DaVinci CodesFibonacci sequenceLeonardo Fibonacci was an Italian mathematician mentioned in The DaVinci Code. He wrote the Liber abaci (1202; "Book of the Abacus"), which was the first European work to include Indian and Arabian mathematics. He produced another work in 1220 called Practica geometriae ("Practice of Geometry"). In the 1222 Fibonacci was invited to appear before the emperor Frederick II at Pisa. For the next several years, he corresponded with Frederick II and his scholar. In 1225, he dedicated his Liber quadratorum ("Book of Square Numbers") to Frederick. Besides his role in introducing Hindu-Arabic numerals to Europeans, Leonardo is best known today for the Fibonacci sequence, which is derived from a problem in the Liber abaci:
A certain man put a pair of rabbits in a place surrounded on all sides by a wall. How many pairs of rabbits can be produced from that pair in a year if it is supposed that every month each pair begets a new pair which from the second month on becomes productive? |