- Membership
- Publications
- Meetings
- Competitions
- Community
- Programs
- Students
- High School Teachers
- Faculty and Departments
- Underrepresented Groups
- MAA Awards
- MAA Grants
- News
- About MAA

This is the title page of Seki Kowa’s (1642-1708) Katsuyo sampo [Essentials of Mathematics], 4 vols., published posthumously in 1712. It is a collection of Seki’s discoveries including: an accurate value of π to 10 decimal places and the computation of the volume of a sphere using a “method of circles”, enri; “Newton’s” interpolation formula; properties of spirals and ellipses; derivation of “Bernoulli” numbers and the “Pappus-Guldin “ theorem.

These are two pages in vol I showing the table employed to obtain “Bernoulli” numbers. They are given in the right column and were obtained by a technique called Ruisai Shosa-ho.
Frank J. Swetz and Victor J. Katz, "Mathematical Treasures - Seki Kowa's Essentials of Mathematics," Loci (January 2011)
Mathematical Association of America
P: (800) 331-1622
F: (301) 206-9789
E: maaservice@maa.org
Copyright © 2013
