Evolution of the Mind:
A Case for Design Literacy
Chris Pacione

Luma Institute | [e-mail]
[ 1] Burnett, C. “Leonard
of Pisa (Fibonacci)
and Arabic Arithmetic.”
MuslimHeritagecom,
2005; http://www.
muslimheritage.
com/topics/default.
cfm?ArticleID=472/
[ 2] Interesting to note,
alKhwarizmi is where
the word and idea of
algorithm comes from;
http://en.wikipedia.org/
wiki/Muhammad_ibn_
Musa_al-Khwarizmi/
[ 3] Gies, J. and F.
Leonard of Pisa and the
New Mathematics of the
Middle Ages. Gainsville:
New Classics Library.
1996.

March + April 2010

[ 4] The Italian abacists
of the 14th century were
instrumental in teaching
the merchants the “new”
Hindu-Arabic decimal
place-value system and
the algorithms for using
it; http://www.math.
tamu.edu/~dallen/
history/renaissc/
renassc.html/
interactions

In the year 1202, a mathematician named Leonardo of Pisa published a book that changed the world. To many he is known as Fibonacci, and he’s famous because this sequence of numbers—0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55 and so on—bears his name. The Fibonacci series, as it is known, is an algorithm or proportion found in nature, from the bracts of pinecones to DNA molecules, in which the first number of the sequence is 0, the second number is 1, and each subsequent number is equal to the sum of the previous two. Although Fibonacci is best known for this series of numbers, it is his lesser-appreciated book Liber Abaci, in which the numbers appeared as the answer to an algebraic word problem, that many consider a keystone contribution to the advancement of humankind.

In 1180, at the age of 10,
Fibonacci left his home in Pisa
to join his father, who directed
a Mediterranean trading post in
Algeria [ 1]. As was customary,
Fibonacci became his father’s
apprentice and began a study of
accounting. However, because
his father’s trading business was
located in North Africa, his edu-
cation was not based entirely on
the praxis of medieval European
mathematics, which at the time
used Roman numerals, but also
on a system used by the Moorish
merchants his father did busi-
ness with. It was in this world,
miles from his birthplace, where
the young Fibonacci was first
introduced to the concept of a
decimal point and 10 strange
symbols that looked like these:
0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. At the
age of 32, after years assist-
ing his father and mastering
this system of mathematics,
Fibonacci returned to Pisa and
published Liber Abaci, or “Book of
Calculation.” It was his attempt
to formally introduce the use
of this more useful and usable
Hindu-Arabic system to Europe.