Mathematician:Pietro Mengoli

Italian mathematician who spent most of his working life as a professor at the University of Bologna.

Also ordained into the Priesthood.

Occupies the philosophical transitional ground between the work of Bonaventura Cavalieri and that of Newton and Leibniz.

Nationality
Italian

History

 * Born: 1626, Bologna, Italy
 * 1648: Appointed Professor of Arithmetic at the University of Bologna
 * 1649: Appointed Professor of Mechanics at the University of Bologna
 * 1650: Awarded a doctorate in philosophy by the University of Bologna
 * 1653: Awarded a doctorate in civil and canon law by the University of Bologna
 * 1660: Appointed a priest in the parish of Santa Maria Maddelena in Bologna
 * 1668: Appointed Professor of Mathematics at the University of Bologna
 * Died: 1686, Bologna, Italy

Theorems and Definitions

 * Posed the Basel Problem in 1644
 * Proved that the sum of the alternating harmonic series is equal to the natural logarithm of $2$ in 1650
 * Rediscovered the proof that the Sum of Reciprocals is Divergent

Books and Papers

 * 1650: Novae quadraturae arithmeticae, seu de additione fractionum
 * 1659: Geometriae speciosae elementa
 * 1670: Speculazioni musicali
 * 1672: Circolo