Discovery
Despite its namesake, Leonardo Fibonacci, was not the first one to discover the Fibonacci sequence. In fact its discovery should be attributed to a long line of Indian mathematicians. The first to lay the ground work was Pingla (c. 200 BC). Later, Virahanka (c. 700 AD) expanded upon his work and drafted the Fibonacci Sequence that we all know today. However, Virahanka's writings are now lost. He is believed to be the first one to create the Fibonacci Sequence due to a reference in a journal written around 1135 by the scholar, Gopala. Fifteen years later the well-known Jainist, Acharya Hemachandra, popularized the sequence in his writings. But it wasn't until one of Fibonacci's trip to the East where he picked up a copy of Hemanchandra's books, and was able to simplify the sequence by comparing it to an ever expanding rabbit population. Although Virahanka may have been the first one to discover the sequence, it wasn't until Leonardo Fibonacci that it was rediscovered by the West.
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