Scientists have found the oldest example of applied geometry

A mathematician from the University of New South Wales in Australia (UNSW) discovered the oldest applied artifact

geometry - a clay tablet, which is at least3700 years. Moreover, it lay for more than a century as an exhibit of the Istanbul Museum, but the researchers did not know what it was. The tablet, called Si.427, was discovered at the end of the 19th century in what is now central Iraq, but until then no one understood its historical significance.

Now Si.427 is considered the oldest example of applied geometry known to mankind - in a study published in the journal Foundations of Science, details of the excavation work are given when the tablet was found. It notes that Si.427 dates from the Old Babylonian period (OB) - 1900-1600. BC. Lead researcher Daniel Mansfield of the UNSW Science School of Mathematics and Statistics reports.

“This is the only known example of a cadastraldocument of this period. It is the plan that surveyors used to define the boundaries of the land. An ancient document provides legal and geometric details about a field that split after part of it was sold, ”the researchers noted.

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The mathematician believes he has figured out the purposethis document and figured out the meaning of the numbers written on it thanks to another plate, Plimpton 322, which he studied five years ago. As he found out, it contained numbers that represented the first trigonometric table in history. He found the same numbers on the Si.427 part.

“The discovery and analysis of the tablet has important implications for the history of mathematics. It appeared a thousand years before the birth of Pythagoras, ”the researchers noted.

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