Indian boffins were "ahead of Newton"

A PROFESSOR at the University of Manchester said that pandits in the state of Kerala discovered the infinite series in calculus in the 14th century, well ahead of Isaac Newton and Gottfried Liebnitz.

They also discovered the pi series and calculated it to nine, 10 and 17 decimal places, according to Physorg.

The discoveries of Madhava and Nilakantha of the Keralese school mean that they should be considered geniuses on a par with Newton, said professor George Gheverghese Joseph. He believes that the knowledge garnered in Kerala may have been transmitted to the West via Jesuit missionaries.

Nilakantha Somayajin, in his work Siddhanta Darpanam (AD 1442), gives accurate dimensions of the Sun, Moon and the other visible planets.

His teacher, Parameshvara, correctly describes eclipses in his book Goladipika. "The Moon is the hiding object of the Sun, and of the Moon [the hiding object] is the huge shadow of the earth. This shadow of the earth will always be at the seventh sign from the Sun, moving with a velocity equal to the Sun's." He correctly describes the planets, the Sun and earth as spherical and attempts to give their dimensions.

Indian civilisation is credited with the concept of zero (shunya, sifer). There's more, here. µ

L'INQ
Pi equals four, or three, or something