Pythagorean Triples ? in Babylon !

This revelation is featured on BBC Science Focus:

**LINK**

https://youtu.be/8C6IbJJ-mhM

… Might be of interest

MichaelG.

Thank you Micheal.

A lot of the problems early civilisations had seem to stem from the number systems they used and the amount of brainpower required to translate and visualise those number signs into meaningful information which could be used to generate even more meaningful information into processes and conclusions

Coding for computers has the same issue and various attempts have been made to simplify the visual result of all the bits of electronic lego in a coding structure, I suppose electronics had/has similar issues

Once you simplify it into the correct format the average human brain fairly romps through the subject matter

A simple example

They are both base 10

compare doing long division or multiplication in roman numerals and decimal numerals

Edited By Ady1 on 05/08/2021 11:03:37

Yes, absolutely! Good points! Personal realization was trying to get to grips with musical notation, as an adult. It's a disaster! Usually, of course, it's something that children, not adults, grapple with, and kids will accept anything... The crazy system we have is the fault of the Catholic church. There are rational notation systems out there, but they'll never catch on: there's no point battling against the traditional system's self-renewing user base.

Interesting discovery. The 'second tablet' seems to be a 'look-up table' for a limited range of triangle configurations, suggesting that the end-user wouldn't have understood the geometrical theory and couldn't work out general-case problems. Perhaps the theory wasn't known, and all that was available was empirical knowledge. Then along came theoretical understanding, with Pythagoras - although it's now suggested he merely popularized the theory.

It's all very well knowing how to do the theoretical work, but the end user isn't going to waste time calculating them every time he needs to make a thingy fit a whatsit. He's going to use a look-up table.

We still do it with tapping charts, screwcutting tables, fraction to decimal lists, log tables(maybe not so much now) etc. When I needed to screw cut several M20 threads it was much quicker, easier and therefore more efficient to look up the relevant dimensions and tolerances than working them out for myself. If I had to do a lot of that sort of work, I'd draw up my own chart laid out to suit me.

Hmm, well. It's very easy to invent a notation system for music that is easier to understand; it's far harder to invent a notation system that accommodates extension as Western notation does. Many of the advantages of music notation as used in the West are only apparent to relatively expert musicians. And it is far simpler to learn to read than written English.