Ancient Tablet May Show Earliest Use of This Advanced Math
From National Geographic: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/08/ancient-babylonian-trigonometry-tablet-plimpton-322-video-spd/
By Sarah Gibbens PUBLISHED AUGUST 24, 2017 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. The tablet is arranged in a series of 15 rows intersected by four columns. Ac…
By Sarah Gibbens PUBLISHED AUGUST 24, 2017 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. The tablet is arranged in a series of 15 rows intersected by four columns. Ac…
