FIBONACCI OF PISA

Leonardo Fibonacci was born on 1170 in a small town in Italy called Pisa. Fibonacci, although born in Italy, was educated in North Africa because his father held a diplomatic post there. He would spend alot of time traveling with his father. He soon started recognizing the huge advantages of the mathematical systems used in other countries. He soon discovered the Hindu-Arabic place-valued decimal system. After that, the "Fibonacci numbers" which consisted of the sequence 1,1,2,3,5,8,13, and so on. This sequence is where the previous number is the sum of the previous two. A wealth of mathematics has resulted from this sequence. Strangely this sequence does not apear in Fibonacci's recorded work. Although the "Rabbit Problem" does. This problem: "A certain man put a pair of rabbits in a place surrounded on all sides by a wall. How many pairs can be produced from that pair in a year if it is supposed that every month each pair begins a new pair which from the second month on becomes productive?" Strongly relates to the problem and greatly explains it.

Bibliography: www-groups.dcs.st- and.ac.uk/~history/HistTopics/Mathematical_games.html#19

www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Personal/R.Knott/Fibonacci/fibBio.html