Extensions of classical hypergeometric identities of Bailey and Whipple

Abstract

We obtain extensions of classical hypergeometric identities of Bailey and Whipple that transform nearly-poised and very-well-poised series to Saalschützian series, Saalschützian series to Saalschützian series, and very-well-poised and nearly-poised series to very-well-poised series. We employ a method in which summations and transformations of lower-order series are used to obtain transformations of higher-order series. By taking limits, we also obtain extensions of two classical quadratic transformations of Whipple and Bailey. Furthermore, we show how a number of other well-known results regarding hypergeometric series follow as special cases of our results.

25 pages, a section containing extensions of classical quadratic transformations has been added