The work of George Andrews: a Madison perspective. (Q1290728)

In his own contribution to this volume, George Andrews has touched on a number of themes in his research by looking at the early influences on him of Bailey, Fine, MacMahon, Rademacher and Ramanujan. In this paper, I propose to present a survey of his work organized on a different theme. George has often alluded to the fact that his 1975--76 year in Madison was extremely important in his work. So it seems a reasonable project to survey his career from a Madison perspective. To make this story complete, I begin with Andrews' work in the late 1960's that led inexorably to our eventual lengthy collaboration. The year in Madison set in motion three seemingly separate strands of research that were fundamental in much of his subsequent work. Then I briefly describe his collaboration with Rodney Baxter and the discovery of the crank.