Madhava

The History of Series and the Search for the Infinite

By nobeardwilson
  • 800 BCE

    Hindu Vedas

    The Vedas of the Hindu Faith mention infinity, "If you remove a part from infinity or add a part to infinity, still what remains is infinity."
  • Period: 800 BCE to 700

    Hindu Mathematicians

    Mathematics and religion are closely related in Hinduism, with infinity being described as early as The 8th Century BC
  • Period: 500 BCE to 200 BCE

    Ancient Greece

    Begins as philosophical debates surrounding the possibility of movement, and eventually are used to calculate irrational numbers.
  • 460 BCE

    Zeno Of Elea

    Zeno was a philosopher that denies the existence of motion on the basis that infinity can never be reached. Achilles and the tortoise
    Arrow problem
  • 250 BCE

    Archimedes

    Archimedes used exhaustion to approximate the value of pi. Archimedes calculates pi
  • 628

    Brahmagupta

    An Indian mathematician and astronomer with multiple contributions to both subjects including a set of rules for summing series.
  • Period: 1000 to 1500

    Europe's Dark Ages

    While Europe was in the Dark Ages mathematics and series continued to be explored in other parts of the world.
  • 1400

    Madhava and the Power Series

    Madhava develops the power series to calculate pi, and trigonometric functions, and uses convergence to show exact values exist for irrational numbers. Madhava-Gregory series
  • 1400

    Parameshvara

    Develops a series for for the sine function.
  • Period: 1500 to

    The Renaissance

    Europe returns to the world of mathmatics developing, and rediscovering math pushing the development of series closer to our modern undertstanding.

  • James Gregory

    Rediscovers series found by Madhava, along with Taylor series, and the fundamental theorem of calculus. Publishes his work and brings series to Europe. Taylor and Maclaurin Series

  • Nicolas Mercator

    Creates a series while also using a natural logarithm for the first time in print.

  • John Manchin

    Creates a quickly converging series to calculate pi to 100 decimal places

  • Leonhard Euler

    Euler uses multiple power series to solve problems in mathematics, proving the usefulness and versatility.Basel Problem
  • Period: to

    Modern Series

    Series usage in contemporary math is proving the usefulness of the tool. Series are a powerful tool for getting the most precise values of irrational numbers, but also can be used to solve problems that are elusive using finite calculations.