Babylonian Mathematics - Origins of Babylonian Mathematics

Origins of Babylonian Mathematics

Babylonian mathematics is a range of numeric and more advanced mathematical practices in the ancient Near East, written in cuneiform script. Study has historically focused on the Old Babylonian period in the early second millennium BC due to the wealth of data available. There has been debate over the earliest appearance of Babylonian mathematics, with historians suggesting a range of dates between the 5th and 3rd millennia BC. Babylonian mathematics was primarily written on clay tablets in cuneiform script in the Akkadian or Sumerian languages.

"Babylonian mathematics" is perhaps an unhelpful term since the earliest suggested origins date to the use of accounting devices, such as bullae and tokens, in the 5th millennium BC.

Read more about this topic:  Babylonian Mathematics

Famous quotes containing the words origins of, origins, babylonian and/or mathematics:

    Compare the history of the novel to that of rock ‘n’ roll. Both started out a minority taste, became a mass taste, and then splintered into several subgenres. Both have been the typical cultural expressions of classes and epochs. Both started out aggressively fighting for their share of attention, novels attacking the drama, the tract, and the poem, rock attacking jazz and pop and rolling over classical music.
    W. T. Lhamon, U.S. educator, critic. “Material Differences,” Deliberate Speed: The Origins of a Cultural Style in the American 1950s, Smithsonian (1990)

    The settlement of America had its origins in the unsettlement of Europe. America came into existence when the European was already so distant from the ancient ideas and ways of his birthplace that the whole span of the Atlantic did not widen the gulf.
    Lewis Mumford (1895–1990)

    All’s vast that vastness means. Nay, I affirm
    Nature is whole in her least things exprest,
    Nor know we with what scope God builds the worm.
    Our towns are copied fragments from our breast;
    And all man’s Babylons strive but to impart
    The grandeurs of his Babylonian heart.
    Francis Thompson (1859–1907)

    I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy.
    John Adams (1735–1826)