Fibonacci essays

Fibonacci essays Leonardo Pisano Fibonacci, or more commonly known as Fibonacci, was born in Pisa, Italy in 1175. He was the son of Guilielmo Bonacci, a secretary of the Republic of Pisa. His father was only a secretary, so he was often sent to do work in Pisan trading colonies. He did this for many years until 1192. In 1192, his dad got a permanent job as the director of the Pisan trading colony in Bugia, Algeria. Sometime after 1192, Bonacci brought Fibonacci with him to Bugia. Bonnaci expected Fibonacci to become a merchant and so arranged for him in instruction of calculation techniques. One of the major themes in this involved the Hindu-Arabic numerals which had not yet been introduced into Europe. Eventually, Bonacci enlisted his son's help in carrying out business for the Pisan republic and sent him on trips to Egypt, Syria, Greece, Sicily, and Provence. Fibonacci took this grand opportunity offered by his father, to study and learn the mathematical techniques in use in these various re gions. Around 1200, Fibonacci returned to Pisa where, for at least the next twenty-five years, he worked on his own mathematical compositions. Fibonacci produced his most famous book, Liber abaci (the book of the Calculator). The book consisted of four parts, and was revised by him a quarter of a century later (in 1228). It was a thorough article on algebraic methods and problems which strongly emphasized and advocated the introduction of the Indo-Arabic numeral system, comprising the figures one to nine, and the innovation of the "zephirum" the figure zero. Dealing with operations in whole numbers systematically, he also proposed the idea of the bar (solidus) for fractions, and went on to develop rules for converting fraction factors into the sum of unit factors. At the end of the first part of the book, he presented tables for multiplication, prime numbers and factor numbers. In the second part he demonstrated mathematical applications to commerc...