Leonardo Pisano
I researched a scientist or rather a mathematician that made contributions to his discipline such that they have affected a majority of the people that have lived on this earth since his time. His name is Leonardo Pisano. It is hypothesized that Leonardo was born in the town of Pisa which is in modern day Italy circa 1170. Leonardo moved at a young age with his father to a town in northern Algeria. Leonardo’s father held a diplomatic post where his job was to represent the merchants of the republic. At a young age Leonardo worked with numbers learning the in and outs of accounting and balancing books. In Algeria and other countries that he visited with his father he learned different numbering systems and how they had advantages to the one that he grew up with. In Algeria from the Arabs he learned the base 10 system and was responsible to spreading this system across Europe which in turn was spread across the world and is now the most widely used number system (Connor 1998). Most people today know Leonardo by his nickname Fibonacci.
By the turn of the century Fibonacci had returned to Italy and began to write texts. He wrote on number theory, geometry, algebra, and documented problems and proofs. Fibonacci lived before the printing press had been invented and all copies of his books had to be had written copies from his own hand written copies. Today we still have four of his books; Liber abaci (1202), Practica geometriae (1220), Flos (1225), and Liber quadratorum.
According to an article by Keith Devlin, Executive Director of the Center for the Study of Language and Information at Stanford University, Fibonacci’s first book Liber abaci is “the book that gave numbers to the western world”. Fibonacci was born in the Roman Empire and therefore was taught in his youth the Roman numeral system which is very limiting when one wants to calculate complex equations. As mentioned earlier Fibonacci traveled extensively in northern Africa with his father where he learned the base ten system from the Arabic people who in turn learned it from the people of India who developed it sometime in the first millennium. In his book Liber abaci or “The Book of calculation” he documented the system in detail that he learned from the Arab traders including its efficiency in performing arithmetic (Delvin 2002).
of water to the west of the Outer Banks of North Carolina for the Pacific
Douglass made poignant points about manhood, Christianity and literacy that helped the freedom bells ring for all mankind. He did so in a peaceful and Christian manner that was exemplary and repeated in later years by civil rights activist Martin Luther King. Douglass opened the eyes for many both black and white to the shadows and indignities that slavery cast on all that were involved with it. Through his hard work, dedication and sacrifice he helped bring an end to the demon of slavery.
Have you heard of a man named Alexander the Great, the famous historical figure? There are many amazing stories about him explaining the courageous things he had accomplished. However, if you learn more about him and his accomplishments you will soon realized the real person Alexander was. Alexander the Great, ruler of his empire was in fact not great as his title states. The definition of great is a person who shows concern for others, has leadership and shows intelligence. Alexander didn’t show any of these characteristics therefore he doesn’t deserve the title of “great”.
In the countries who believed Alexander was the son of the devil or the devil himself, will say he is not ‘great’ but a demon who did evil. The countries who were on his side would say he was the greatest conqueror to live. He began as a Macedonian cavalry commander at eighteen, king of Macedonia at twenty, conqueror of Persia at twenty-six and explorer of India at thirty [Foner and Garraty]. The amount of large scale accomplishments he managed to finish in a span of six years is astonishing. Alexander’s tomb was the largest tourist attraction in the ancient world. The tomb was even visited by Julius Caesar, Pompey, Caligula, and Augustus. Alexander the Great’s accomplishments set a bar in which provided a standard that all other leaders would match their careers too. Many leaders after Alexander could not reach the standard left by him [Foner and
Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey (or better known as Frederick Douglass) was born in 1818 to a black mother and a white father. Despite this unfavorable beginning, he was – and still is, to this day – universally recognized as a symbol for freedom. He dedicated his entire life towards earning rights like freedom and the right to vote for African American people.
Based on data, Frederick Douglass accomplished most of his life goals. One of the goals he accomplished was for him to escape slavery and become a free man he decided to become an abolitionist movement leader. Then he would start his own newspaper and create inspiring quotes about his life problems or causes inside of the United States of America. Frederick Douglass also accomplished in life by having a good family and by raising his children well.
