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Finding Fibonacci: The Quest to Rediscover the Forgotten Mathematical Genius Who Changed the World
A compelling firsthand account of Keith Devlin's ten-year quest to tell Fibonacci's story
In 2000, Keith Devlin set out to research the life and legacy of the medieval mathematician Leonardo of Pisa, popularly known as Fibonacci, whose book Liber abbaci has quite literally affected the lives of everyone alive today. Although he is most famous for the Fibonacci numbers - which, it so happens, he didn't invent -
Fibonacci's greatest contribution was as an expositor of mathematical ideas at a level ordinary people could understand. In 1202, Liber abbaci - the "Book of Calculation" - introduced modern arithmetic to the Western world. Yet Fibonacci was long forgotten after his death, and it was not until the 1960s that his true achievements were finally recognized.
Finding Fibonacci is Devlin's compelling firsthand account of his ten-year quest to tell Fibonacci's story. Devlin, a math expositor himself, kept a diary of the undertaking, which he draws on here to describe the project's highs and lows, its false starts and disappointments, the tragedies and unexpected turns, some hilarious episodes, and the occasional lucky breaks. You will also meet the unique individuals Devlin encountered along the way, people who, each for their own reasons, became fascinated by Fibonacci, from the Yale professor who traced modern finance back to Fibonacci to the Italian historian who made the crucial archival discovery that brought together all the threads of Fibonacci's astonishing story.
Fibonacci helped to revive the West as the cradle of science, technology, and commerce, yet he vanished from the pages of history. This is Devlin's search to find him.
In 2000, Keith Devlin set out to research the life and legacy of the medieval mathematician Leonardo of Pisa, popularly known as Fibonacci, whose book Liber abbaci has quite literally affected the lives of everyone alive today. Although he is most famous for the Fibonacci numbers - which, it so happens, he didn't invent -
Fibonacci's greatest contribution was as an expositor of mathematical ideas at a level ordinary people could understand. In 1202, Liber abbaci - the "Book of Calculation" - introduced modern arithmetic to the Western world. Yet Fibonacci was long forgotten after his death, and it was not until the 1960s that his true achievements were finally recognized.
Finding Fibonacci is Devlin's compelling firsthand account of his ten-year quest to tell Fibonacci's story. Devlin, a math expositor himself, kept a diary of the undertaking, which he draws on here to describe the project's highs and lows, its false starts and disappointments, the tragedies and unexpected turns, some hilarious episodes, and the occasional lucky breaks. You will also meet the unique individuals Devlin encountered along the way, people who, each for their own reasons, became fascinated by Fibonacci, from the Yale professor who traced modern finance back to Fibonacci to the Italian historian who made the crucial archival discovery that brought together all the threads of Fibonacci's astonishing story.
Fibonacci helped to revive the West as the cradle of science, technology, and commerce, yet he vanished from the pages of history. This is Devlin's search to find him.
256 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2017
23 people are currently reading
257 people want to read
About the author
Keith Devlin
84 books164 followersDr. Keith Devlin is a co-founder and Executive Director of the university's H-STAR institute, a Consulting Professor in the Department of Mathematics, a co-founder of the Stanford Media X research network, and a Senior Researcher at CSLI. He is a World Economic Forum Fellow and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. His current research is focused on the use of different media to teach and communicate mathematics to diverse audiences. He also works on the design of information/reasoning systems for intelligence analysis. Other research interests include: theory of information, models of reasoning, applications of mathematical techniques in the study of communication, and mathematical cognition. He has written 26 books and over 80 published research articles. Recipient of the Pythagoras Prize, the Peano Prize, the Carl Sagan Award, and the Joint Policy Board for Mathematics Communications Award. He is "the Math Guy" on National Public Radio.
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
August 6, 2017
The knowledge of all sums...
A few years ago, Keith Devlin published The Man of Numbers: Fibonacci's Arithmetic Revolution, combining a biography of the famous mathematician with an explanation of what his fame rests on. This book is the story of researching and writing that book, also telling the little that is known about Fibonacci's life and describing his arithmetical legacy.
