# MADHAVA: THE FOUNDER OF THE KERALA SCHOOL

Madhava sometimes called the greatest mathematician-astronomer of medieval India. He came from the town of Sangamagrama in Kerala, near the southern tip of India, and founded the Kerala School of Astronomy and Mathematics in the late 14th Century.

Although almost all of Madhava’s original work is lost, he is referred to in the work of later Kerala mathematicians as the source for several infinite series expansions (including the sine, cosine, tangent and arctangent functions and the value of π), representing the first steps from the traditional finite processes of algebra to considerations of the infinite, with its implications for the future development of calculus and mathematical analysis.

Unlike most previous cultures, which had been rather nervous about the concept of infinity, Madhava was more than happy to play around with infinity, particularly infinite series. He showed how, although one can be approximated by adding a half plus a quarter plus an eighth plus a sixteenth, etc, (as even the ancient Egyptians and Greeks had known), the exact total of one can only be achieved by adding up infinitely many fractions.