Gaurav Bhatnagar

Gaurav Bhatnagar is a mathematician who communicates the beauty of mathematics, engineers rich mathematical experiences for his students, and subjects them to a never-ending stream of bad jokes.

Research and expository writing

It was his insight into algebraical formulae, transformation of infinite series, and so forth, that was most amazing. On this side most certainly I have never met his equal, and I can compare him only with Euler and Jacobi.

~Hardy (page XXXV, Collected papers of Srinivasa Ramanujan)
Ramanujan’s bust at the Math dept, University of Wisconsin at Madison, pic taken in 2023 during my visit to Tejasi.

My research interests are in Special Functions, Combinatorics and Elementary Number Theory. In particular, I am interested in Basic Hypergeometric series and their extensions over root systems and to Elliptic Hypergeometric series, continued fractions and elliptic combinatorics.

In all of these, the common thread is Ramanujan. I was attracted to my thesis advisor Steve Milne because he spoke about his theorems extending Ramanujan’s work.

Click on the following to get various views of my research.

My collaborators

Expository work on Ramanujan’s mathematics

Selfie with Ramanujan transformed using Chat GPT 4.0 (Mar 2025)

I have created a site called Ramanujan Explained. It contains lectures on Ramanujan’s identities. The lectures are at a undergraduate level — we cover topics which are usually not covered in undergraduate math courses. There are also lecture notes which are updated regularly. These include exercises, so you can learn the techniques for yourself. Enjoy!

Here are some articles and papers meant for general or research audiences which contain some element of Ramanujan’s identities.