Ancient Science · Part 3 · Before the Greeks · B1–B2
Babylonian Mathematics and Astronomy: Counting in Sixties and Watching the Sky
Part 3 of Ancient Science: for two thousand years, the scribes of Mesopotamia counted in sixties, and for six hundred years the astronomers of Babylon watched the sky every night and wrote it all down. Sophia shows what their clay tablets tell us, from right-angled triangles to the death of Alexander, and why the same records served both science and the fear of omens. Used to, would and kept + -ing, with Philo, Sophia, Marcos and Demetria.
Tonight we travel east, to Babylon. For two thousand years, its scribes counted in sixties and watched the sky every night.
Look at your sundial, Marcos. Sixty minutes in an hour, sixty seconds in a minute, three hundred and sixty degrees in a circle. You count in Babylonian every day.
And the stars? Did they really watch them every night?
Every night, for six hundred years, and they wrote it all down on clay. Let me show you.
The scribes of Mesopotamia counted in sixties. They had only two signs, a wedge for one and a corner for ten, and the place of a sign told you its value, as our places do. So 1;30 meant one and thirty sixtieths: one and a half. Sixty is easy to divide by 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20 and 30, which made fractions simple. For a long time they had no sign for an empty place; later,…
Or try our free games and lessons.