Fibonacci

Category
People (Mathematics)
Begin
1170
End
1250
Region
Europe
Reference
Excerpts from Books and Wikipedia
"Fibonacci was born around 1170 to Guglielmo, an Italian merchant and customs official. Guglielmo directed a trading post in Bugia, Algeria. Fibonacci travelled with him as a young boy, and it was in Bugia that he learned about the Hindu–Arabic numeral system. . . . Fibonacci became a guest of Emperor Frederick II, who enjoyed mathematics and science. . . .The book advocated numeration with the digits 0–9 and place value. The book showed the practical use and value of the new Hindu-Arabic numeral system by applying the numerals to commercial bookkeeping, converting weights and measures, calculation of interest, money-changing, and other applications." [Wikipedia] "The use of this Arabic system did not, however, become common-place until it was popularized by the Liber abaci, or book of the Abacus, written in the early thirteenth century by the famous mathematician Leonardo Fibonacci, a thoroughly Arabized merchant from Pisa who had studied accounting methods in north Africa (present-day Algeria), where his father had been a Pisan diplomat." [Menocal: Ornament of the World, p. 181n]