3,700-year-old Babylonian tablet rewrites the history of maths - and shows the Greeks did not develop trigonometry

[Fweethawt]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2017/08/24/3700-year-old-babylonian-tablet-rewrites-history-maths-could/?WT.mc_id=tmg_share_fb#

 

3,700-year-old clay tablet has proven that the Babylonians developed trigonometry 1,500 years before the Greeks and were using a sophisticated method of mathematics which could change how we calculate today.

 

The tablet, known as Plimpton 332, was discovered in the early 1900s in Southern Iraq by the American archaeologist and diplomat Edgar Banks, who was the inspiration for Indiana Jones.

[pantheory]

29 minutes ago, Fweethawt said:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2017/08/24/3700-year-old-babylonian-tablet-rewrites-history-maths-could/?WT.mc_id=tmg_share_fb#

 

3,700-year-old clay tablet has proven that the Babylonians developed trigonometry 1,500 years before the Greeks and were using a sophisticated method of mathematics which could change how we calculate today.

 

The tablet, known as Plimpton 332, was discovered in the early 1900s in Southern Iraq by the American archaeologist and diplomat Edgar Banks, who was the inspiration for Indiana Jones.

 

Because the Babylonians showed that they had performed trigonometry does not mean that they developed the full tables of it, or that the Greeks copied it from them somehow. 1,500 years is a long time and the first discovery of it could have been lost to time. The Greeks could have developed it independently. The concept of it is relatively simple compared to some of the mathematics developed and performed by Archimedes.

[mwc]

 

     The video is about 20 minutes long but it explains the tablet, it's contents and the math they believe it contains nicely.  If you have the time I suggest giving it a watch.

 

          mwc

 

[pantheory]

The problem in those times, and also with the Greeks and other ancient cultures, was that such information was known by only a select few people, if not just one person, and was not widely disseminated and understood by many people through books and education as it is today.