Hypergeometric Functions, My Love

Book excerpt: The classical story - of the hypergeometric functions, the configuration space of 4 points on the projective line, elliptic curves, elliptic modular functions and the theta functions - now evolves, in this book, to the story of hypergeometric funktions in 4 variables, the configuration space of 6 points in the projective plane, K3 surfaces, theta functions in 4 variables. This modern theory has been established by the author and his collaborators in the 1990's; further development to different aspects is expected. It leads the reader to a fascinating 4-dimensional world. The author tells the story casually and visually in a plain language, starting form elementary level such as equivalence relations, the exponential function, ... Undergraduate students should be able to enjoy the text.