Complex Analysis - Eberhard Freitag and Rolf Busam

This is another introduction to complex analysis, but one that goes a lot further than the other ones I've read. The first few chapters are a standard-ish introduction, albeit less friendly than the other "Introduction to" books that I've read. The latter part of the book really picks up the pace, though, with elliptic functions and their doubly-periodic nature, and then onto elliptic modular forms. The final chapter covers analytic number theory (including Riemann's zeta function).

As I was reading this on the train I wasn't really able to study the book properly, so I ended up kind of letting it flow past me and picking up what I could. Elliptic modular forms, previously handwavey magic that people talked about in relation to Fermat's Last Theorem, is now a concrete thing to me, albeit one I don't understand.

It does appear to be a good book. Without the time and effort to properly understand it, it was a bit of a slog to get through, but I really do want to have another crack at the second half, to see if I can build up some intuitive understanding.

The book is translated from the German, so sometimes the choice of language is a little odd, but overall the text is readable. I just need to understand the concepts!

Posted 2016-09-10.