Old Babylonian "hand tablet" illustrating Pythagoras' Theorem and an approximation of the square root of two. Clay, 19th-17th century BCE. Yale Babylonian Collection YBC 7289. Photo: West Semitic Research.
Old Babylonian "hand tablet" illustrating Pythagoras' Theorem and an approximation of the square root of two. Clay, 19th-17th century BCE. Yale Babylonian Collection YBC 7289. Photo: West Semitic Research.
You would think intellectuals at a prestigious university would know how to spell a date.
The writing on the tablet says, “This is how square peg put into round hole”.
Just in case anybody can’t read cuneiform....the number on the diagonal in the upper left quadrant is 30. The numbers in the middle, left to right, top line: 1,24,51,10, and bottom line: 42, 25, 35.
http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/HistTopics/Babylonian_Pythagoras.html
This might clear things up better. They were using base 60, so it doesn’t make a whole lotta sense if you don’t!
Are these the same mathematical achievements that the barbaric muslims are claiming as their own?
Man, those Babylonian crib sheets must have been a bear to sneak into the classroom back then being made out of clay and everything.
.... date from the Old Babylonian Period (ca. 1900-1700 BCE)
Arrrrgggghhhh!!!
When I hear that 'BCE' carp on the Science Channel my head almost explodes.
Ditto when they'll say stuff like : 'In the year 100, of the Common Era.'.
It's 'BC' and 'AD', period!
A Magi: “0ne plus one equal one. No, that won’t be discovered for thousands of years when it is taught to elementary school kids as New Math.”
I'm thinking that date can be pushed back to around 5,000 BC as many Babylonian texts were copied from the Sumerians.
Fascinating...got to see if I can find my book on some early mathematics.
