Babylonian Mathematics

A short look at the extraordinary mathematics of Ancient Babylon, from nearly 4000 ago. We see their base 60 number system and some of the things they could do with it. At the end we examine the amazing clay spreadsheet that is Plimpton 322, which is a sort of precursor of trigonometry.

[@babupriya8814]

Thank you.

[@victorolosaurus]

just found the channel, good stuff, please keep going

[@tissuepaper9962]

It's funny to me that modular arithmetic was a major revelation to modern conputer scientists, whereas ancient babylonians were so comfortable with the idea of the modular multiplicative inverse that it was built right into the way they wrote numbers. 10 and 1/6 aren't just represented the same way, they act as the exact same number because 10 and 6 are each other's MI mod 60. That's hardcore AF.