Critical Acclaim for Pi and the AGM:

"Fortunately we have the Borwein's beautiful book . . . explores in the first five chapters the glorious world so dear to Ramanujan . . . would be a marvelous text book for a graduate course."--Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society

"What am I to say about this quilt of a book? One is reminded of Debussy who, on being asked by his harmony teacher to explain what rules he was following as he improvised at the piano, replied, "Mon plaisir." The authors are cultured mathematicians. They have selected what has amused and intrigued them in the hope that it will do the same for us. Frankly, I cannot think of a more provocative and generous recipe for writing a book . . . (it) is cleanly, even beautifully written, and attractively printed and composed. The book is unique. I cannot think of any other book in print which contains more than a smidgen of the material these authors have included.--SIAM Review

"If this subject begins to sound more interesting than it did in the last newspaper article on 130 million digits of Pi, I have partly succeeded. To succeed completely I will have gotten you interested enough to read the delightful and important book by the Borweins."--American Mathematical Monthly

"The authors are to be commended for their careful presentation of much of the content of Ramanujan's famous paper, 'Modular Equations and Approximations to Pi'. This material has not heretofore appeared in book form. However, more importantly, Ramanujan provided no proofs for many of the claims that he made, and so the authors provided many of the missing details . . . The Borweins, indeed have helped us find the right roads."--Mathematics ofComputation

The study of lattice sums began when early investigators wanted to go from mechanical properties of crystals to the properties of the atoms and ions from which they were built (the literature of Madelung's constant). A parallel literature was built around the optical properties of regular lattices of atoms (initiated by Lord Rayleigh, Lorentz and Lorenz). For over a century many famous scientists and mathematicians have delved into the properties of lattices, sometimes unwittingly duplicating the work of their predecessors. Here, at last, is a comprehensive overview of the substantial body of knowledge that exists on lattice sums and their applications. The authors also provide commentaries on open questions, and explain modern techniques which simplify the task of finding new results in this fascinating and ongoing field. Lattice sums in one, two, three, four and higher dimensions are covered.