194. Empire of Numbers: Fibonacci and the Birth of Modern Money

Empire

Jack Davenport

History

4.6 • 4.1K Ratings

🗓️ 14 October 2024

⏱️ 39 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

When King Alfonso VI of León took Toledo from the Arabs in 1085, the history of western christendom changed forever. Within the city existed a number of texts full of the ideas that we would call Arabic numerals, but that originated in India. From the libraries of Toledo these were translated and spread through Europe. Enter Fibonacci. A genius Italian mathematician, he instantly recognised the advantages of this number system and so wrote Liber Abaci, distilling these ancient ideas into a Latin text. Once this caught on, it laid the foundation for the modern banking and economic system that underpins the global economy. Listen as William and Anita discuss how numerical ideas that originated in India came to prevail across the world. To buy William's book: https://coles-books.co.uk/the-golden-road-by-william-dalrymple-signed-edition Twitter: @Empirepoduk Email: [email protected] Goalhangerpodcasts.com Assistant Producer: Tabby Syrett Producer: Callum Hill Exec Producer: Neil Fearn Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	If you want access to bonus episodes reading lists for every series of empire, a chat community,
0:06.7	discounts for all the books mentioned in the week's podcast, add free listening and a weekly
0:11.5	newsletter, sign up to Empire Club at
0:14.4	W.
0:15.1	W. Empire pod UK.com. Hello and me William to Riemann.
0:28.6	Hello and welcome to Empire with me Anita Arnan and me, William,
0:34.3	William, Rumpel.
0:35.0	Now on this podcast, hello, dear friends.
0:37.5	You know we talk about a number of empires,
0:39.5	but today we're talking about Empire of Numbers. We are.
0:43.0	Good in it.
0:44.0	That's quite neat, isn't it?
0:45.0	You came up with that all of your own.
0:47.0	I really didn't, but I just stole it.
0:51.0	Okay, look, in the last episode we were following the story of
0:55.5	numbers from India to Baghdad today we're looking at how these ideas these concepts
1:01.6	made their way to Europe and it's all based on William's
1:05.2	brilliant book The Golden Road which of course you've heard about it's everywhere
1:09.6	you're bloody everywhere can't turn on a TV or a radio without even talking about it.
1:14.4	I have been working hard for the last month and all this.
1:17.6	You have been singing for your supper.
1:19.8	But look, let's talk about how these concepts, these ideas, these just simply, you know,
	...

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