 shows that all
constants in Series 1 are determined from
. Knowing
is
equivalent to determining that the number 1103 is correct.
It is less clear how one explicitly calculates in algebraic form,
except by brute force, and a considerable amount of brute force is required; but
a numerical calculation to any reasonable accuracy is easily obtained from (7.3)
and 1103 appears! The reader is encouraged to try this to, say, 16 digits.
This presumably is what Ramanujan observed. Ironically, when Gosper computed 17
million digits of
using Sum 1, he had no mathematical proof that Sum 1
actually converged to
. He compared ten million digits of the
calculation to a previous calculation of Kanada et al. This verification that
Sum 1 is correct to ten million places also provided the first complete proof
that
is as advertised above. A nice touch --- that the calculation
of the sum should prove itself as it goes.
Roughly this works as follows. One knows enough about the exact algebraic nature
of the components of and
to know that if the purported sum (of
positive terms) were incorrect, then before one reached 3 million digits, this
sum must have ceased to agree with
. Notice that the components of Sum 1
are related to the solution of an equation of degree 58, but virtually no
irrationality remains in the final packaging. Once again, there are very good
number-theoretic reasons, presumably unknown to Ramanujan, why this must be so
(58 is at least a good candidate number for such a reduction). Ramanujan's
insight into this marvelous simplification remains obscure.
Ramanujan [26] gives 14 other series for
, some others almost
as spectacular as Sum 1 --- and one can indeed derive some even more spectacular
related series.
[1]
( Added in proof)
Many related series due to Borwein
and Borwein and to Chudnovsky and Chudnovsky appear in papers in Ramanujan
Revisited, Academic Press, 1988.
He almost gives no explanation as to their genesis, saying only that there are ``corresponding theories'' so the standard theory (as sketched in section 5) from which they follow. Hardy, quoting Mordell, observed that ``it is unfortunate that Ramanujan has not developed the corresponding theories''. By methods analogous to those used above, all his series can be derived from the classical theory [11]. Again it is unclear what passage Ramanujan took to them, but it must in some part have diverged from ours.
We conclude by writing down another extraordinary series of Ramanujan's, which also derives from the same general body of theory.