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 )
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.