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World's Oldest Decimal Multiplication Table Discovered
ananyo writes "From a few fragments out of a collection of 23-century-old Chinese bamboo strips, historians have pieced together what they say is the world's oldest example of a multiplication table in base 10. Each strip is about 7 to 12 millimeters wide and half a meter long, and has a vertical line of ancient Chinese calligraphy painted on it in black ink. The bamboo pieces constitute 65 ancient texts and are thought to be among the most important artifacts from the Warring States period before the unification of China. But 21 bamboo strips contained only numbers and, on closer inspection, turned out to be a multiplication table. As in a modern multiplication table, the entries at the intersection of each row and column in the matrix provide the results of multiplying the corresponding numbers. The table can also help users to multiply any whole or half integer between 0.5 and 99.5. The researchers suspect that officials used the multiplication table to calculate surface area of land, yields of crops and the amounts of taxes owed."
It is fascinating that we continue to find artifacts from the ancient world that show far more sophistication that people today generally realize. This finding is one. The Antikythera Mechanism is another. I recently read a fascinating article about ancient Roman military medicine which was so advanced that it was not equaled in some ways until the 1900s. I have little doubt that there is much more to be found. Our ancestors could be quite astonishing in their abilities, and very human in their flaws.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
By opposition to what, homework?
And who's surprised it wasn't found in Africa?
I, for one, would be really surprised if an ancient Chinese multiplication table were discovered in Africa.
Ezekiel 23:20
Waiting for the next Indiana to thus discover a two thousand year old computer! Evidence of those time travellers we heard recently about on /.
Their mathematics may have been more advanced than we guessed, but I'm pretty sure they didn't have time machines in 14AD. It would be an amazing feat to be that old and still working. Sometimes symbols change in sound over time, with the emphasis on intonation I wonder if linguists would still be able to talk to a computer from so long ago, before audio recordings. It would be interesting to find out if they had a Y0K crisis, and exactly how they worked, what they ate, who they were related to...
Wait, we're talking about the operator of this tablet, right?
Well, the researchers probably know better than you, bob_super.
Not likely. Most of the "science" here is just doing things like surveying and dating objects.
Figuring out what things were used for is usually a matter of Wild Speculation, heavily influenced by the "researchers'" own personal prejudices, which is then taken as Truth until someone finds some actual evidence. Usually the evidence proves the speculation was complete bullshit.
Yes, a multiplication table COULD be used for figuring crop yield. It could also be used for figuring logistics for an army. Or calculating how many sex slaves are needed for an upcoming party. Real science is far less concerned about what it COULD be used for an more interested in what it actually WAS used for. In this case, they have no idea what use DID occur, so they're speculating with nothing to back it up.
Thus, bob_super's opinion is likely to be just as close to the truth as the "researcher"'s opinion.
No one was smart before space. Only space provides the proper stimulation and motivation for progress. War? Please. You don't actually believe all those stories from WWII about computers, encryption, jet engines, radar, nuclear bombs? Come ON. No one is that smart. But you put a test pilot in a rubber suit?
Boom. Spinoffs. Right there.
I mean, Babylonians were doing this (granted in a different base) some 1,500 to 2,000 years prior. That's a long time. If nobody, between then and 600(ish) BC thought of doing the same thing, I would lose hope in the creativity of humans. So this really doesn't surprise me, it's not like they were idiots back then.
Well, those primitive African tribes went far beyond that. They invented fractals.
Upward mobility is a slippery slope - the higher you climb the more you show your ass.
What is impressive is how the characters hardly evolved since that time. The picture is not easy to read, but it seems that only 7 and 9 are different from modern characters.
I tend to agree. Just as likely a schooling aid as something actually used day to day.
Someone wrote a sifi short story about the anthropologists far in the future speculating about the religious cult of the rings, and the tossing of rings as a penance for personal transgressions. He speculated that people wore the rings as disposable penance, to be cast at the scene after self inflicting a minor cut of penitence. Each ring seemed sized just right to fit over a finger, and had a semi sharp spoon shaped attachment for self flagellation.
Nothing else could explain the wide scattering of these things all over the world.
They were called by the name of the Deity to which they were related: Pop Tops. The sect died out after a while.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Since you can't spell "sci fi" (or scifi, if you like) your opinion is hereby annulled.
Chinese don't like war too much. They are not a warring tribe.
However, they love money.
Ask any Chinese, and I mean, any Chinese and you will find each and every single one of them love money.
How I know ? I am a Chinese.
The multiplication table wasn't the only Chinese invention. The ancient Chinese also invented the Abacus ( http://eileen-lian.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/abacus-1-AJHD.jpg ) because they needed something to count their money.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Hexadecimal nothing! And you can can leave aside these tables as well. The Ancient Chinese were able to solve linear systems using Guass Elimination. Most undergraduate still aren't able to do that.
I personally suspect that many of our basic and even advanced mathematical methods are much older than we assumme. Much, much older.
May the Maths Be with you!