Virahanka numbers (Fibonacci sequence)
Números de Virahanka (sucesión de Fibonacci)
- Date
- c. 700 · confidence low
- Place
- Northern India, India
- Credited to
- Virahanka (later Gopala and Hemachandra)
- People
- 👤 Virahanka
- Field
- Knowledge & symbols
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What was discovered
By counting how many poetic metres of a given duration can be formed with short (1) and long (2) syllables, Virahanka found that each number is the sum of the two before it: 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13… It predates the Liber Abaci by five centuries.
Indian priority over Fibonacci (1202) is clear, but there is no evidence of transmission; Virahanka's date is imprecise (6th-8th centuries).
What it led to
- Indian metrical combinatorics
- rules of Gopala (c. 1135) and Hemachandra (c. 1150)