It's a strange little book. It reminded me of being left with bits of leftover wool after knitting an elaborate sweater and deciding to use them to make a matching scarf. It feels like an amalgam of all the things Devlin would have liked to have included in his first book, but didn't think quite fitted. Knowing nothing whatsoever about Fibonacci, I found it reasonably interesting since it gave me the basics about his achievements, but I'm not sure of how much interest it would hold for anyone who already knows about him, or indeed, who has read Devlin's earlier book. Devlin starts with an introduction in which he describes his own career as an “expositor” of math in print and on radio. He tell us he is known as the Math Guy in America (hence the misspelling of maths throughout ;) ). This is partly why he is so interested in Fibonacci, since he too was an early expositor of arithmetic.
Real name, Leonardo of Pisa, (Fibonacci was a nickname given to him by a much later mathematician), his fame rests mainly on his major work, Liber Abbaci (The Book of Calculation), which explained the Hindu-Arabic number system (the use of numerals 1-9). Prior to this, arithmetic in the west had relied on an elaborate finger-counting system or the use of the abacus, both of which required a high level of skill. The system of using numerals was easier to learn and also provided a written record, hence an audit trail. Although Leonardo was not the first man to introduce this system to Europe, his book appeared just at a point where trade was about to take off exponentially in the region, so became hugely important and influential. Leonardo also wrote a follow-up book that included many worked practical examples, so that it could be used as a basis for learning how to use arithmetic even by people who weren't interested in understanding the underlying principles. This was hand-copied thousands of times and was translated into many different regional languages and with the examples converted into local currencies, making it the most important text for spreading the use of arithmetic throughout Europe and beyond.
Devlin intersperses this information about Fibonacci with descriptions of how he, Devlin, went about researching his earlier book. This is sometimes interesting – Devlin writes well when, for example, he re-imagines the Pisa of Leonardo's time – a trading hub, with sea-transported goods being brought into the town via the river Arno. But there are also parts where my interest level fell away almost entirely – for example, when he gives immensely detailed accounts of visits to libraries to look at ancient manuscripts, and includes blow-by-blow accounts of conversations with librarians about opening times, etc. Leonardo's work was almost forgotten for centuries till a few researchers brought him back to prominence, and Devlin gives the story of them and their researches too. Again, these accounts varied in interest level, but overall I felt Devlin was trying too hard to make it seem more exciting than it either was or, indeed, needed to be.
When it comes to the arithmetical stuff, Devlin explains things simply enough for my decidedly non-mathematical brain to cope with. He gives some of Leonardo's worked examples, which taught me two things: 1) I've forgotten what little algebra I ever knew and 2) thank goodness for Excel. However, I was pleased to see I can still usually get to the right answer eventually with my own elaborate finger-counting method (which also involves sticking out the tip of my tongue – a widely-recognised technique which oddly both Fibonacci and Devlin overlook ), so this will undoubtedly be a handy skill after the apocalypse...
In the end, I suspect I might have been better reading Devlin's earlier book rather than this one – the meat of the story for me was Leonardo's achievements, and the rest felt a little extraneous. However, I certainly got enough out of it to make it a worthwhile and informative read overall, and the other aspects of it may appeal more to people who are intrigued to see how a biographer goes about his research process. 3½ stars for me, so rounded up.
NB This book was provided for review by the publisher, Princeton University Press.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
A few years ago, Keith Devlin published The Man of Numbers: Fibonacci's Arithmetic Revolution, combining a biography of the famous mathematician with an explanation of what his fame rests on. This book is the story of researching and writing that book, also telling the little that is known about Fibonacci's life and describing his arithmetical legacy.
It's a strange little book. It reminded me of being left with bits of leftover wool after knitting an elaborate sweater and deciding to use them to make a matching scarf. It feels like an amalgam of all the things Devlin would have liked to have included in his first book, but didn't think quite fitted. Knowing nothing whatsoever about Fibonacci, I found it reasonably interesting since it gave me the basics about his achievements, but I'm not sure of how much interest it would hold for anyone who already knows about him, or indeed, who has read Devlin's earlier book. Devlin starts with an introduction in which he describes his own career as an “expositor” of math in print and on radio. He tell us he is known as the Math Guy in America (hence the misspelling of maths throughout ;) ). This is partly why he is so interested in Fibonacci, since he too was an early expositor of arithmetic.
