3700-year old Babylonian Tablet Confirms Pythagoras Did Not Invent the Theorem Bearing His Name

http://www.ancient-origins.net/news-science-space/3700-year-old-babylonian-tablet-confirms-pythagoras-did-not-invent-theorem-021581

25 August, 2017 - 19:01 Alicia McDermott
3700-year old Babylonian Tablet Confirms Pythagoras Did Not Invent the Theorem Bearing His Name
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An unknown Babylonian mathematician beat Pythagoras to the discovery of trigonometry by more than 1000 years, claim experts studying the piece. That Babylonian genius marked down the famous theorem that is often associated with the Greek, along with other trigonometry tables, on a clay tablet now known as Plimpton 322. Scientists are now saying the content of the 3700-year-old tablet surpasses modern knowledge too.
As The Guardian reports, researchers from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in Sydney claim the four columns and 15 rows of cuneiform “represent the world’s oldest and most accurate working trigonometric table, a working tool which could have been used in surveying, and in calculating how to construct temples, palaces and pyramids.”
Dr. Daniel Mansfield, of the UNSW, says :

Quote :

“Our research reveals that Plimpton 322 describes the shapes of right-angle triangles using a novel kind of trigonometry based on ratios, not angles and circles. It is a fascinating mathematical work that demonstrates undoubted genius […] The tablet not only contains the world's oldest trigonometric table; it is also the only completely accurate trigonometric table, because of the very different Babylonian approach to arithmetic and geometry.”

• Ancient Babylonian use of the Pythagorean Theorem and its Three Dimensions
  
• Pythagoras and His Life Beyond the Pythagorean Theorem
  

That Pythagoras wasn’t the first to realize the square of the longest side is always equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides of a right-angled triangle is not news. The real mystery for the tablet has been the reason scribes put in the effort to sort and generate the numbers shown on the tablet.