From July 31 through August 3,1997, the Pennsylvania State University hosted the Topics in Number Theory Conference. The conference was organized by Ken Ono and myself. By writing the preface, I am afforded the opportunity to express my gratitude to Ken for beng the inspiring and driving force behind the whole conference. Without his energy, enthusiasm and skill the entire event would never have occurred. We are extremely grateful to the sponsors of the conference: The National Sci ence Foundation, The Penn State Conference Center and the Penn State Depart ment of Mathematics. The object in this conference was to provide a variety of presentations giving a current picture of recent, significant work in number theory. There were eight plenary lectures: H. Darmon (McGill University), "Non-vanishing of L-functions and their derivatives modulo p. " A. Granville (University of Georgia), "Mean values of multiplicative functions. " C. Pomerance (University of Georgia), "Recent results in primality testing. " C. Skinner (Princeton University), "Deformations of Galois representations. " R. Stanley (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), "Some interesting hyperplane arrangements. " F. Rodriguez Villegas (Princeton University), "Modular Mahler measures. " T. Wooley (University of Michigan), "Diophantine problems in many variables: The role of additive number theory. " D. Zeilberger (Temple University), "Reverse engineering in combinatorics and number theory. " The papers in this volume provide an accurate picture of many of the topics presented at the conference including contributions from four of the plenary lectures."

Robert A. Rankin, one of the world's foremost authorities on modular forms and a founding editor of The Ramanujan Journal, died on January 27, 2001, at the age of 85. Rankin had broad interests and contributed fundamental papers in a wide variety of areas within number theory, geometry, analysis, and algebra. To commemorate Rankin's life and work, the editors have collected together 25 papers by several eminent mathematicians reflecting Rankin's extensive range of interests within number theory. Many of these papers reflect Rankin's primary focus in modular forms. It is the editors' fervent hope that mathematicians will be stimulated by these papers and gain a greater appreciation for Rankin's contributions to mathematics.
This volume would be an inspiration to students and researchers in the areas of number theory and modular forms.

Robert A. Rankin, one of the world's foremost authorities on modular forms and a founding editor of The Ramanujan Journal, died on January 27, 2001, at the age of 85. Rankin had broad interests and contributed fundamental papers in a wide variety of areas within number theory, geometry, analysis, and algebra. To commemorate Rankin's life and work, the editors have collected together 25 papers by several eminent mathematicians reflecting Rankin's extensive range of interests within number theory. Many of these papers reflect Rankin's primary focus in modular forms. It is the editors' fervent hope that mathematicians will be stimulated by these papers and gain a greater appreciation for Rankin's contributions to mathematics.
This volume would be an inspiration to students and researchers in the areas of number theory and modular forms.

From July 31 through August 3,1997, the Pennsylvania State University hosted the Topics in Number Theory Conference. The conference was organized by Ken Ono and myself. By writing the preface, I am afforded the opportunity to express my gratitude to Ken for beng the inspiring and driving force behind the whole conference. Without his energy, enthusiasm and skill the entire event would never have occurred. We are extremely grateful to the sponsors of the conference: The National Sci ence Foundation, The Penn State Conference Center and the Penn State Depart ment of Mathematics. The object in this conference was to provide a variety of presentations giving a current picture of recent, significant work in number theory. There were eight plenary lectures: H. Darmon (McGill University), "Non-vanishing of L-functions and their derivatives modulo p. " A. Granville (University of Georgia), "Mean values of multiplicative functions. " C. Pomerance (University of Georgia), "Recent results in primality testing. " C. Skinner (Princeton University), "Deformations of Galois representations. " R. Stanley (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), "Some interesting hyperplane arrangements. " F. Rodriguez Villegas (Princeton University), "Modular Mahler measures. " T. Wooley (University of Michigan), "Diophantine problems in many variables: The role of additive number theory. " D. Zeilberger (Temple University), "Reverse engineering in combinatorics and number theory. " The papers in this volume provide an accurate picture of many of the topics presented at the conference including contributions from four of the plenary lectures."