(Part 2)
Babylonian mathematics refers to any mathematics of the peoples of Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq) from the days of the early Sumerians until the beginning of the Hellenistic period. It is named Babylonian mathematics due to the central role of Babylon as a place of study, which ceased to exist during the Hellenistic period.
In contrast to the sparsity
of sources in Egyptian mathematics, our
knowledge of Babylonian mathematics is derived
from more than 400 clay tablets
unearthed since the 1850s. The early Babylonians drew isosceles
triangles on wet clay plates with needles. In this way, they made
wedge-shaped letters.
Written in cuneiform script, tablets were baked hard in an oven or by
the heat of the sun. Some of these appear to be graded homework. The
majority of recovered clay tablets dates from 1800 to 1600 BC, and
cover topics which include fractions, algebra, the calculation of
Pythagorean triples, quadratic and cubic equations as well as the
equations of second degree with two unknowns,
and they could also handle equations of the third and fourth degree.
The tablets also include multiplication
tables, trigonometry tables and methods
for solving linear and quadratic equations. The Babylonian tablet YBC
7289 gives an approximation to
accurate to five decimal places. Thus the development of algebra
quickened.
After deciphering the wedge-shaped letters, we can know that unlike the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans, the Babylonians used very high system of calculation in commerce and agriculture with a true sexagesimal place-value (positional) numeral system, where digits written in the left column represented larger values, much as in the decimal system. They lacked, however, an equivalent of the decimal point, and so the place value of a symbol often had to be inferred from the context. From their numeral system we derive the present-day usage of 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour, and 360 degrees in a circle. Babylonians advances in mathematics were facilitated by the fact that "60" has many divisors.
Babylonian geometry is intimately related to practical mensuration. The chief feature of Babylonian geometry is its algebraic character.
Notes:
Papyrus – (1) a tall water plant of the sedge family abundant in the Nile region of Egypt used as ornamental and widely cultivated by ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans for producing a writing material by soaking, pressing and drying thin slices of its pitch laid crosswise; (2) any ancient document or manuscript on papyrus.
Frustum – a solid figure consisting of the bottom part of a cone or pyramid, the top of which has been cut off by a plane parallel to the base
Sumerians [_su:´merèàn] – an ancient non-Semitic people of Mesopotamia the language of whom, extinct as a spoken language since 2000 B.C. although it continued to be written until the abandonment of the cuneiform writing system: its tablets and inscriptions date back to 3000 B.C.; no clear relationship to any other language has been established.
Cuneiform [_kju:´neàfá:m] (wedge-shaped) script – designating the characters used in ancient Akkadian, Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persian inscriptions (клиновидне письмо).