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And Now For Some Breaking Math History News!

Polymath257

Think & Care
Staff member
Premium Member
3,700-year-old Babylonian stone tablet gets translated, changes history

@Polymath257 I assume you'll find this interesting!

Apparently it was the Babylonians, not the Greeks, who first figured out trigonometry. Who knew! (Nobody. That's why it's news, folks.)


Ugh, You had me hoping.

Sorry, but Plimpton 322 was translated back in the 1950's by, IIRC, Neugebauer, who wrote extensively on it. When I teach a history of math class, I discuss this tablet quite a bit.

This tablet has a table of Pythagorean triples. These are triples of numbers (x,y,z) with x^2 +y^2 =z^2. Examples are (3,4,5), (5,12,13), and (7,24,25). These come up when studying right triangles and their name derives from Pythagorus' theorem.

Anyway, that is ALL that is on this tablet. No ratios of sides, no relations to the measure of the angles involved (although it seems that the triples are ordered by increased angle), no use in solving triangles or measurement.

There is still debate about how the triples were generated. I teach one of the methods in my classes. Also, there are a couple of errors in the table.

Plimpton 322 - Wikipedia

Sorry, but saying this is trigonometry is just wrong.
 

Left Coast

This Is Water
Staff member
Premium Member
Ugh, You had me hoping.

Sorry, but Plimpton 322 was translated back in the 1950's by, IIRC, Neugebauer, who wrote extensively on it. When I teach a history of math class, I discuss this tablet quite a bit.

This tablet has a table of Pythagorean triples. These are triples of numbers (x,y,z) with x^2 +y^2 =z^2. Examples are (3,4,5), (5,12,13), and (7,24,25). These come up when studying right triangles and their name derives from Pythagorus' theorem.

Anyway, that is ALL that is on this tablet. No ratios of sides, no relations to the measure of the angles involved (although it seems that the triples are ordered by increased angle), no use in solving triangles or measurement.

There is still debate about how the triples were generated. I teach one of the methods in my classes. Also, there are a couple of errors in the table.

Plimpton 322 - Wikipedia

Sorry, but saying this is trigonometry is just wrong.

Well that's disappointing lol.
 
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