Ancient Tablet May Show Earliest Use of This Advanced Math

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kbot
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Ancient Tablet May Show Earliest Use of This Advanced Math

Post by kbot » 08-25-2017 11:15 AM

Growing up, I never was very good at mathematics. Every year through elementary and high school I would fail for three quarters in school, and then pull an A my final quarter just barely passing. I just couldn't grasp the concepts.

Which explains why I now work in a field that is so heavily weighted in physics, chemistry, electronics, computers and statistics (go figure, right?).

But, I LOVE history and science generally and found this article amazing..........

Ancient Tablet May Show Earliest Use of This Advanced Math

A new study claims the tablet could be one of the oldest contributions to the the study of trigonometry, but some remain skeptical.

For nearly 100 years, the mysterious tablet has been referred to as Plimpton 322. It was first discovered in Iraq in the early 1900s by Edgar Banks, the American archaeologist on which the character Indiana Jones is thought to have been largely based. It was later bought by George Arthur Plimpton in 1922 and has been called the Plimpton 322 tablet ever since.

Now researchers from the University of New South Wales are calling it one of the oldest and possibly most accurate trigonometric tables of the ancient world.


Findings published in the journal Historia Mathematica, the official journal for the International Commission on the History of Math, reveal how researchers dated the ancient clay tablet and came to conclusions about its use.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/201 ... video-spd/

PDF file of the article can be found here:

http://ac.els-cdn.com/S0315086017300691 ... 2932730c49
There you go man, keep as cool as you can. Face piles and piles of trials with smiles. It riles them to believe that you perceive the web they weave. And keep on thinking free. (Moody Blues)

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