Pietro Mengoli

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Pietro Mengoli

1625?-1686

Italian mathematician. Mengoli studied at Bologna, receiving doctorates in philosophy and civil and canon law. He was professor of arithmetic, then professor of mechanics, and finally professor of mathematics at Bologna, as well as becoming a parish priest. Mengoli studied infinite series, especially the harmonic series. He wrote on the theory of limits and infinite series, and found an infinite product expansion for pi divided by two. He also published works on astronomy, refraction in the atmosphere, and music theory.

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