Mathopotamia

[Perd Hapley]

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/351/6272/482.full

Ossendrijver translated several Babylonian cuneiform tablets from 350 to 50 BCE and found that they contain a sophisticated calculation of the position of Jupiter. The method relies on determining the area of a trapezium under a graph. This technique was previously thought to have been invented at least 1400 years later in 14th-century Oxford.

Cultural appropriation!

[KD5NRH]

Interesting...I'd like to see their instruments as well; you can't just eyeball celestial coordinates at night with enough accuracy or repeatability to do meaningful calculations.

[Ben]

I didn't read the article yet, but wonder if this is one of the many recorded bits of data destroyed at Alexandria?

[230RN]

Interesting...I'd like to see their instruments as well; you can't just eyeball celestial coordinates at night with enough accuracy or repeatability to do meaningful calculations.

Tycho Brahe's extensive naked-eye observations were good enough for Johannes Kepler to calculate planetary orbits and prove they were ellipses.  It was the lack of long-term repeatability that plagued astronomers and of course astrologers to pursue this subject and develop various schemes to explain and predict planetary motions.

I am always amused at our surprise that the ancients could do math tricks.  After all, the need to count more than one sheep to buy a bride has existed for a long time.

Sample (not of counting sheep):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism

Just for grins (but it's real, no kiddin'):

http://www.nzeldes.com/HOC/images/HybridCalc02.jpg

Terry

[RoadKingLarry]

I've always been pretty down on the Eurocentric view of world history.
Plenty of stuff that doesn't fit the "standard" time line of acceptable history. 
Gobekli tepe doesn't fit with "accepted" history much like Vikings  were never in North America prior to the middle of the
Last century. The adamant refusal of academia to even consider alternatives to established history just blows my mind.

[230RN]

Yup.  Here's one to chew on:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baghdad_Battery

I don't see it as "impossible" or "unlikely" for these to have been used as battery-cells and possibly as an electoplating current source.  Not saying they were, but I can't say they weren't, either.

In fact, to me, it's implausible that they were used to store papyrus scrolls, which is the accepted theory of their use.  Suuuure.  Roll up the scroll and slip it into a copper tube, then stick an iron rod down the center, pack the whole assembly into a pottery jar and seal it up with bitumen.  Ayup!

You know how curious folks such as you and me have dinked around with stuff and made interesting discoveries.  In fact, a lot of stuff like gunpowder was probably discovered serendipitously.  

Some guy for whatever reason was dinking around and poured the powder from dried urine on a fire (maybe just to get rid of it "greenly" ) and lo! the fire blazed more brightly.  Down the road in the next village somebody hears about this and mixes dried piss with charcoal to see if he can use it to get a fire going more rapidly.

And so on.

Yet it was never really written down or documented in any chinese laboratory notebooks.  We just have the results after hundreds (thousands?) of years of guys just dinking around: BANG.

Hey, we've got a lot of back-history that's been lost (perhaps much of it because of the losses in the Alexandria library) and just because no plated artifacts have been found (or so we think) or the fact that there didn't appear to be any means of connection of the copper tube to the outside world in the Baghdad Battery doesn't mean there wasn't.

And they probably just used vinegar for an electrolyte.  

So the "Occam's Razor" explanation of them being used to store scrolls is the accepted "best" one.

But sometimes Occam's Razor is a bit dull.

And Eurocentric, as well.

Terry

[MechAg94]

I read a book that mentioned there were a number of stories of lights or chemical batteries found in "sacred" places.  It wouldn't surprise me that some of that knowledge existed at different times more as alchemy than as science.  It just wasn't spread around enough to develop and wasn't written down.

When you really look at our knowledge, most of what we know from the ancient world is from surviving writings and often the writings are copies.  Beyond the paper writings that survived, we only have the stone carvings.  For ruins without writings, we are mostly guessing.  

On the astronomy, they used the stars, sun, and moon to tell time and predict seasonal changes.  All it takes is someone with some knack to figure out basic relationships. 

[MechAg94]

I guess I would add that the main difference today (as far as we know) is that knowledge is widespread and there is universal education and literacy (opportunity for that at least). 

[KD5NRH]

Sample (not of counting sheep):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism

I would question that 2007 reproduction; if it had been made largely of Lucite, I think that part would have survived in seawater.

[KD5NRH]

In fact, to me, it's implausible that they were used to store papyrus scrolls, which is the accepted theory of their use.  Suuuure.  Roll up the scroll and slip it into a copper tube, then stick an iron rod down the center, pack the whole assembly into a pottery jar and seal it up with bitumen.

What, you don't sandwich your valuable papers between two very corrosion prone metals before sealing them away for long term storage?

[Mannlicher]

and God alone knows how much other scientific genius stuff was invented, and forgotten, around the world.  No culture seems to have had a lock on discovery.  Those that were the most successful at dissemination and application are the ones now remembered.

[makattak]

and God alone knows how much other scientific genius stuff was invented, and forgotten, around the world.  No culture seems to have had a lock on discovery.  Those that were the most successful at dissemination and application are the ones now remembered.

