The Merchant and the Mathematician: Commerce and Accounting

Authors

Graziano Gentili, Università di Firenze
Luisa Simonutti, Istituto per la storia del pensiero filolosofico e scientifico moderno, Italy
Daniele C. Struppa, Chapman UniversityFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1-2023

Abstract

In this article we describe the invention of double-entry bookkeeping (or partita doppiaas it was called in Italian), as a fertile intersection between mathematics and early commerce. We focus our attention on this seemingly simple technique that requires only minimal mathematical expertise, but whose discovery is clearly the result of a mathematical way of thinking, in order to make a conceptual point about the role of mathematics as the humus from which disciplines as different as operations research, computer science, and data science have evolved.

Comments

This article was originally published in Journal of Humanistic Mathematics, volume 13, issue 1, in 2023 under a Creative Commons License (CCL).

Recommended Citation

Graziano Gentili, Luisa Simonutti & Daniele C. Struppa, "The Merchant and the Mathematician: Commerce and Accounting," Journal of Humanistic Mathematics, Volume 13 Issue 1 (January 2023), pages 70-98. . Available at: https://scholarship.claremont.edu/jhm/vol13/iss1/6

Peer Reviewed

1

Copyright

The authors