Tuesday, August 29, 2017

Sorry Greeks but Pythagoras did not create trigonometry.

      • The Greeks have just lost a heritage point. Sorry Greeks but a newly deciphered Babylonian  tablet proves Pythagoras did not create trigonometry. Every math and history school book ever created will now have to be edited and re-written. It proves how yesterday's schools certainly did not know everything! To think that I and millions of my fellow students were tortured and tormented into believing what we were told...or else! Who knows what idiocy the children of today are being forced to learn? It is lucky for most kids they have access to computers!   

      • Mysterious Babylonian tablet discovered by real Indiana Jones has finally been deciphered

        The nearly 4,000-year-old tablet represents a novel trigonometric table that is the most accurate one ever found.

        BRYAN NELSON
        August 25, 2017, 2:43 p.m.
        plimpton 322
        Known as Plimpton 322, this clay tablet has been racking the brains of mathematicians for centuries. (Photo: Wiki Commons)
        A small clay tablet that was discovered in the early 1900s by Edgar Banks — the archaeologist, academic, diplomat and antiquities dealer who was the inspiration behind the character of Indiana Jones — has finally been properly deciphered,reports Phys.org.
        The tablet, known as Plimpton 322 in the archaeological community, is believed to date back to ancient Babylon, nearly 4,000 years ago. Its cuneiform script uses a base 60, or sexagesimal, system, which is similar to our time clock, and appears to contain a special pattern of numbers called Pythagorean triples. What's incredible about that is, the man for whom Pythagorean triples were named for —the ancient Greek mathematician Pythagoras — wasn't born until over 1,000 years after the tablet was created.
        "A treasure-trove of Babylonian tablets exists, but only a fraction of them have been studied yet. The mathematical world is only waking up to the fact that this ancient but very sophisticated mathematical culture has much to teach us," said Norman Wildberger, co-author on the new research that was published in the journal Historia Mathematica.
        The mathematics enscribed on the tablet isn't just incredible because it appears to contain the world's oldest trigonometric table (by a long shot), but the table is more accurate than any invented by the Greeks, or any table invented since then, including those we use today.
        "Our research reveals that Plimpton 322 describes the shapes of right-angle triangles using a novel kind of trigonometry based on ratios, not angles and circles. It is a fascinating mathematical work that demonstrates undoubted genius," explained Daniel Mansfield, the study's other co-author. "The tablet not only contains the world's oldest trigonometric table; it is also the only completely accurate trigonometric table, because of the very different Babylonian approach to arithmetic and geometry."
        Wildberger added: "With Plimpton 322 we see a simpler, more accurate trigonometry that has clear advantages over our own."
        Researchers believe that the tablet was used to aid builders in making architectural calculations. It would have been an invaluable tool in the construction of palaces, temples and step pyramids, for instance.
        All in all, Plimpton 322 offers cause for us to rewrite the history books. The ancient Greeks were not the ones to invent the first trigonometric table; the ancient Babylonians were. It goes to show the ingenuity of ancient cultures, and proves that history is packed with lost wisdom that is worth investigating.




      • Wombling Wombat  7 hours ago

        "The mathematics enscribed on the tablet isn't just incredible because it appears to contain the world's oldest trigonometric table"
        Phew, I was worried it was going to turn out to be a shopping list.


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          Highlowsel Smith  a day ago

          Fascinating stuff, and a great example of our modern world not realizing what we used to know. And given how long the human species has been in its current form it truly makes one wonder just how extensive is our historical amnesia, eh? So it goes...


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              trueletterson*vwfone@gmail.com  3 days ago

              where was this tablet found?


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                  Highlowsel Smith  trueletterson*vwfone@gmail.com  a day ago

                  From the link below it appears that the tablet was purchased by Plimpton in 1923, fromEdgar J. Banks, who said it came from a location near the ancient
                  city of Larsa (modern Tell Senkereh) in Iraq. Robson estimates that
                  Plimpton 322 was created sometime in the six decades before Larsa
                  fell to Hammurabi of Babylon in 1762 BCE.


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                      Mark Caponigro  Highlowsel Smith  35 minutes ago

                      Yes, discovered in the early 20th century, and finally being appreciated.
                      This is the little known reality about Mesopotamian archaeology: The Sumerians, Babylonians and Assyrians were three related civilizations, of terrific literary creativity; and much of their literary output survives in these baked tablets, which fill many museums in Europe, North America and elsewhere; and yet most of them continue to be unread, or not adequately studied. We don't know what treasures remain for us to discover, and which are at hand. This is a corner of history which is sadly neglected, and has little prestige for young people entering the profession, alas.





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