The Man of Numbers

The Man of Numbers PDF Author: Keith Devlin
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0802778127
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 193

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Book Description
Traces the life of the mathematician who introduced Arabic numbers to Western Europe, including how the book "Liber Abbaci" enabled people to understand numbers, engage in commerce, and make advances in the fields of science, technology, and business.

The Man of Numbers

The Man of Numbers PDF Author: Keith Devlin
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1408824574
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 193

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Book Description
In 1202, a 32-year old Italian finished one of the most influential books of all time, which introduced modern arithmetic to Western Europe. Devised in India in the seventh and eighth centuries and brought to North Africa by Muslim traders, the Hindu-Arabic system helped transform the West into the dominant force in science, technology, and commerce, leaving behind Muslim cultures which had long known it but had failed to see its potential. The young Italian, Leonardo of Pisa (better known today as Fibonacci), had learned the Hindu number system when he traveled to North Africa with his father, a customs agent. The book he created was Liber abbaci, the 'Book of Calculation', and the revolution that followed its publication was enormous. Arithmetic made it possible for ordinary people to buy and sell goods, convert currencies, and keep accurate records of possessions more readily than ever before. Liber abbaci's publication led directly to large-scale international commerce and the scientific revolution of the Renaissance. Yet despite the ubiquity of his discoveries, Leonardo of Pisa remains an enigma. His name is best known today in association with an exercise in Liber abbaci whose solution gives rise to a sequence of numbers - the Fibonacci sequence - used by some to predict the rise and fall of financial markets, and evident in myriad biological structures. In The Man of Numbers, Keith Devlin recreates the life and enduring legacy of an overlooked genius, and in the process makes clear how central numbers and mathematics are to our daily lives.

Fibonacci’s Liber Abaci

Fibonacci’s Liber Abaci PDF Author: Laurence Sigler
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1461300797
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 736

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Book Description
First published in 1202, Fibonacci’s Liber Abaci was one of the most important books on mathematics in the Middle Ages, introducing Arabic numerals and methods throughout Europe. This is the first translation into a modern European language, of interest not only to historians of science but also to all mathematicians and mathematics teachers interested in the origins of their methods.

The Man of Numbers

The Man of Numbers PDF Author: Keith Devlin
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0802778127
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 193

Get Book Here

Book Description
Traces the life of the mathematician who introduced Arabic numbers to Western Europe, including how the book "Liber Abbaci" enabled people to understand numbers, engage in commerce, and make advances in the fields of science, technology, and business.

The Man of Numbers

The Man of Numbers PDF Author: Keith Devlin
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0802779077
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 182

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Book Description
In 1202, a 32-year old Italian finished one of the most influential books of all time, which introduced modern arithmetic to Western Europe. Devised in India in the 7th and 8th centuries and brought to North Africa by Muslim traders, the Hindu-Arabic system helped transform the West into the dominant force in science, technology, and commerce, leaving behind Muslim cultures which had long known it but had failed to see its potential. The young Italian, Leonardo of Pisa (better known today as Fibonacci), had learned the Hindu number system when he traveled to North Africa with his father, a customs agent. The book he created was Liber abbaci, the "Book of Calculation," and the revolution that followed its publication was enormous. Arithmetic made it possible for ordinary people to buy and sell goods, convert currencies, and keep accurate records of possessions more readily than ever before. Liber abbaci's publication led directly to large-scale international commerce and the scientific revolution of the Renaissance. Yet despite the ubiquity of his discoveries, Leonardo of Pisa remains an enigma. His name is best known today in association with an exercise in Liber abbaci whose solution gives rise to a sequence of numbers--the Fibonacci sequence--used by some to predict the rise and fall of financial markets, and evident in myriad biological structures. One of the great math popularizers of our time, Keith Devlin recreates the life and enduring legacy of an overlooked genius, and in the process makes clear how central numbers and mathematics are to our daily lives.

The Man Who Loved Only Numbers

The Man Who Loved Only Numbers PDF Author: Paul Hoffman
Publisher: Hachette Books
ISBN: 0306836564
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description
"A funny, marvelously readable portrait of one of the most brilliant and eccentric men in history." --The Seattle Times Paul Erdos was an amazing and prolific mathematician whose life as a world-wandering numerical nomad was legendary. He published almost 1500 scholarly papers before his death in 1996, and he probably thought more about math problems than anyone in history. Like a traveling salesman offering his thoughts as wares, Erdos would show up on the doorstep of one mathematician or another and announce, "My brain is open." After working through a problem, he'd move on to the next place, the next solution. Hoffman's book, like Sylvia Nasar's biography of John Nash, A Beautiful Mind, reveals a genius's life that transcended the merely quirky. But Erdos's brand of madness was joyful, unlike Nash's despairing schizophrenia. Erdos never tried to dilute his obsessive passion for numbers with ordinary emotional interactions, thus avoiding hurting the people around him, as Nash did. Oliver Sacks writes of Erdos: "A mathematical genius of the first order, Paul Erdos was totally obsessed with his subject--he thought and wrote mathematics for nineteen hours a day until the day he died. He traveled constantly, living out of a plastic bag, and had no interest in food, sex, companionship, art--all that is usually indispensable to a human life." The Man Who Loved Only Numbers is easy to love, despite his strangeness. It's hard not to have affection for someone who referred to children as "epsilons," from the Greek letter used to represent small quantities in mathematics; a man whose epitaph for himself read, "Finally I am becoming stupider no more"; and whose only really necessary tool to do his work was a quiet and open mind. Hoffman, who followed and spoke with Erdos over the last 10 years of his life, introduces us to an undeniably odd, yet pure and joyful, man who loved numbers more than he loved God--whom he referred to as SF, for Supreme Fascist. He was often misunderstood, and he certainly annoyed people sometimes, but Paul Erdos is no doubt missed. --Therese Littleton

Man and Number

Man and Number PDF Author: Donald Smeltzer
Publisher: Courier Corporation
ISBN: 9780486432762
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 130

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Book Description
This exploration of how people came to appreciate numbers traces the ways in which early humans gradually evolved methods for recording numerical data and performing simple calculations. Its profiles of ancient systems of recording numbers include Egyptian, Maya and Aztec, Chinese, Greek, and the techniques of other cultures. 1974 edition.

The Encyclopædia Britannica

The Encyclopædia Britannica PDF Author: Hugh Chisholm
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Encyclopedias and dictionaries
Languages : en
Pages : 1032

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Book Description


Names, Dates, and Numbers

Names, Dates, and Numbers PDF Author: Roy Page Walton
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Names, Personal
Languages : en
Pages : 104

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Book Description


Numbers: Their Occult Power and Mystic Virtures

Numbers: Their Occult Power and Mystic Virtures PDF Author: William Wynn Westcott
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Symbolism of numbers
Languages : en
Pages : 134

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Book Description


Labour Gazette

Labour Gazette PDF Author: Great Britain Department of Employment
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Labor
Languages : en
Pages : 854

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Book Description