Thursday, February 20, 2014

History of Math-Fibonacci

Growing up, we always here about this thing called a Fibonacci sequence. I never really understood it until I reached high school. Now I look at this sequence and these numbers all the time. But where did these magic numbers come from?

Fibonacci, also known as Leonardo of Pisa, was an Italian mathematician from the 13th century. He is considered one of the greatest mathematicians from the medieval times. In the year 1202, Fibonacci traveled around Europe and Northern Africa promoting his book, Liber Abaci (The Book of Abacus). This book gained widespread recognition. First of all, in this book Fibonacci introduced the Hindu-Arabic number system into Europe. Secondly, n this famous book was the Fibonacci sequence; one of the world's most famous sequences.

This sequence is famous for a couple of different reasons. I would say that the most important reason is because we see this sequence of numbers everywhere in nature. Even in Fibonacci's original question asking "How many rabbits are created in one year with one pair of rabbits?"

It is unknown how Fibonacci created this sequence. Some believe that he was not the one to create it. He is just the one to make it famous.

1 comment:

  1. If your point is the sequence (coherent), you'd want more info on it. In his book, it's from that puzzle we did in class. Why, how did it become so famous? What are some misconceptions. (complete, content) After that, a summary (consolidated).

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