文档介绍:Joran Friberg
unexpected LINHS between
EGYPTIRN and OROYlONlRl
.. Mathematics
unexpected LINH5 between
EGYPTIRN and BRBYLONIRN
Mathematics
Joran Friberg
Chalmers Universit~ of Te[hnolog~. Gothenburg, Sweden
'~World Scientific
NEW JERSEY· LONDON· SINGAPORE· BEIJING· SHANGHAI· HONG KONG· TAIPEI· CHENNAI
Published by
World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.
S Tob Tuck Link, Singapore 596224
USA office: 27 Warren Street, Suite 401-402, Hackensack, NJ 07601
UK office: 57 Shelton Street, Covent Garden, London WC2H 9HE
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Photo on title page by Mohamed Ibrahim, © IFAO.
Photo on back cover by Wong Mei Fang.
UNEXPECTED LINKS BETWEEN EGYPTIAN AND BABYLONIAN
MATHEMATICS
Copyright © 2005 by World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.
All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form or by any means,
electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording orany information storage and retrieval
system now known or to be invented, without written permission from the Publisher.
For photocopyingofmaterial in this volume, please pay a copyingfee throughthe CopyrightClearance
Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. In this case permission to photocopy
is not required from the publisher.
ISBN 981-256-328-8
Printed in Singapore by World Scientific Printers (S) Pte Ltd
Preface
Ancient Mesopotamian mathematics is known from hundreds of texts
recorded on clay tablets in the cuneifonn script. Some of the mathematical
cuneiform texts are quite large and contain many exercises or long tables
of numbers or measures. The great majority of these texts are Old Babylo•
nian, from the first half of the second millennium BCE. I A few are
Kassite, from the latter half of the second millennium BeE, some are Late
Babylonian/Seleucid, from the latter half of the first millennium BCE, and
ot