Real name, Leonardo of Pisa, (Fibonacci was a nickname given to him by a much later mathematician), his fame rests mainly on his major work, Liber Abbaci (The Book of Calculation), which explained the Hindu-Arabic number system (the use of numerals 1-9). Prior to this, arithmetic in the west had relied on an elaborate finger-counting system or the use of the abacus, both of which required a high level of skill. The system of using numerals was easier to learn and also provided a written record, hence an audit trail. Although Leonardo was not the first man to introduce this system to Europe, his book appeared just at a point where trade was about to take off exponentially in the region, so became hugely important and influential. Leonardo also wrote a follow-up book that included many worked practical examples, so that it could be used as a basis for learning how to use arithmetic even by people who weren't interested in understanding the underlying principles. This was hand-copied thousands of times and was translated into many different regional languages and with the examples converted into local currencies, making it the most important text for spreading the use of arithmetic throughout Europe and beyond.
Devlin intersperses this information about Fibonacci with descriptions of how he, Devlin, went about researching his earlier book. This is sometimes interesting – Devlin writes well when, for example, he re-imagines the Pisa of Leonardo's time – a trading hub, with sea-transported goods being brought into the town via the river Arno. But there are also parts where my interest level fell away almost entirely – for example, when he gives immensely detailed accounts of visits to libraries to look at ancient manuscripts, and includes blow-by-blow accounts of conversations with librarians about opening times, etc. Leonardo's work was almost forgotten for centuries till a few researchers brought him back to prominence, and Devlin gives the story of them and their researches too. Again, these accounts varied in interest level, but overall I felt Devlin was trying too hard to make it seem more exciting than it either was or, indeed, needed to be.
When it comes to the arithmetical stuff, Devlin explains things simply enough for my decidedly non-mathematical brain to cope with. He gives some of Leonardo's worked examples, which taught me two things: 1) I've forgotten what little algebra I ever knew and 2) thank goodness for Excel. However, I was pleased to see I can still usually get to the right answer eventually with my own elaborate finger-counting method (which also involves sticking out the tip of my tongue – a widely-recognised technique which oddly both Fibonacci and Devlin overlook ), so this will undoubtedly be a handy skill after the apocalypse...
In the end, I suspect I might have been better reading Devlin's earlier book rather than this one – the meat of the story for me was Leonardo's achievements, and the rest felt a little extraneous. However, I certainly got enough out of it to make it a worthwhile and informative read overall, and the other aspects of it may appeal more to people who are intrigued to see how a biographer goes about his research process. 3½ stars for me, so rounded up.
NB This book was provided for review by the publisher, Princeton University Press.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
April 20, 2017
I was rather surprised by this book, but I shouldn't have been. It does exactly what it says on the tin. The subtitle is 'The quest to rediscover the forgotten mathematical genius who changed the world.' So I shouldn't really complain that the book is far more about the quest than about the mathematician Fibonacci and his work - but I was disappointed nonetheless.
In practice, I enjoyed the details of the search for Fibonacci pointers like street signs, as it's the kind of thing I've done myself as a science writer. But I think Keith Devlin suffered from a common problem with someone who gets to close to a subject. If, for example, you are a birdwatcher and have spent ages tracking down a lesser spotted grebe, you might assume that the rest of us are as interested as you are - but we really aren't. There was just too much detail on Devlin's attempts to track down early copies (there are no originals) of Fibonacci's work. And where there is a tiny little bit of drama, he blows it out of all proportion with overselling. Take this passage:
What I would learn from that visit was that the story of the Liber abbaci [Fibonacci's oddly titled book introducing the numbers] is a very human one, spanning many centuries, with an ending (assuming the translation into English is its ending) every bit as dramatic as any Hollywood scriptwriter could dream up.
It really isn't. It's engaging without doubt, but not exactly worthy of the dramatic lead up. It didn't help that the book opens with an introduction that sounds like it was written by Troy McClure from the Simpsons (the actor character who introduces himself along the lines of 'You may remember me from such educational films as...') - Devlin spends quite a while telling us he is quite famous as 'the math guy'. Okay.
