8 years ago
Babylonians Were Using Geometry Centuries Earlier Than Thought
As one of the brightest objects in the night sky, the planet Jupiter has been a source of fascination since the dawn of astronomy. Now a cuneiform tablet dating to between 350 and 50 B.C. shows that Babylonians not only tracked Jupiter, they were taking the first steps from geometry toward calculus to figure out the distance it moved across the sky. The discovery suggests that ancient astronomers were using mathematical concepts thought to have...
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