November 23 is Fibonacci Day, because 11/23 is the first four digits of the Fibonacci sequence.
Leonardo Bonacci (c. 1170 – c. 1240–50; nobody can explain why we know him by a nickname attested in only one medieval source) was one of the learned men who hung around the court of Emperor Frederick II. Like the rest of that circle he translated Arabic manuscripts, debated philosophy, and argued over arcane questions like "Where is the throne of God?" Some sources say he was a student of the famous astrologer/magician/physiognomist Michael Scot.
An accomplished linguist, Bonacci interviewed merchants from around the Mediterranean about their how they used mathematics. He then wrote a book in which he extolled 1) the numbering system we call Arabic numerals, and 2) the use of the abacus for calculations. He wrote that Arabic numbers are better for accounting because you can keep the digits in columns for easier addition and subtraction. Not clear how important Bonacci's book was in spreading Arabic numerals, which took centuries to take over Europe, but it can't have hurt.
The famous sequence was introduced by Bonacci in his book on the abacus as a sort of thought experiment concerning rabbits. He probably learned about it from an Arabic source, since the sequence had been known in India since the 6th century, but no surviving Arabic manuscript of the period mentions it, so that is a guess.
I find the sequence interesting because it has little practical use. It's just cool. And that is an important introduction of medieval thought, much of which was taken up with ideas just because they were interesting, without anyone wondering if Aristotelian mechanics (say) had any real-world utility. Smart people like stretching their minds, and always have.
2 comments:
I find the sequence interesting because it has little practical use. It's just cool. And that is an important introduction of medieval thought, much of which was taken up with ideas just because they were interesting, without anyone wondering if Aristotelian mechanics (say) had any real-world utility. Smart people like stretching their minds, and always have.
I find this an odd view for you to adopt, given your posts in the past about things like witchs, magic, vampires, esoterica, etc.
You have yourself observed that people historically ascribed power and importance things that like SATOR squares - objects or arrangements with no practical value, but which were interesting to people in a way that suggested to them that they must be "Important", perhaps on a cosmic or metaphysical level. The human brain is wired to try to find meaning in weird patterns and coincidences, and so we do - and hence we get much of "magic", including religious faith and ritual, but also much of early proto-science or "natural philosophy".
Toward that end, I think it's wrong to say medieval people took up these ideas "just because they were interesting". They ascribed importance to these kinds of ideas. They treated them as "magical", or magic-adjacent. They saw them as potential clues to understanding god and the universe, and potentially a means of unlocking some great power they could profit of off. Fibonacci and company almost certainly did get enjoyment from "stretching their minds", but I have little doubt they also viewed the number sequence as a potentially great discovery, if only they could wrap their heads around its hidden mystical power.
thanks
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