At its core, there's some good material here about the introduction of our current numerals from India via the Arabic world through the influence of Fibonacci's book, which resulted in a whole chain of 'how to' smaller books for practical use. I don't doubt Devlin's assertion that the introduction of these numbers was crucial to finance, trade and science, though I think he over-inflates the importance of Fibonacci as an individual. The number system would have arrived anyway - and though he certainly had a strong influence on its use, it's interesting that in some countries there was strong resistance, with records having to use numbers written out as words for several centuries.
In a way, the problem with this book is it's a bit like one of those 'Making of' TV shows you get when a blockbuster film comes out. There are a lot of tantalising mentions of things in Devlin's 'real' book on Fibonacci, where this title focusses very much on his adventures visiting libraries in Italy. There's also a lot of repetition - sometimes almost word for word between chapters - all in all, it would have made a really good magazine article, but I'm not sure it's a book I'd recommend unless you are particularly interested in the details of doing this kind of research.
In practice, I enjoyed the details of the search for Fibonacci pointers like street signs, as it's the kind of thing I've done myself as a science writer. But I think Keith Devlin suffered from a common problem with someone who gets to close to a subject. If, for example, you are a birdwatcher and have spent ages tracking down a lesser spotted grebe, you might assume that the rest of us are as interested as you are - but we really aren't. There was just too much detail on Devlin's attempts to track down early copies (there are no originals) of Fibonacci's work. And where there is a tiny little bit of drama, he blows it out of all proportion with overselling. Take this passage:
What I would learn from that visit was that the story of the Liber abbaci [Fibonacci's oddly titled book introducing the numbers] is a very human one, spanning many centuries, with an ending (assuming the translation into English is its ending) every bit as dramatic as any Hollywood scriptwriter could dream up.
It really isn't. It's engaging without doubt, but not exactly worthy of the dramatic lead up. It didn't help that the book opens with an introduction that sounds like it was written by Troy McClure from the Simpsons (the actor character who introduces himself along the lines of 'You may remember me from such educational films as...') - Devlin spends quite a while telling us he is quite famous as 'the math guy'. Okay.
At its core, there's some good material here about the introduction of our current numerals from India via the Arabic world through the influence of Fibonacci's book, which resulted in a whole chain of 'how to' smaller books for practical use. I don't doubt Devlin's assertion that the introduction of these numbers was crucial to finance, trade and science, though I think he over-inflates the importance of Fibonacci as an individual. The number system would have arrived anyway - and though he certainly had a strong influence on its use, it's interesting that in some countries there was strong resistance, with records having to use numbers written out as words for several centuries.
In a way, the problem with this book is it's a bit like one of those 'Making of' TV shows you get when a blockbuster film comes out. There are a lot of tantalising mentions of things in Devlin's 'real' book on Fibonacci, where this title focusses very much on his adventures visiting libraries in Italy. There's also a lot of repetition - sometimes almost word for word between chapters - all in all, it would have made a really good magazine article, but I'm not sure it's a book I'd recommend unless you are particularly interested in the details of doing this kind of research.
April 1, 2017
Part biography, part autobiography, part pop math, part history-- really a hodgepodge of a book that manages to entertain and provide a little education too. Devlin is fascinated with Fibonacci, and this is the story of Fibonancci's life as well as Devlin's adventures in Italy as he attempts to locate the few rare surviving medieval texts written by a mathematician whose works influenced everything from math to writing styles.
September 11, 2019
In 'Finding Fibonacci,' Dr. Keith Devin recounts his ten-year search for answers to the mysterious life of Leonardo of Pisa—the medieval mathematician more commonly known as "Fibonacci." So little is known about this man whose 1202 work 'Liber Abaci' revolutionized Western mathematics and commerce, making Leonardo of Pisa one of the most consequential yet enigmatic figures in European history. While the finer details of Fibonacci's life are likely lost forever, Dr. Devin does an excellent job separating the facts from fiction while conveying his passion for mathematics and how Fibonacci figures into it.
