

Fibonacci: The man who introduced us to numbers and created modern finance - nikcub
http://www.sciencefriday.com/program/archives/201108124

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alphakappa
As much as I love NPR and Science Friday, that website is tough to use. I
tried poking around to see if I could find a transcript or something and then
gave up when I all I could get were a dozen options to share the story. _sigh_

If anyone else has links to great stories on Fibonacci, please share them
here.

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nikcub
I have been reading a lot about the history of money, finance and economics.
It is a topic I find interesting. All of the biographies about money mention
Fibonacci.

I would recommend the following (you can get most of these books in kindle
edition and most of the documentaries are online in one form or another:

Web:

* <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibonacci>

* Liber Abaci, his most famous book: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liber_Abaci>

* History of money: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_money>

* More on Liber Abaci: <http://liberabaci.blogspot.com/>

* More again on Liber Abaci: [http://www.math.utah.edu/~beebe/software/java/fibonacci/libe...](http://www.math.utah.edu/~beebe/software/java/fibonacci/liber-abaci.html)

* This American Life episode on the invention of money: [http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/423/t...](http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/423/the-invention-of-money)

Books:

* The Ascent of Money: [http://www.amazon.com/Ascent-Money-Financial-History-World/d...](http://www.amazon.com/Ascent-Money-Financial-History-World/dp/0143116177)

* The Origins of Value (hard to find): [http://www.amazon.com/Origins-Value-Financial-Innovations-Cr...](http://www.amazon.com/Origins-Value-Financial-Innovations-Created/dp/0195175719/)

* History of Money (I haven't read this yet, but plan to): [http://www.amazon.com/History-Money-Ancient-Times-Present/dp...](http://www.amazon.com/History-Money-Ancient-Times-Present/dp/0708317170/)

Documentaries:

* NOVA's 'The History of Money': <http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/ancient/history-money.html>

* BBC's 'The Ascent of Money' series: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ascent_of_Money>

* The Secret History of the Credit Card: this was PBS again, can't find it online but if you Google around I am sure you could find it somewhere.

There is a lot more out there - if you follow links, wikipedia, amazon
recommendations and reviews etc. you will find a lot of good sources. A
fascinating topic and fascinating characters involved in the creation of money
(like the Rothschilds and their involvement in toppling governments and
funding conflict).

Every financial instrument we use today - from bonds, stocks, notes, interest,
credit, debit, trade finance instruments etc. have an interesting story around
their origin.

Fibonacci bought over the Arabic number system, base 10 notation (which makes
interest easier to calculate), and set formulas for conversion, standard units
of weight etc. It was a bit like an early draft standard for merchant traders.

With the history, you soon realize that money is just a promissory note or a
debt, and that all money is borrowed. With a wallet full of notes what you
have is a promise from the US Government that the notes can be readily
exchanged.

The more recent fascination with gold-backed currency seems a bit ridiculous
if you understand the history and why we went into gold and then back out of
it.

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bprater
One of the poorest usability designs I've ever seen.

