Experimental Blog # 183

Notes and Quotations from "The Man of Numbers - Fibonacci's Arithmetic Revolution" by Keith Devlin

"Prior to the thirteenth century < > the only Europeans who were aware of the system{the Hindu-Arabic number system} were < > scholars, who used it solely to do mathematics. < > That state of affairs started to change after 1202", when Leonardo of Pisa completed Liber abbaci, or "Book of calculation".

In 628 Brahmagupta, who lived in Bhillamala northwest India, introduced the number zero in his "mammoth treatise" called "The opening of the universe".

"In addition to its treatment of Hindi-Arabic arithmetic, Liber abbaci covers the beginnings of algebra and some applied mathematics."
"The Hindu-Arabic system took longer to migrate beyond Italy's borders, < > In 1494, the money changers in Frankfurt attempted to prohibit its use just as the Florentines had two centuries earlier .."

"If Shakespeare had not lived, for example, Hamlet would never have been written. In contrast, if Euclid had not proved that there are infinitely many primes, someone else would have."
"Hindu-Arabic arithmetic falls into the category of something waiting to be found."