We all too often think of ancient peoples as stupid, living in their clay-brick buildings, driving donkeys and carts, worshipping silly things, wearing rough clothing.
They weren't stupid. They were ignorant of stuff — which is to day that it hadn't been invented / discovered yet. And so much of what is invented / discovered is based on the work of those who've gone before, often helped by having a strong enough economy to be able to get the smart people into a supported academic setting and to provide libraries and access and retention to that information over time.
To discover that there were math geniuses innovating amazing things — for the time — in ancient Babylon is not a surprise. (To discover those innovations were lost during some invasion, regime change, or even single unfortunate death at some point, is not a surprise, either.)
Originally shared by +The Bruce, Mile High:
Take that, Bembridge scholars!
Money quote:
"… compared with the complex geometry embraced by the ancient Greeks a few centuries later, with its cycles and epicycles, the inscriptions reflect “a more abstract and profound conception of a geometrical object in which one dimension represents time,” says historian Alexander Jones of New York University in New York City. “Such concepts have not been found earlier than in 14th century European texts on moving bodies,” he adds. “Their presence … testifies to the revolutionary brilliance of the unknown Mesopotamian scholars who constructed Babylonian mathematical astronomy.”(h/t +David Ford)
Math whizzes of ancient Babylon figured out forerunner of calculus | Science | AAAS
Clay tablets document precocious astronomical calculations by 50 B.C.E.