By the time you finish this book, you might find yourself referring to Fibonacci as "the other" Leonardo. Dr. Devin convincingly presents 'Liber Abaci' as a groundbreaking achievement that did for mathematics what the Apple Mac did for computers. I found myself working out some of the equations Leonardo of Pisa laid out in 'Liber Abaci' while reading this with more excitement than I ever experienced in the classroom learning algebra. I even found myself flipping through a calculus textbook with renewed interest shortly after. That's right, 'Finding Fibonacci' left me wanting to learn more math!
As some reviewers have noted, 'Finding Fibonacci' repeats itself in places. For this, I am deducting a star from my overall rating. I considered going with a 3.5-star review, but the truth is this book renewed my interest in mathematics more than anything I have read in years. That is a rare achievement, and one I am grateful for. I have already recommended this book to my father, a retired electrical engineer, and plan on sharing Dr. Devin's research on Fibonacci with others.
A good book. 4 stars.
By the time you finish this book, you might find yourself referring to Fibonacci as "the other" Leonardo. Dr. Devin convincingly presents 'Liber Abaci' as a groundbreaking achievement that did for mathematics what the Apple Mac did for computers. I found myself working out some of the equations Leonardo of Pisa laid out in 'Liber Abaci' while reading this with more excitement than I ever experienced in the classroom learning algebra. I even found myself flipping through a calculus textbook with renewed interest shortly after. That's right, 'Finding Fibonacci' left me wanting to learn more math!
As some reviewers have noted, 'Finding Fibonacci' repeats itself in places. For this, I am deducting a star from my overall rating. I considered going with a 3.5-star review, but the truth is this book renewed my interest in mathematics more than anything I have read in years. That is a rare achievement, and one I am grateful for. I have already recommended this book to my father, a retired electrical engineer, and plan on sharing Dr. Devin's research on Fibonacci with others.
A good book. 4 stars.
March 10, 2018
The author makes the case for the fundamental importance of Fibonacci's 1238 manuscript as a source for the introduction and acceptance of the Hindu digits 1 thru 9 in Western commerce and problem solving, vastly simplifying the way arithmetic can be done. Using solved problems he transformed the way we think mathematically. The Fibonacci sequence is only a minor footnote. He gets little recognition today for his contribution.
July 13, 2017
My grandson did his grade school science project on Fibonacci numbers and dressed as Fibonacci to do his presentation. This piqued my interest in Fibonacci so I grabbed this new acquisition at my library. The title does say it is about Devlin's quest so I can't say I was misled, but this book, or at least the first half, is not about Fibonacci but a sort of travelogue about the author hunting for traces of him in Italy. I suspect the author did not have enough material for a book so padded what he had with stories about how he became a math writer and other personal anecdotes. If you are a big fan of Keith Devlin, you might love this book. I didn't and did not finish it.
April 26, 2025
I suspect the book "The Man of Numbers" by Keith Devlin is better. This book is ABOUT that book, or more specifically the process of writing that book. This isn't great. I mean, do we need to know how many trips to Italy it takes to manage to find an open library capable of doing their actual job of letting you review a manuscript? I mean, it's Italy so of course it's screwed up, no one does their job, and people don't bother to inform you that it's a holiday and so places are closed. But hey, at least there's a photo montage of the 11 street signs for via Leonardo Fibonacci in one of the Italian cities in which such a street exists.
I probably won't read "The Man of Numbers" because I imagine it would drive me nuts how much of that story is already here in this stupid travelogue. I agree with Keith Devlin that it's nearly impossible to overstate the importance of Leonardo of Pisa (aka Fibonacci) and his revolutionary success in ultimately introducing the Indian-invented "arabic" numeral system to Western Europe. So much of current world technology and culture just wouldn't be possible without the finance, science, math, and technology that so fundamentally relies on those 10 digits and their arithmetic and algebraic manipulations.
Just go read about that amazing story someplace else.
I probably won't read "The Man of Numbers" because I imagine it would drive me nuts how much of that story is already here in this stupid travelogue. I agree with Keith Devlin that it's nearly impossible to overstate the importance of Leonardo of Pisa (aka Fibonacci) and his revolutionary success in ultimately introducing the Indian-invented "arabic" numeral system to Western Europe. So much of current world technology and culture just wouldn't be possible without the finance, science, math, and technology that so fundamentally relies on those 10 digits and their arithmetic and algebraic manipulations.
