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Orrex

(67,112 posts)

24. It's impolite to ask a tablet's age

Reply to left-of-center2012 (Reply #22)

Thu Aug 24, 2017, 09:58 PM

Aug 2017

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Mathematical secrets of ancient tablet unlocked after nearly a century of study [View all] brooklynite Aug 2017 OP

republicans claim Babylonians used proveable math Achilleaze Aug 2017 #1

LOL iluvtennis Aug 2017 #12

We MUST find the other tablets! Plucketeer Aug 2017 #2

"... other experts on .. Plimpton 322 .. say the new work is speculative at best ..." struggle4progress Aug 2017 #3

I love science and Science. Always something fascinating to learn. GeoWilliam750 Aug 2017 #8

Mansfield & Wildberger agree - from their paper: dalton99a Aug 2017 #32

"more accurate than any available today" ?? Um, yeah, right. eppur_se_muova Aug 2017 #4

confusing, but not wrong .... MountainFool Aug 2017 #6

Kinda late to change, except for maybe a standalone application. rickford66 Aug 2017 #10

This can be ... aggiesal Aug 2017 #27

He's right, sorta, but we've been using base 10 for a loooong time and are used to it... TreasonousBastard Aug 2017 #14

360 degrees; 60 minutes; 60 seconds; months of 12, days of 30, hours of 24. The key number was SIX, WinkyDink Aug 2017 #15

Babylonian Schoolhouse Rock! LudwigPastorius Aug 2017 #34

Most high level trig Sgent Aug 2017 #19

That Would Have Been One Awkward Keyboard DallasNE Aug 2017 #20

And you would know differently, how, exactly? WinkyDink Aug 2017 #13

Trig tables are basically obsolete caraher Aug 2017 #21

Simple microprocessors don't have floating point math coprocessors. hunter Aug 2017 #33

Yeah, "more accurate". Dr. Strange Aug 2017 #23

Making quantities easier to calculate, not necessarily more accurate. eppur_se_muova Aug 2017 #25

I'm guessing the isosceles right triangle was a special case, with known useful approximations. hunter Aug 2017 #41

You are obviously correct Progressive dog Aug 2017 #43

Fake math! - So sad! keithbvadu2 Aug 2017 #5

Wonder if any of this was taught as NEW math dembotoz Aug 2017 #7

As long as they only have one of the Millennium items... AngryAmish Aug 2017 #9

Aliens. Kingofalldems Aug 2017 #11

+1 progressoid Aug 2017 #36

Isn't Babylon what is modern day IranIraq in a the Middle East ? kimbutgar Aug 2017 #16

Iraq. Iran was Persia. Two very different cultures. yardwork Aug 2017 #45

As an aside: One of these researchers is N J Wildberger - he has a History Of Math course online. Jim__ Aug 2017 #17

Thanks Jim! thbobby Aug 2017 #39

K&R & thanks. nt tblue37 Aug 2017 #18

"The 3,700-year-old broken clay tablet ..." left-of-center2012 Aug 2017 #22

It's impolite to ask a tablet's age Orrex Aug 2017 #24

Coffee meet keyboard. Pacifist Patriot Aug 2017 #30

Plimpton 322 poses several challenges struggle4progress Aug 2017 #26

Which raises the question of why did they multiply the 3,4,5 triplet by 15? muriel_volestrangler Aug 2017 #28

On inspection, the wild fluctuations (of the sizes in the second and third columns) struggle4progress Aug 2017 #29

It's homework, then, and waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay overdue. mahatmakanejeeves Aug 2017 #35

I found one of the earlier papers investigating this muriel_volestrangler Aug 2017 #37

I suppose that's possible but it's very easy to see, from pebble pictures, that struggle4progress Aug 2017 #40

This is where I love being hopelessly liberal arts and mathematically challenged. Pacifist Patriot Aug 2017 #31

This makes me wonder about human intellect defacto7 Aug 2017 #38

That's why anti-intellectual traditions scare me. hunter Aug 2017 #42

Don't Fall for Babylonian Trigonometry Hype Dr. Strange Aug 2017 #44