Giovanni Bellini was born in Venice, Italy around 1430. He was the son of Jacopo Bellini, an esteemed painter at the time, and probably began his career along side his brother as an assistant in his father’s workshop. Though his artwork was influenced by many of his friends and relatives, Giovanni possessed certain qualities in his compositions which set him apart from the others. He blended the styles of both his father and brother-in-law, Andrea Mantegna, with his own subtle appreciation of color and light, the high regard he held for the detail of natural landscape, along with the very direct human empathy he placed in his painting. These components of Bellini’s personal style became foundational to the character of all Venetian Renaissance Art. Bellini later developed a sensuous coloristic manner in his work which became yet another characteristic he contributed to the Venetian Renaissance Art.
We don’t hear too much about Euler, but he is one of the most important and influential mathematicians ever, along with Archimedes and Newton. He created more published works than any other mathematician and wrote in a very understandable way. There is a fundamental part of geometry that all other mathematicians before him missed, but Euler discovered it and made the polyhedron formula: V-E+F=2
As we look around us today we see evidence of Stevin’s decimal arithmetic everywhere. We use it in measurements, weights, currency, and many other situations. Each of these situations is proof of how large an impact on modern day mathematics that Stevin’s decimal arithmetic had. The fact that to this day, about 400 years later, we still use the exact same methods Stevin invented is very fascinating. I begin to wonder where not only mathematics, but society in general would be today if Stevin had not made decimals popular. Decimals benefited not only mathematicians, but people of all classifications. Engineers especially benefited from the use of decimals because they were finally able to do precise calculations. This contributed to many amazing inventions and discoveries.
Carl Friedrich Gauss is revered as a very important man in the world of mathematicians. The discoveries he completed while he was alive contributed to many areas of mathematics like geometry, statistics, number theory, statistics, and more. Gauss was an extremely brilliant mathematician and that is precisely why he is remembered all through today. Although Gauss left many contributions in each of the aforementioned fields, two of his discoveries in the fields of mathematics and astronomy seem to have had the most tremendous effect on modern day mathematics.
Fermat was born in 1601 in Beaumont-de-Lomagne, France and initially studied mathematics in Bordeaux with some of the disciples of Viete, a French algebraist (Katz 2009). He went on to earn a law degree and become a successful counselor. Mathematics was merely a hobby to him, so he never published because he did not want to thoroughly explain his discoveries in detail. He died in 1665 and his son later published his manuscripts and correspondence. Fermat adapted Viète’s algebra to the study of geometric loci and used letters to represent variable distances. He discovered that the study of loci, or sets of points with certain characteristics, could be made easier by applying algebra to geometry through a coordinate system (Katz 2009). Basically any relation between ...
Leonhard Euler was easily the best mathematician of the eighteenth century. His contributions to mathematics ranges from common notation to proving the hypothesis of Newton and Leibnitz. His discoveries cannot be limited to just one field of interest, nor just the field of mathematics. He made great strides in geometry, infinitesimal calculus, trigonometry, algebra, and number theory, as well as continuum physics, lunar theory and other areas of physics. He is also one of the most well written mathematicians whose works could be contained in 60–80 quarto volumes. Probably the most extraordinary fact about him is that the majority of the work he did was in the last twenty years of his life, when he was completely blind. Euler is arguably one of the greatest mathematicians who ever lived.
In conclusion, Fibonacci numbers are used throughout society. It is astonishing how these sets of never-ending numbers, are used in various ways. From being able to compute pi and being used in art, Fibonacci numbers are very unique compared to other mathematical subjects.
The history of math has become an important study, from ancient to modern times it has been fundamental to advances in science, engineering, and philosophy. Mathematics started with counting. In Babylonia mathematics developed from 2000B.C. A place value notation system had evolved over a lengthy time with a number base of 60. Number problems were studied from at least 1700B.C. Systems of linear equations were studied in the context of solving number problems.
They constructed the 12-month calendar which they based on the cycles of the moon. Other than that, they also created a mathematical system based on the number 60 which they called the Sexagesimal. Though, our mathematics today is not based on their system it acts like a foundation for some mathematicians. They also used the basic mathematics- addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, in keeping track of their records- one of their contributions to this world, bookkeeping. It was also suggested that they even discovered the number of the pi for they knew how to solve the circumference of the circle (Atif, 2013).