ERIC Number: EJ862231
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2009-Sep
Pages: 4
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0746-8342
EISSN: N/A
Fibonacci's Forgotten Number Revisited
Maruszewski, Richard
College Mathematics Journal, v40 n4 p248-251 Sep 2009
In 1225 Fibonacci visited the court of the Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick II. Because Frederick was an important patron of learning, this visit was important to Fibonacci. During the audience, Frederick's court mathematician posed three problems to test Fibonacci. The third was to find the real solution to the equation: x[superscript 3] + 2x[superscript 2] + 10x = 20. In an earlier article in this JOURNAL, Brown and Brunson discussed several methods that Fibonacci might have used to find his estimate for the solution to this problem and conjectured that the method of Elchataym was the one that Fibonacci actually used. This article continues this discussion and proposes another method, not mentioned by Brown and Brunson, but likely known to Fibonacci and more likely to be the one that he used.
Descriptors: Computation, Mathematics Instruction, College Mathematics, Problem Solving, Equations (Mathematics), History, Numbers
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Opinion Papers
Education Level: Higher Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A