Ramanujan Auditorium

THE RAMANUJAN TAU FUNCTION

M. Ram Murty

Queen's University

We will give a survey lecture regarding the famous

tau function of Ramanujan. We will indicate how his three

conjectures regarding this function motivated the growth of the

theory of modular forms, as well as its intimate connection

to algebraic geometry and the Langlands program. We will

discuss some recent developments and indicate open problems.

The talk will be accessible to a general mathematical audience.