The Man of Numbers

by Keith Devlin

Overview

Leonardo of Pisa-better known today as Fibonacci-was the first Westerner to recognize the power of the Hindu-Arabic number system (featuring the numerals 0 through 9), which offered a much simpler method of calculation than the finger reckoning and cumbersome Roman numerals used at the time. His book Liberabbaci (The book of Calculation) remade the West as the dominant force in science, technology, and large-scale international commerce. Leonardo of Pisa is best known today for discovering the Fibonacci sequence of numbers appearing in biological structures throughout nature, but despite the ubiquity of his discoveries, he has largely slipped from the pages of history. Keith Devlin re-creates the life and enduring legacy of this brilliant yet overlooked mathematician.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781408822487
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Publication date:	11/28/2012
Pages:	192
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 1.25(h) x 9.00(d)

About the Author

Keith Devlin is a Senior Researcher and Executive Director at Stanford's H-STAR institute, which he co-founded. He is also a Consulting Professor in the Department of Mathematics, and a co-founder of the Stanford Media X research network. NPR's "Math Guy," he is the author of more than twenty-eight books, including The Math Gene. He lives in Palo Alto, California.

Hometown:

Palo Alto, California

Date of Birth:

March 16, 1947

Place of Birth:

Hull, England

Education:

B.S., King's College, London, 1968; Ph.D., University of Bristol, 1971

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments vii

Chapter 0 Your Days Are Numbered " 1

Chapter 1 A Bridge of Numbers " 11

Chapter 2 A Child of Pisa 27

Chapter 3 A Mathematical Journey 37

Chapter 4 Sources 47

Chapter 5 Liber abbaci 61

Chapter 6 Fame 87

Chapter 7 The Fibonacci Aftermath 103

Chapter 8 Whose Revolution? 119

Chapter 9 Fibonacci's Legacy-in Stone, Parchment, and Rabbits 143

Notes 159

Bibliography 167

Index 173

Editorial Reviews

When Fabonacci (c.1170-c.1250) acquired the open secret that revolutionized western arithmetic, he was just a young boy from Pisa traveling with his father in North Africa. It was there that he learned the Hindu-Arabic number system that he would come to realize was far preferable to the cumbersome system of Roman numerals. In 1202, he sat down to compose Liber abbaci (The Book of Calculation), a text that would facilitate business transactions and thus spur commerce of every conceivable type. Keith Devlin's The Man of Numbers recaptures the man behind the numbers we all take for granted.

A must-read for anyone interested in the history of math, including undergraduates, mathematicians, and amateur historians.” —Library Journal

“The author…is adept at explaining esoteric concepts at the heart of old arithmetic problems, allowing readers to peer into the mind of a medieval Italian businessman.” —The Wall Street Journal

“A wonderful and vivid tale about the father of modern mathematics” —Shelf Awareness

“Devlin illuminates one of the most remarkable and underappreciated episodes in cultural history… A surprising visit to a forgotten well-spring of modern thought.” —Booklist

“Three cheers for Leonardo Pisano… A wonderful book for history-of-science buffs.” —Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher

Three cheers for Leonardo Pisano, nicknamed Fibonacci, heralded by NPR's "Math Guy" Devlin (Mathematics Education for a New Era: Video Games as a Medium for Learning, 2011, etc.)as the man who introduced Hindu-Arabic numbers (0 to 9) and rules of arithmetic to Europe in the 13th century.

The authorwrites that by far the most important contribution that Pisano native made to Western culture was not the Fibonacci numbers (the series in which each term is the sum of the two previous terms, e.g., 1,1,2,3,5,8,13—celebrated inThe Da Vinci Code) but the replacement of Roman numerals with the familiar 10 digits and place notation. That was a boon to merchants and bankers, moneychangers and tax collectors, just when the world was poised for the science and technology discoveries of the Renaissance. It all came about because Pisano's father, a customs official, took his teenage son with him to North Africa, where the boy learned about the numerical system that Arab traders had brought from India. Devlin makes clear that he was not a passive transmitter of new knowledge but a gifted thinker whose magisterialLiber Abaci(Book of Calculation), published in 1202, and later popularizations, as well as works in algebra and geometry, mark him as one of mathematics' great minds. As for the series, Pisano wrote that it was known early on to Indian scholars, and he stated it as a problem to determine how many rabbits a fertile pair would produce in a year "when it is the nature of them in a single month to bear another pair. And in the second month those born to bear also."

A wonderful book for history-of-science buffs that will also amuse math teachers, because the many problems and solutions included are simply medieval versions of the word problems that are the bane of many high-school students.

Kirkus Reviews