Includes bibliographical references and index.

The Rogers-Ramanujan identities are a pair of infinite series--infinite product identities that were first discovered in 1894. Over the past several decades, these identities, and identities of similar type, have found applications in number theory, combinatorics, Lie algebra and vertex operator algebra theory, physics (especially statistical mechanics), and computer science (especially algorithmic proof theory). Presented clearly and coherently, An Invitation to the Rogers-Ramanujan Identities is the first book entirely devoted to the Rogers-Ramanujan identities and includes related historical material that is unavailable elsewhere.