Just go read about that amazing story someplace else.
August 21, 2018
I was initially dubious, when I started Keith Devlin's Prelude to the book, where he touted his 35 books, many magazine and newspaper articles, 4 blogs, and his status as the NPR "Math Guy". I wondered why I had never heard of him! But I thoroughly enjoyed the book and will look for others books by this author. This book is a kind of "sequel" to his previous book "The Man of Numbers: Fibonacci's Arithmetic Revolution" which I plan on reading next. This book details the 10 year process it took him to investigate, and write the previous book. He especially describes his travels to historical sites in Pisa associated with Fibonacci, and his travels to find and read the oldest copies available for Fibonacci's important work Liber abbaci - the Book of Calculation. He also describes the impact that Liber abbaci had on business, economics, science, and education, both in Medieval Europe and also across the world in modern times.
July 2, 2018
I admit I was expecting more of a biography of Fibonacci. This was more of how Devlin found what little there is to know about him. Not really bad, but also not overly compelling. I haven't read _Man of Numbers_ which is Devlin's more biographical work which I didn't know about until I read this... seems to me had Devlin been so inclined he could have combined the two (See David Grann's _Lost City of Z_ for how a researcher puts both the research and the biography into one book).
If you're interested in Fibonacci it is a fairly short and easy read so probably worth looking at. If you want something more biographical -- probably better to skip this one.
If you're interested in Fibonacci it is a fairly short and easy read so probably worth looking at. If you want something more biographical -- probably better to skip this one.
June 10, 2017
Beautifully produced, fabulous idea and history, somewhat disappointing text. Very much a personal memoir of the search with a lot of "I" words. But the underlying idea--awesome. How Leonardo de Pisa brought ARabic numbers and algebra to the west and in the process invented all the major methods of modern finance. Devlin's thesis is that he basically invented all of modern western society, or at least made it all possible. Once again demonstrating how it is commerce which drives technology and this social change. DPL book.
April 21, 2020
Finding Fibonacci: The Quest to Rediscover the Forgotten Mathematical Genius Who Changed the World by Keith Devlin is ostensibly about Devlin’s journey in writing his book, The Man of Numbers: Fibonacci's Arithmetic Revolution. But what it’s really about is Devlin coming face-to-face with the reality of history, connecting mind-to-mind over 800 years with a kindred spirit. It’s holding in your very own hands a fragment of a time & reality & a world that is just as real & enduring as this current moment.
Read
February 27, 2023DNF. Was not what I expected. Similar feeling to other reviewers about not wanting to read over detailed travel log.
Thought the couple math word problems presented from Fibonacci's work were interesting and wish there had been more of that type of content.
Thought the couple math word problems presented from Fibonacci's work were interesting and wish there had been more of that type of content.
July 23, 2023
I wanted to learn more about Leonardo Fibonacci, I would have been better served reading Devlin’s other work, The Man of Numbers, which is more biographical in nature. This book was more of a “the making of” kind of story, interesting, though not what I was looking for.
August 20, 2017
Mathematical history...not for everyone.
May 1, 2018
This was fun and enlightening. The author was clearly obsessed with Leonardo. The financial mathematics part was the part I was least interested in.
Read
January 6, 2020I gave up reading this book. I wasn't interested in his travel log.
July 1, 2024
DNF-ed at just under 100 pages in. This is just a book about Devil’s travels, not a maths book (to be fair to him, the blurb dorsal tell you that).
May 5, 2025
it is an interesting story, but he makes some boring detours. He writes well and is easy to understand.
July 30, 2020
A review may be futile. The math know-nothings will shrug and think that they couldn't possibly like this book (they're wrong). The math know-it-alls will shrug and think that this book is beneath them (they're wrong too).
Since I am squarely in the former group, I best enjoyed the book's beginning, which is a classic quest story. The end chapters seemed padded by his "math outreach" writing: the many columns, blogs, and books.
