Who is Fibonacci?

• A. Carl Friedrich Gauss.
• B. Blaise Pascal.
• C. Leonardo of Pisa.
• D. Euclid.

Answer: (C)

Fibonacci refers to a medieval Italian mathematician who is Leonardo of Pisa, also known as Leonardo Bonacci. Born in Pisa around 1170, he traveled with his merchant father and learned Hindu-Arabic numerals and the decimal system from the trade networks of the Mediterranean. In his book Liber Abaci, published in 1202, he popularized these numerals in Europe and showed how to use them for calculations. The sequence bearing his name—the Fibonacci numbers—emerges from a rabbit-reproduction problem in that book and follows the rule F(n) = F(n-1) + F(n-2) with initial terms 1 and 1. So, the correct identification is Leonardo of Pisa. The other names listed are famous mathematicians from other eras—Gauss, Pascal, and Euclid—who are not associated with this naming.