The Basel Problem and Summing Rational Functions over Integers

We provide a general method to evaluate convergent sums of the form ∑_{k∈Z} R(k) where R is a rational function with complex coefficients. The method is entirely elementary and does not require any calculus beyond some standard limits and convergence criteria. It is inspired by a geometric solution to the famous Basel Problem given by Wästlund (2010), so we begin by demonstrating the method on the Basel Problem to serve as a pilot application. We conclude by applying our ideas to prove Euler’s factorisation for sin x which he originally used to solve the Basel Problem.