Sorry if it looks like I'm picking nits, but having just finished a fascinating book called
The Calendar , which encompasses the mathematics necessary for calendrical reform as well as the calendar itself, I feel I must correct TheFallibleFiend. Fibonacci did not 'introduce' Hindu-Arabic numerals into the west. From said book:
"The first Hindu numbers known to have been scrawled on a European manuscript appeared in northern Spain in 976 and used the 'western' Arabic form of the numbers...Twenty years later, in the 990s, Gerbert of Aurillac taught the Hindu numbers to his students, undoubtedly picking them up after a stint in Spain... Mention of the numbers all but disappeared for another century until the Englishman Robert of Chester (c.1100) visited Spain..." etc etc, Euros reluctant to use this magical-looking symbols...
Anyway. The book is by David Ewing Duncan, and I highly recommend it for being easy to read... and Fiend, sorry again if I appear to be acting lofty
alexis
