Joseph Ser

Joseph Ser (*1875) was a French mathematician, of whom little was known till now. He published 45 papers between 1900 and 1954, among which four monographs, edited in Paris by Gauthier-Villars. In the main, he worked on number theory and infinite series. He died after 1954; the precise date is unknown.

He got important results in the domain of factorial series. His representation of Euler's constant as a series of rational terms is well known. It was used in 1926 by Paul Appell (1855-1930), in an unsuccessful attempt to prove the irrationality of Euler's constant.

References

* Ser, Joseph : "Sur une expression de la fonction ζ(s) de Riemann (Upon an expression for Riemann's ζ function)". CRAS (Paris) vol.182(1926),1075-1077

*Ayoub, Raymond G.: "Partial triumph or total failure ?" The mathematical Intelligencer, vol.7, No 2(1985),55-58. This paper explains exactly Appell's mistake (4 - Appell and the irrationality of Euler's constant).