ANCIENT MATHEMATICS:

EGYPTIAN, BABYLONIAN,
GREEKS
Prepared By:
Llegue, Fidelyn Nicole E.
Submitted to:
Ms. Jean Aristonet Leyson
 Ancient knowledge of the sciences was often wrong
and wholly unsatisfactory by modern standards. 
However, not all of the knowledge of the more learned
peoples of the past was false.
 In fact, without people like Euclid or Plato, we may not
have been as advanced in this age as we are. 
Mathematics is an adventure in ideas.  Within the
history of mathematics, one finds the ideas and lives of
some of the most brilliant people in the history of
mankind’s populace upon Earth.
 Since those first sounds were created, man has only
added five new basic number-sounds to the ten
primary ones. They are “hundred,”  “thousand,” 
“million,” “billion” (a thousand million in America, a
million millions in England), “trillion” (a million
millions in America, a million-million millions in
England).
 Primitive man invented the same number of number-
sounds as he had fingers, our number system is a
decimal one, or a scale based on ten, consisting of
limitless repetitions of the first ten number sounds.
 First, man created a number system of base 10. 
Certainly, it is not just a coincidence that man just so
happens to have ten fingers or ten toes, for when our
primitive ancestors first discovered the need to count
they definitely would have used their fingers to help
them along just like a child today.  
 As an object of higher thinking, man invented ten
number-sounds. When the need to count over ten
aroused, he simply combined the number-sounds related
with his fingers. 
 So, if he wished to define one more than ten, he simply
said one-ten.  Thus our word eleven is simply a modern
form of the Teutonic “ein-lifon” (”one over”). 
 The earliest continuous record of mathematical
activity is from the second millennium BC  When one
of the few wonders of the world were created
mathematics was necessary.
 Even the earliest Egyptian pyramid proved that the
makers had a fundamental knowledge of geometry and
surveying skills.  The approximate time period was
2900 BC.
 EGYPTIANS MATHEMATICS
 The best known sources of ancient Egyptian
mathematics in the written format are the Rhind
Papyrus and the Moscow Papyrus. 
 The sources provide undeniable proof that the later
Egyptians had intermediate knowledge of the
following mathematical problems:  applications to
surveying, salary distribution, calculation of area of
simple geometric figures’ surfaces and volumes, simple
solutions for first and second degree equations.
 Egyptians used a base ten number system most likely
because of biological reasons (ten fingers as explained
above).  They used the Natural Numbers (1,2,3,4,5,6,
etc.) also known as the counting numbers.  The word
digit, which is Latin for finger, is also another name for
numbers which explains the influence of fingers upon
numbers once again,
 The Egyptians produced a more complex system than the
tally system for recording amounts.
 Hieroglyphs stood for groups of tens, hundreds, and
thousands.  The higher powers of ten made it much easier
for the Egyptians to calculate into numbers as large as one
million.  Our number system which is both decimal and
positional (52 is not the same value as 25) differed from the
Egyptian which was additive, but not positional.
 The Egyptians also knew more of pi than its mere
existence.  They found pi to equal C/D or 4(8/9)ª  whereas a
equals 2.  The method for ancient peoples arriving at this
numerical equation was fairly easy. They simply counted
how many times a string that fit the circumference of the
circle fitted into the diameter, thus the rough
approximation of 3.
 The biblical value of pi can be found in the Old Testament (I
Kings vii.23 and 2 Chronicles iv.2)in the following verse:

“Also, he made a molten sea of ten cubits from

brim to brim, round in compass, and five cubits
the height thereof; and a line of thirty cubits did compass it
round about.”

 The molten sea, as we are told is round, and measures thirty

cubits round about (in circumference) and ten cubits from brim
to brim (in diameter).  Thus the biblical value for pi is 30/10 = 3.
 BABYLONIAN MATHEMATICS

 Unlike the Egyptians, the Babylonians developed a

flexible technique for dealing with fractions.  The
Babylonians also succeeded in developing a more
sophisticated base ten arithmetic that were positional
and they also stored mathematical records on clay
tablets.
Despite all this, the greatest and most remarkable
feature of Babylonian Mathematics was their complex
usage of a sexagesimal place-valued system in addition
to a decimal system much like our own modern one.
The Babylonians counted in both groups of ten and
sixty. Because of the flexibility of a sexagismal system
with fractions, the Babylonians were strong in both
algebra and number theory. The remaining clay
tablets from the Babylonian records show solutions to
first, second, and third-degree equations.
 Also, the calculations of compound interest, squares
and square roots were apparent in the tablets. The
sexagismal system of the Babylonians is still commonly
in usage today. 
 The same system for telling time that is used today was
also used by the Babylonians.  Also, we use base sixty
with circles (360 degrees to a circle).
 The Babylonians used many of the more common cases
of the Pythagorean Theorem for right triangles.  They
also used accurate formulas for solving the areas,
volumes and other measurements of the easier
geometric shapes as well as trapezoids. 
 GREEK MATHEMATICS
 The real birth of modern math was in the era of Greece
and Rome. 
 The philosophers of Greece used mathematical formulas
to prove propositions of mathematical properties.  
 Some of who, like Aristotle, engaged in the theoretical
study of logic and the analysis of correct reasoning. 
 Up until this point in time, no previous culture had dealt
with the negated abstract side of mathematics, or with
the concept of mathematical proof.
 The Greeks were interested not only in the application
of mathematics but also in its philosophical
significance, which was especially appreciated by Plato
(429-348 BC).
 Another great mathematician of the Greeks was
Pythagoras who provided one of the first mathematical
proofs and discovered incommensurable magnitudes,
or irrational numbers.  
 The Pythagorean theorem relates the sides of a right
triangle with their corresponding squares. 
 The discovery of irrational magnitudes had another
consequence for the Greeks:  since the length of
diagonals of squares could not be expressed by rational
numbers in the form of  A over B, the Greek number
system was inadequate for describing them.
As you might have realized, without the great
minds of the past our mathematical experiences
would be quite different from the way they are
today.  Yet as some famous (or maybe infamous)
person must have once said “From down here the
only way is up,”  so you might say that from now,
1996, the future of mathematics can only improve
for the better.
Thank you for
watching and
listening !!!