Wallis's product, Brouncker's continued fraction, and Leibniz's series (Q1165224)

The author tries to reconstruct the methods W. Brouncker used to represent as continued fraction and to obtain close numerical bounds for it. He gives two proofs for Brouncker's continued fraction: one, introductive, with use of Leibniz series, the other without. This latter one, the author believes, could have been performed by Brouncker. The author does not succeed in deriving Brouncker's numerical values. Yet, the basic idea, used in this attempt, seems promising and should pursued further. In the article modern methods are widely applied; besides, it is writ-ten with decidedly too much hindsight. In a certain sense this is ahistoric. In the present reviewer's opinion any historically plausible reconstruction of Brouncker's procedures should be based on the investigations of Brun, Hofmann, and Whiteside and should take into consideration especially the numerical methods developed in table-construction in the first half of the 17th century.