School of Mathematics Seminars and Lectures
Infinite Series in Ancient India
by Prof. Kim Plofker (Union College, New York, USA)
Thursday, December 8, 2011
from
to
(Asia/Kolkata)
at Colaba Campus ( AG-77 )
at Colaba Campus ( AG-77 )
Description |
We're used to thinking of infinite series as a topic in calculus, developed mostly as a result of the invention of calculus in seventeenth-century Europe. But important results about series and sums were also found and used in some remarkable ways by mathematicians in India centuries earlier. We'll discuss some of the work underlying notable discoveries such as the Madhava-Leibniz series for pi, the Madhava-Gregory series for the arctangent, and the Madhava-Newton series for sine and cosine. |