(Re)Humanizing Mathematics with Story A Review of Keith Devlin’s Finding Fibonacci: The Quest to Rediscover the Forgotten Mathematical Genius Who Changed the World

• Published in: The Mathematics Enthusiast
• Main Author: Nicol, Cynthia
• Format: Text
• Language: unknown
• Published: ScholarWorks at University of Montana 2023
• Subjects: Pisano; Dogrib
• Online Access: https://scholarworks.umt.edu/tme/vol20/iss1/18; https://doi.org/10.54870/1551-3440.1600; https://scholarworks.umt.edu/context/tme/article/1600/viewcontent/Article_17_Cynthia_Nicol_reviews_Keith_Devlin__Finding_Fibonacci_.pdf

Indigenous scholar Richard van Camp of the Dogrib Nation shares how “a great story reminds us of what it means to be human” (van Camp in Galloway, 2020). Keith Devlin’s book, Finding Fibonacci: The Quest to Rediscover the Forgotten Mathematical Genius Who Changed the World, does just that – reminding us what it means to be human, but in this case through mathematics. In Finding Fibonacci, Devlin shares his story and journey to learn more about mathematician Leonardo Pisano (Fibonacci) and Leonardo’s manuscript Liber Abbaci (Book of Calculation), one of the first manuscripts written on practical arithmetic in Western Europe, and what Devlin argues “would change the world” (p. 17).