A compelling firsthand account of Keith Devlin's ten-year quest to
tell Fibonacci's story
In 2000, Keith Devlin set out to research the life and legacy of the
medieval mathematician Leonardo of Pisa, popularly known as Fibonacci,
whose book Liber abbaci has quite literally affected the lives of
everyone alive today. Although he is most famous for the Fibonacci
numbers--which, it so happens, he didn't invent--Fibonacci's greatest
contribution was as an expositor of mathematical ideas at a level
ordinary people could understand. In 1202, Liber abbaci--the "Book of
Calculation"--introduced modern arithmetic to the Western world. Yet
Fibonacci was long forgotten after his death, and it was not until the
1960s that his true achievements were finally recognized.
Finding Fibonacci is Devlin's compelling firsthand account of his
ten-year quest to tell Fibonacci's story. Devlin, a math expositor
himself, kept a diary of the undertaking, which he draws on here to
describe the project's highs and lows, its false starts and
disappointments, the tragedies and unexpected turns, some hilarious
episodes, and the occasional lucky breaks. You will also meet the unique
individuals Devlin encountered along the way, people who, each for their
own reasons, became fascinated by Fibonacci, from the Yale professor who
traced modern finance back to Fibonacci to the Italian historian who
made the crucial archival discovery that brought together all the
threads of Fibonacci's astonishing story.
Fibonacci helped to revive the West as the cradle of science,
technology, and commerce, yet he vanished from the pages of history.
This is Devlin's search to find him.
