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defacto7

(14,162 posts)

38. This makes me wonder about human intellect

Fri Aug 25, 2017, 01:03 PM

Aug 2017

and its potential throuout history. Have we had this level of potential for analytical thought from the beginning of civilization or were these just anomalies appearing now and then? If the potential was there, what inhibitor put the breaks on analytical thinking? Was it sociopolitical, natural cataclysmic, or maybe fluctuations in our brains evolution and devolution? Lots of questions.

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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