Our Project on the European Number System
Our Project on the European Number System

Names Teacher Grade/Form Renee Gordon Mrs.Mcneil 71
Janice Ranns
Javon Wright
Tommy-Lee Lindo

Table of Contents

Introduction…………………………………………………………………. (i)
History of European Mathematics…………………………………………….(1)
Famous European Mathematician………………………………...(2)-(3)
Reference Page………………………………………………………………………(4)

Introduction (i)

This project introduces you to, the European’s Contributions to the Number system/Numerical system. This project also shows, you famous mathematicians, and more so sit back, read and enjoy this project.

(1)
History of European Mathematics
During the centuries in which the Chinese, Indian and Islamic mathematicians had been in the ascendancy, Europe had fallen into the Dark Ages, in which science, mathematics and almost all intellectual endeavour stagnated. Scholastic scholars only valued studies in the humanities, such as philosophy and literature, and spent much of their energies quarrelling over subtle subjects in metaphysics and theology. From the 4th to 12th Centuries, European knowledge and study of arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music was limited mainly to Boethius’ translations of some of the works of ancient Greek masters such as Nicomachus and Euclid. All trade and calculation was made using the clumsy and inefficient Roman numeral system, and with an abacus based on Greek and Roman models. By the 12th Century, though, Europe, and particularly Italy, was beginning to trade with the East, and Eastern knowledge gradually began to spread to the West. Robert of Chester translated Al-Khwarizmi's important book on algebra into Latin in the 12th Century, and the complete text of Euclid's “Elements” was translated in various versions by Adelard of Bath, Herman of Carinthia and Gerard of Cremona. The great expansion of trade and commerce in general created a growing practical need for mathematics, and arithmetic entered much more into the lives of common people and was no longer limited to the academic realm.
The advent of the printing press in the mid-15th Century also had a huge impact. Numerous books on arithmetic were published for the purpose of teaching business people computational methods for their commercial needs and mathematics gradually began to acquire a more important position in education.
Europe’s first great medieval mathematician was the Italian Leonardo of Pisa, better known by his nickname Fibonacci. Although best known for the so-called Fibonacci Sequence of numbers, perhaps his most important contribution to European mathematics was his role in spreading the use of the Hindu-Arabi c numeral system throughout Europe early in the 13th Century, which soon made the Roman numeral system obsolete, and opened the way for great advances in European mathematics.

(2)
Famous European Mathematician
LEONARDO FIBONACCI CONTRIBUTION
Leonardo Fibonacci was born in Pisa, Italy, around 1175. His father was Guilielmo Bonacci, a secretary of the Republic of Pisa.His father was also a customs officer for the North African city of Bugia. Some time after 1192. Bonacci brought his son with him to Bugia.Guilielmo wanted for Leonardo to become a merchant and so arranged for his instruction in calculational techniques, especially those involving the Hindu - Arabic numerals which had not yet been introduced into Europe .Since Fibonacci was the son of a merchant, he was able go travel freely all over the Byzantine Empire. Merchants at the time were immuned, so they were allowed to move about freely. This allowed him to visit many of the area's centers of trade. While he was there, he was able to learn both the mathematics of the scholars and the calculating schemes in popular use, at the time.
Fibonacci writes in his famous book Liber abaci (1202):
When my father, who had been appointed by his country as public notary in the customs at Bugia acting for the Pisan merchants going there, was in charge, he summoned me to him while I was still a child, and having an eye to usefulness and future convenience, desired me to stay there and receive instruction in the school of accounting. There, when I had been introduced to the art of the Indians' nine symbols through remarkable teaching, knowledge of the art very soon pleased me above all else and I came to understand it, for whatever was studied by the art in Egypt, Syria, Greece, Sicily and Provence, in all its various forms
Around 1200, Fibonacci returned to Pisa. Leonardo Fibonacci was the greatest European mathematician of the Middle Ages. He was the first to introduce the Hindu - Arabic number system into Europe. Leonardo wrote a book on how to do arithmetic in the decimal system, called "Liber abaci", completed in 1202. It describes the rules we are all now learn at elementary school for adding numbers, subtracting, multiplying and dividing. In his book Leonardo wrote the numerals in descending order and his fractions came before the numeral like 1/2 4 instead of 4 1/2.
(3)
One result of his book attested to his mastery not only of the Hindy-Arabic techniques of practical calculation but also of the theory of quadratic equations. In his work, Fibonacci put forth not so much an original exposition as a compilation of the techniques of Arabic arithmetic and algebra. Leonardo`s mathematical environment encompassed more than this Arabic theory of algebra however. Within his sphere of commercial activities, there also a need for comprehensive catalogues of techniques for solving day-to-day problems.
A problem in the third section of Liber abaci led to the introduction of the Fibonacci numbers :
A certain man put a pair of rabbits in a place surrounded on all sides by a wall. How many pairs of rabbits can be produced from that pair in a year if it is supposed that every month each pair begets a new pair which from the second month on becomes productive?

Reference Pages

The following websites were used to aid this project: http://www.leonardo-fibonacci-numbers.com/ http://www.maths.surrey.ac.uk/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_mathematics