Convergence acceleration of series through a variational approach ✩

By means of a variational approach we find new series representations both for well-known mathematical constants, such as π and the Catalan constant, and for mathematical functions, such as the Riemann zeta function. The series that we have found are all exponentially convergent and provide quite useful analytical approximations. With limited effort our method can be applied to obtain similar exponentially convergent series for a large class of mathematical functions. © 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.