FIBONACCI - HIS RABBITS AND HIS NUMBERS and KEPLER

A second revised version was produced in 1228 and this great document translated with many errors by Boncompagni (see reference 2a) in 1857 is what has survived to this day and gives us an almost complete statement of the mathematical knowledge that had accumulated in the West since the Greeks. It can also be regarded as a comprehensive merchant’s handbook as its stated aim was to demonstrate to these merchants the advantages of the Hindu-Arabic number system compared with the Roman system which apart from its clumsiness didn’t even have a zero symbol. However the merchants then being much the same slaves to conformity as their present day counterparts rejected his system. It in fact took many decades to be accepted commercially; the transition was much more painful and time consuming than for example the recent conversion from British to metric measurements.