Which is important, because we ought to remember those who have had a lasting impact.

A related thought: how many "dark ages" has the earth gone through?

(I put that in quotes because so many historians today loathe that phrase, but a period of decreased literacy and loss of living standard ought to be called what, exactly?)

[230RN]

What, you don't sandwich your valuable papers between two very corrosion prone metals before sealing them away for long term storage?

Fuh-nee.  Thanks for emphasizing my point!

Which is important, because we ought to remember those who have had a lasting impact.

A related thought: how many "dark ages" has the earth gone through?

(I put that in quotes because so many historians today loathe that phrase, but a period of decreased literacy and loss of living standard ought to be called what, exactly?)

I've always wondered about that myself.

And apart from natural disasters, there are folks who go around deliberately wiping out all traces of other cultures and who stifle any kind of thinking contrary to their own, thereby generating so-called-and-rightly-so "dark ages."

Terry

[roo_ster]

Hydraulic despotisms had the incentive to come up with better ways to count and measure spaces.

Currently reading _Unknown Quantity: A Real and Imaginary History of Algebra_ by John Derbyshire.  He goes into the deep history of numbers, algebra, and the related fields and uses. Good stuff.  And yes, mesopatamia gets a mention early on.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00X8EMOPO/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?ie=UTF8&btkr=1
4.6/5 stars for good reason.

Prime Obsession taught us not to be afraid to put the math in a math book. Unknown Quantity heeds the lesson well. So grab your graphing calculators, slip out the slide rules, and buckle up! John Derbyshire is introducing us to algebra through the ages -- and it promises to be just what his die-hard fans have been waiting for. "Here is the story of algebra." With this deceptively simple introduction, we begin our journey. Flanked by formulae, shadowed by roots and radicals, escorted by an expert who navigates unerringly on our behalf, we are guaranteed safe passage through even the most treacherous mathematical terrain. Our first encounter with algebraic arithmetic takes us back 38 centuries to the time of Abraham and Isaac, Jacob and Joseph, Ur and Haran, Sodom and Gomorrah. Moving deftly from Abel's proof to the higher levels of abstraction developed by Galois, we are eventually introduced to what algebraists have been focusing on during the last century. As we travel through the ages, it becomes apparent that the invention of algebra was more than the start of a specific discipline of mathematics -- it was also the birth of a new way of thinking that clarified both basic numeric concepts as well as our perception of the world around us. Algebraists broke new ground when they discarded the simple search for solutions to equations and concentrated instead on abstract groups. This dramatic shift in thinking revolutionized mathematics. Written for those among us who are unencumbered by a fear of formulae, Unknown Quantity delivers on its promise to present a history of algebra. Astonishing in its bold presentation of the math and graced with narrative authority, our journey through the world of algebra is at once intellectually satisfying and pleasantly challenging.

Which is important, because we ought to remember those who have had a lasting impact.

A related thought: how many "dark ages" has the earth gone through?

(I put that in quotes because so many historians today loathe that phrase, but a period of decreased literacy and loss of living standard ought to be called what, exactly?)

We have a lot of evidence that there was a dark age between bronze & iron ages in the Mediterranean basin and maybe Mesopotamia.  Greek, Anatolian, Egyptian, Levantine & maybe even Mesopotamian civilizations collapsed, ugly.  The classical Greek myths and stories were based on the (pre-dark-age) bronze age Greek civilization.  For hundreds of years, the descendants of Agamemnon, Achilles, Odysseus(1) etc. sat in mud huts looking at ruins they thought were built by giants/cyclops (cyclopean, anyone?).  Just like the Dark Age Brits & Saxons huddled in their mud huts and looked at th eruins of Roman Britain.

Dark Age "deniers" are revisionist pinheads.  "Oh, the peoples of Europe and the western Med just decided they no longer wanted to build in stone, maintain centuries-old trade routes, keep industrialized manufactories that provided superior products, literacy, wealth, and the ability to fight off invaders.  And they were more than OK with massive die-offs of their neighbors."



The Fall of Rome: And the End of Civilization
http://www.amazon.com/Fall-Rome-End-Civilization/dp/0192807285/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1454435338&sr=1-1&keywords=fall+of+rome+and+the+end+of+civilization
Well worth the time to read it.

Was the fall of Rome a great catastrophe that cast the West into darkness for centuries to come? Or, as scholars argue today, was there no crisis at all, but simply a peaceful blending of barbarians into Roman culture, an essentially positive transformation?

In The Fall of Rome, eminent historian Bryan Ward-Perkins argues that the "peaceful" theory of Rome's "transformation" is badly in error. Indeed, he sees the fall of Rome as a time of horror and dislocation that destroyed a great civilization, throwing the inhabitants of the West back to a standard of living typical of prehistoric times. Attacking contemporary theories with relish and making use of modern archaeological evidence, he looks at both the wider explanations for the disintegration of the Roman world and also the consequences for the lives of everyday Romans, who were caught in a world of marauding barbarians, and economic collapse. The book recaptures the drama and violence of the last days of the Roman world, and reminds us of the very real terrors of barbarian occupation. Equally important, Ward-Perkins contends that a key problem with the new way of looking at the end of the ancient world is that all difficulty and awkwardness is smoothed out into a steady and positive transformation of society. Nothing ever goes badly wrong in this vision of the past. The evidence shows otherwise.

