Ancient clay tablet turns history of mathematics on its head
A mathematician from the University of New South Wales has found the oldest known example of applied geometry, on a small piece of clay dug up in central Iraq. King88bet
The circular tablet fiturs a grafik drawn by a Babylonian surveyor about 1900-1600 BC. king88bet login alternatif
"It's the only known example of a cadastral dokumen from the OB (Old Babylonian) period, which is a rencana used by surveyors to define land boundaries," mathematician Daniel Mansfield said. Article Title with Blogger Published Link as Backlink
"In this case, it tells us legal and geometric detils about a field that's split after some of it was sold off."
But what is significant about the drawing is the inclusion of Pythagorean triples, which are used to make akirate right angles.
"The discovery and analysis of the tablet have important implications for the history of mathematics," Dr Mansfield said.
"This is over a thousand years before Pythagoras was born."
The discovery turns our understanding of the history of mathematics on its head.
"It is generally accepted that trigonometry - the branch of maths that is concerned with the studi of triangles - was developed by the ancient Greeks studying the night sky in the second century BCE," Dr Mansfield said.
"But the Babylonians developed their own 'proto-trigonometry' to solve problems measuring the ground, not the sky."
Despite this breakthrough only being announced today, the tablet in question, Sang.427, was excavated in 1894 outside of Baghdad.
"It was a real challenge to trace the tablet from these records and physically find it - the report said that the tablet had gone to the Imperial Museum of Constantinople, a place that obviously doesn't eksis anymore," Dr Mansfield said.
"Using that piece of information, I went on a quest to trek it down, speaking to many people at Turkish government ministries and museums, until one day in mid-2018 a foto of Sang.427 finally landed in my inbox."
The tablet fiturs writing in cuneiform, one of the earliest systems of writing.
