Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- Contents
- Ancient Mathematics
- Foreword
- Sherlock Holmes in Babylon
- Words and Pictures: New Light on Plimpton 322
- Mathematics, 600 B.C.–600 A.D.
- Diophantus of Alexandria
- Hypatia of Alexandria
- Hypatia and Her Mathematics
- The Evolution of Mathematics in Ancient China
- Liu Hui and the First Golden Age of Chinese Mathematics
- Number Systems of the North American Indians
- The Number System of the Mayas
- Before The Conquest
- Afterword
- Medieval and Renaissance Mathematics
- The Seventeenth Century
- The Eighteenth Century
- Index
- About the Editors
Sherlock Holmes in Babylon
from Ancient Mathematics
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- Contents
- Ancient Mathematics
- Foreword
- Sherlock Holmes in Babylon
- Words and Pictures: New Light on Plimpton 322
- Mathematics, 600 B.C.–600 A.D.
- Diophantus of Alexandria
- Hypatia of Alexandria
- Hypatia and Her Mathematics
- The Evolution of Mathematics in Ancient China
- Liu Hui and the First Golden Age of Chinese Mathematics
- Number Systems of the North American Indians
- The Number System of the Mayas
- Before The Conquest
- Afterword
- Medieval and Renaissance Mathematics
- The Seventeenth Century
- The Eighteenth Century
- Index
- About the Editors
Summary
Let me begin by clarifying the title “Sherlock Holmes in Babylon.” Lest some members of the Baker Street Irregulars be misled, my topic is the archaeology of mathematics, and my objective is to retrace a small portion of the research of two scholars: Otto Neugebauer, who is a recipient of the Distinguished Service Award, given to him by the Mathematical Association of America in 1979, and his colleague and long-time collaborator, Abraham Sachs. It is also a chance for me to repay both of them a personal debt. I went to Brown University in 1947, and as a new Assistant Professor I was welcomed as a regular visitor to the Seminar in the History of Mathematics and Astronomy. There, with a handful of others, I was privileged to watch experts engaged in the intellectual challenge of reconstructing pieces of a culture from random fragments of the past. (See [4], [5].)
This experience left its mark upon me. While I do not regard myself as a historian in any sense, I have always remained a “friend of the history of mathematics”; and it is in this role that I come to you today. Let me begin with a sample of the raw materials. Figure 1 is a copy of a cuneiform tablet measuring perhaps 3 inches by 5. The markings can be made by pressing the end of a cut reed into wet clay. Dating such a tablet is seldom easy. The appearance of this tablet suggests that it may have been made in Akkad in the city of Nippur in theyear –1700, about 3700 years ago.
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- Sherlock Holmes in BabylonAnd Other Tales of Mathematical History, pp. 5 - 13Publisher: Mathematical Association of AmericaPrint publication year: 2003
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