Up-to-date and brilliantly written, combining a lively narrative with the latest research and thirty illustrations, this superb volume reclaims the drama, the violence, and the tragedy of the fall of Rome.

(1) Civilizational descendants, if not by blood.

[Perd Hapley]

I've always been pretty down on the Eurocentric view of world history.
Plenty of stuff that doesn't fit the "standard" time line of acceptable history. 
Gobekli tepe doesn't fit with "accepted" history much like Vikings  were never in North America prior to the middle of the
Last century. The adamant refusal of academia to even consider alternatives to established history just blows my mind.

Then I've some good news for you. Sort of. The Norse were given their due at least as far back as the venerable Samuel Eliot Morison's 1965 Oxford History of the American People. And maybe before that, but I happen to have Morison's tome on hand as a reference. All of that Viking discovery stuff is old news, and generally accepted these days.

The bad news is that the field of history is just as lousy with left-wing "deconstructionism" as the rest of the academy. While this leads to a lot of idiocy, it also means that historians make their bones by battering established narratives, and telling us that everything we know about history is wrong. (Although it's just as common to see books that deconstruct the deconstruction by arguing that the traditional historiography is still basically correct.)

The next time you're anywhere near a book store, go in and check out the history section. The books that sell (aside from books like Sex With Kings) are the ones about how all your history classes were a con.

48 Liberal Lies About American History: (That You Probably Learned in School)

Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong

(I must add a caution about the second book. I have read it, and found it to be mainly a bunch of trash, although it probably makes some good points about the poverty of modern history textbooks. The first book I have not read, but include it as an example of the species.)

[roo_ster]

Then I've some good news for you. Sort of. The Norse were given their due at least as far back as the venerable Samuel Eliot Morison's 1965 Oxford History of the American People. And maybe before that, but I happen to have Morison's tome on hand as a reference. All of that Viking discovery stuff is old news, and generally accepted these days.

The bad news is that the field of history is just as lousy with left-wing "deconstructionism" as the rest of the academy. While this leads to a lot of idiocy, it also means that historians make their bones by battering established narratives, and telling us that everything we know about history is wrong. (Although it's just as common to see books that deconstruct the deconstruction by arguing that the traditional historiography is still basically correct.)

The next time you're anywhere near a book store, go in and check out the history section. The books that sell (aside from books like Sex With Kings) are the ones about how all your history classes were a con.

48 Liberal Lies About American History: (That You Probably Learned in School)

Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong

(I must add a caution about the second book. I have read it, and found it to be mainly a bunch of trash, although it probably makes some good points about the poverty of modern history textbooks. The first book I have not read, but include it as an example of the species.)

Everything after the 1911 Encyclopedia Brittanica must be viewed with a gimlet eye.

[freakazoid]

A related thought: how many "dark ages" has the earth gone through?

"It is absolutely necessary, for the peace and safety of mankind, that some of earth's dark, dead corners and unplumbed depths be left alone; lest sleeping abnormalities wake to resurgent life, and blasphemously surviving nightmares squirm and splash out of their black lairs to newer and wider conquests.”

 

[RoadKingLarry]

(I put that in quotes because so many historians today loathe that phrase, but a period of decreased literacy and loss of living standard ought to be called what, exactly?)

The Obama Administration?

[MillCreek]

Now I want to read about the fall of Rome.

[Perd Hapley]

The Obama Administration?

I'd but it's not funny.   

[lee n. field]

"lest sleeping abnormalities wake to resurgent life, and blasphemously surviving nightmares squirm and splash out of their black lairs to newer and wider conquests.”

The Obama Administration?

"Mmmm.   Yes."

[roo_ster]

Now I want to read about the fall of Rome.

Not enough folk do. 

"Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce."
----Karl Marx

In our case, a farce with someone holding down the FFWD button on the remote.

[Fitz]

Not enough folk do. 

"Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce."
----Karl Marx

In our case, a farce with someone holding down the FFWD button on the remote.

Thanks to this thread, links in it, and "other people bought XYZ" , I now have a full amazon cart.

:-D

[MechAg94]

I was watching one of history channel shows last night.  It was Ancient Impossible or something similar.  Talking about unusual thing found at ancient sites that we are still working on figuring how they were made.  I didn't like the tone of the show.  It seemed to imply too heavily that things were impossible.  It seemed to be just a step away from Ancient Aliens stuff.  Few people seem to realize that man isn't evolving.  At best, we are the same as we were then.  We just live longer and have better access to information now.

[makattak]

Now I want to read about the fall of Rome.

I was recently reading about Belisarius and his re-conquering of the Western Empire from the Byzantine.

He conquered most of the west essentially with one to two legions (he was able to raise allies as he went). That ought to give an idea of how much the west had changed by the 6th Century, given that was all it took.