Nilakantha Somayaji
Nilakantha Somayaji (नीलकण्ठ सोमयाजि) (
1444-
1544), from
Kerala, was a major
Indian mathematician and
astronomer of the
Kerala School of
astronomy and
mathematics and was a student of
Damodara. Among his many influential books, he wrote the comprehensive astronomical treatise
Tantrasamgraha in
1501. He also wrote the
Aryabhatiya Bhasya, which contains work on
infinite series expansions, problems of
algebra,
spherical geometry, and many results of
calculus.
Grahapareeksakrama is a manual on making observations in astronomy based on instruments of the time.
An interesting piece of Nilakantha's work is the derivation of Leibniz-Gregory series pi/4=1-(1/3)+(1/5)-.........
Nilakantha's derivation the of above series is all the more interesting because it is derived using the geometrical definition of
π as the ratio of circumference and diameter of a circle.
*
Indian mathematicians*
Math encyclopedia notice
