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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
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
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.
you will find each and every single one of them love money.
How I know ? I am a Chinese.
All British people think that's a bit of a generalisation.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.