Incredible 3700-Year-Old Babylonian Clay Tablet Is World’s Oldest Example of Applied Geometry

https://scitechdaily.com ^ | AUGUST 4, 2021 | By UNIVERSITY OF NEW SOUTH WALES

[Forward the Light Brigade]

Its why we have 60 minutes in an hour—and not 100.

[Forward the Light Brigade]

Its why we have 60 minutes in an hour—and not 100.

[Trillian]

She’s probably long gone by now anyway!

[doorgunner69]

I think I still have my thermodynamics textbook with the dreaded “Steam Tables”

[lepton]

Wonder how the Babylonians arrived at using a base 60 system.

---

Probably base 12, 2*3*2, then *5.

[GingisK]

You are going to make me comb through some old boxes. Thermodynamics wasn't for the faint of heart, was it? My physics books lurk around here somewhere. No book ever leaves my clutches. I majored in physics, but ended up in computer science. I bet I still have "Compiler Construction" and maybe even those Knuth books from hell.

I have a great big one on thermodynamics and rocket propulsion. It even goes into the chemistry and physics related to particles of incomplete and unintentional combustion. That hurts the head a bit.

[minnesota_bound]

I want to know who dropped it and cracked the tablet!

[minnesota_bound]

After reading the article I have to say that I am dumber then someone from 3,700 years ago that only had clay and a stick to work with.....

If he were alive today he would be a very successful youtuber.

[Deplorable American1776]

Did they have morons (Liberals) who thought Math was racist?

[Honest Nigerian]

How did they arrive at base 60? I don’t know, but consider that 1 times 2 times 3 times 4 times 5 = 120.
So maybe it is somehow taken from 3 times 4 times 5.
The ancients were not all some dumbos. I am sure further amazing discoveries are only waiting for some advanced civilization to discover.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Red Badger.

• Babylonians Were Using Geometry Centuries Earlier Than Thought [1/28/2016]
• In the shadow of the Moon [8/31/2004]

[BenLurkin]

Something about the degrees in a circle, I think I heard somewhere.

[BenLurkin]

Traces of the antediluvian civilization.

[M Kehoe]

Thanks for the ping.

I still contend that the universe is binary.

Change my mind.

5.56mm

[GreyFriar]

I could understand and do the geometry problems in high school and passed it with out a problem; whereas, algebra left me puzzled and I barely passed it.

[xzins]

👍

[ApplegateRanch]

It turns out that I still have my CRC Handbook

I still have a Rubber Handbook packed away, and my slide rules, along with a shirt pocket book of trig tables, and other useful items that are no longer so useful.

[Openurmind]

“This is a significant object because the surveyor uses what are now known as “Pythagorean triples” to make accurate right angles.”

“The discovery and analysis of the tablet have important implications for the history of mathematics,” Dr. Mansfield says. “For instance, this is over a thousand years before Pythagoras was born.”

Another example of where someone is wrongfully credited for an already known and well understood thousand year old process. I think there are many cases of this yet to be discovered...

[Openurmind]

Yep, some did indeed survive and share knowledge after.

[SunkenCiv]

That’s such a cisgender view! /rimshot