Babylonian astronomers used geometry for 1600 years before Europeans

Specialist Babylonian culture Matthew Ossendriyver of the Berlin Humboldt University, расшифровав for a long time kept in the British Museum clay tablets proved , that Babylonian astronomers used mathematical methods for their calculations, previously considered the prerogative of the European mathematicians of the 14th century.

Five cuneiform tablets dating from the years 350-50 BC experts until recently could not decipher. Ossendriyver, the author of several scientific papers and books on Babylonian astronomy, found that the tablets described in the methods of geometric motion of the planet Jupiter in the sky, which tracks the astronomers of antiquity.

Most astronomers of antiquity were tables and graphs describe the relative positions of celestial bodies, depending on the seasons. The idea of ​​describing the motion of the planet as a geometric line, area under the curve is equal to the distance traveled by a celestial body, is truly innovative. Previously it was thought that such practices were born scientists working at European universities in the 14th century.



The oldest known work on geometry belong to ancient Greece, where they were born, too, in about 300 BC - just this age are dated famous "Elements" of Euclid. But, according to Ossendriyvera work Babylonian scientists can not be a borrowing from Greek. According to him, the Greeks describe the motion of bodies in physical space, while the Babylonians operated abstract concepts, mathematical space, speed and time of the points on the graph.

Babylon - one of the cities of ancient Mesopotamia, located in the historic area of ​​Akkad. Important political, economic and cultural center of the ancient world, one of the largest cities in the history of mankind, "the first metropolis." It founded within the III millennium BC. e. Scientists Babylon made an enormous contribution to modern science - they were able to calculate the solar eclipse using 12-месячный Calendar , and their 60-ричная radix preserved until today in the form of angular measures (60 minutes per degree 60 seconds in a minute).

Source: geektimes.ru/post/270202/