And yet another find from the wonderful bookstore at the National Museum of Mathematics: https://shop.momath.org/
Since I am squarely in the former group, I best enjoyed the book's beginning, which is a classic quest story. The end chapters seemed padded by his "math outreach" writing: the many columns, blogs, and books.
And yet another find from the wonderful bookstore at the National Museum of Mathematics: https://shop.momath.org/
November 14, 2018
My ratings of books on Goodreads are solely a crude ranking of their utility to me, and not an evaluation of literary merit, entertainment value, social importance, humor, insightfulness, scientific accuracy, creative vigor, suspensefulness of plot, depth of characters, vitality of theme, excitement of climax, satisfaction of ending, or any other combination of dimensions of value which we are expected to boil down through some fabulous alchemy into a single digit.
June 9, 2019
As easy yet as momentous as ABCcc....
This is a bit too all about me aka the author but the core journey and the re estimation of the place and time that enabled Fibbonnaci's own work And his practical bent at producing his idiot's guides to to commercial math is well done.
This is a bit too all about me aka the author but the core journey and the re estimation of the place and time that enabled Fibbonnaci's own work And his practical bent at producing his idiot's guides to to commercial math is well done.
April 6, 2017
While the telling has the feel of being soft, popular history, the consequences of the work of the man known as Fibonacci cannot be overstated. Modern people all around the world perform basic computations using the digits zero through nine placed in a specific order and then manipulated using basic, understandable algorithms.
It is generally lost on the modern world how revolutionary this was to society and how it made the modern financial structure possible. The new system originated in India and then was passed to Arab scholars and was in fact known to Europe, but was considered a topic of academic concern only. Fibonacci was almost singularly responsible for introducing the new system of computation to the merchants of the city states of Italy, which then spread to Europe in general and eventually the world.
This book is the story of Devlin’s travels and investigations into the life and role of Fibonacci and how his actions changed the world. It is a combination of an explanation of the value of the new way of doing things and Devlin’s actions in tracking down and viewing manuscripts from the time of Fibonacci. Although what he eventually sees are copies of Fibonacci’s revolutionary tracts, he expresses the due reverence for their significance in human history.
This is a math book for everyone with an interest in mathematics and history. There is little in the way of mathematical operations and they can be skipped with very little in the way of loss of understanding. It would be a perfect book for an interdisciplinary course in mathematics and the history of finance.
It is generally lost on the modern world how revolutionary this was to society and how it made the modern financial structure possible. The new system originated in India and then was passed to Arab scholars and was in fact known to Europe, but was considered a topic of academic concern only. Fibonacci was almost singularly responsible for introducing the new system of computation to the merchants of the city states of Italy, which then spread to Europe in general and eventually the world.
This book is the story of Devlin’s travels and investigations into the life and role of Fibonacci and how his actions changed the world. It is a combination of an explanation of the value of the new way of doing things and Devlin’s actions in tracking down and viewing manuscripts from the time of Fibonacci. Although what he eventually sees are copies of Fibonacci’s revolutionary tracts, he expresses the due reverence for their significance in human history.
This is a math book for everyone with an interest in mathematics and history. There is little in the way of mathematical operations and they can be skipped with very little in the way of loss of understanding. It would be a perfect book for an interdisciplinary course in mathematics and the history of finance.
April 8, 2017
I didn't realize when I choose to read this book that Devlin had already written a book that was a biography of Fibonacci. Perhaps that is what I should have read. My problem with this book is that it seemed unnecessary. It's supposed to be - I think - a sort of travelogue about researching the previously mentioned Fibonacci biography and how that impacted the author. But there's very little travelogue about it (numerous, repetitive trips to the public library in Sienna, for example). The entire book is very repetitive, as a matter of fact (Did you know there is only one English language translation of Fibonacci's famous math treatise? You will. A hundred times.). In addition, it made me wonder how much research Devlin really did for his book; it seems like most of the heavy lifting was already done for him. Yes, he acknowledges the essential help those researchers and translators before him provided, but that made those chapters in this book feel like overly-long authors notes from another book. Finally, several chapters are condensed versions of chapters in the previously-published biography. Again, the author admits to that, but, again, what is the point?
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews