Nathan Jacob Fine (22 October 1916 in Philadelphia – 18 November 1994 in Deerfield Beach, Florida) was an American mathematician who worked on basic hypergeometric series. He is best known for his lecture notes on the subject which for four decades served as an inspiration to experts in the field until they were finally published as a book. He solved the Jeep problem in 1946.

Nathan Jacob Fine
Born(1916-10-22)October 22, 1916
Philadelphia, USA
DiedNovember 18, 1994(1994-11-18) (aged 78)
Deerfield Beach, Florida, USA
CitizenshipAmerican
Alma materUniversity of Pennsylvania
OccupationMathematician
Notable workBasic Hypergeometric Series and Applications

Nathan Fine retired in 1978 as a professor at Pennsylvania State University. Prior to that he had been on the faculties of the University of Pennsylvania and Cornell University. For a brief period (1946–1947) he also worked at the Operations Evaluation Group, affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Beside the book he published about 40 papers in several fields of mathematics. He is known for the Rogers-Fine identity.[1]

Nathan Fine received his Ph.D. in 1946 from University of Pennsylvania, where he was a student of Antoni Zygmund. Fine was at the Institute for Advanced Study for the three academic years 1953–1954, 1958–1959, and 1959–1960.[2] Fine's doctoral students include J. J. Price.

He wrote the book Basic Hypergeometric Series and Applications ISBN 0-8218-1524-5.[3][4]

Selected publications

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References

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  1. ^ Laughlin, James Mc (22 September 2017). "Chapter 9. The Rogers-Fine identity". Topics and Methods in q-Series. pp. 71–79. ISBN 9789813223387.
  2. ^ "Natham J. Fine". Institute for Advanced Study. 9 December 2019.
  3. ^ Askey, Richard (1989). "Review: Nathan J. Fine, Basic hypergeometric series and applications". Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. (N.S.). 21 (1): 130–132. doi:10.1090/s0273-0979-1989-15789-3.
  4. ^ Fine, Nathan Jacob (1988). Basic Hypergeometric Series and Applications. ISBN 9780821815243; pbk edition{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link)
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