Kerala school infinite series
Series infinitas para seno, coseno y pi (escuela de Kerala)
- Date
- c. 1400 · confidence medium
- Place
- Sangamagrama (Irinjalakuda), Kerala, India
- Credited to
- Madhava of Sangamagrama
- People
- 👤 Madhava de Sangamagrama1340–1425
- Field
- Knowledge & symbols
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What was discovered
Power series expansions for sine, cosine and arctangent, including the series pi/4 = 1 - 1/3 + 1/5 - ..., with estimates of the error term. They anticipate Newton, Gregory and Leibniz by more than two centuries.
The results are known through the Yuktibhasa (c. 1530); there is no evidence of transmission to Europe, and the series were independently rediscovered in the 17th century.
What it led to
- calculation of pi to eleven decimal places
- the mathematics of Nilakantha and Jyesthadeva