Crank of a partition

In number theory, the crank of an integer partition is a certain number associated with the partition. The term was first introduced without a definition by Freeman Dyson in a 1944 paper published in Eureka, a journal published by the Mathematics Society of Cambridge University. Dyson then gave a list of properties this yet-to-be-defined quantity should have. In 1988, George E. Andrews and Frank Garvan discovered a definition for the crank satisfying the properties hypothesized for it by Dyson.