LIBER ABACI & FIBONACCI NUMBERS FROM ANCIENT INDIA

These two works exist together as an investigation into the origins of the Fibonacci Sequence. Whilst the discovery of the sequence is often attributed to Leonardo Pisano 1202 book Liber Abaci, the true discovery of the sequence dates back

to ancient Indian writings in the 6th century. It would be more accurate to say that Fibonacci introduced the sequence to the western world some 600 years after its true discovery. The ‘Liber Abaci’ canvas contains a text directly translated from Pisano’s first ever writings concerning the sequence. Often referred to as ‘Fibonacci’s Rabbit Problem’, Pisano used the sequence to consider the growth of an idealized (biologically unrealistic) rabbit population in the time frame of 1 year. This was the first record of Pisano writing about and utilising the Fibonacci sequence. 

In contrast to this, the canvas Fibonacci Numbers from Ancient India contains a text taken from the seminal essay by Parmanand Singh in the 1985 edition of Historia Mathematica 12. In it, Singh reveals that the ‘so-called’ Fibonacci numbers were well known amongst Indian mathematicians well before the time of Pisano and date as far back as the 6th Century.

These two canvases further highlight the importance of the sequence, but also comment on the history and origins of understanding itself; history is littered with examples of discoveries being wrongly attributed. It is also worth noting that both canvases, with the dimensions of 168 x 104 cm, are proportioned according to the golden ratio.