median
don steward
mathematics teaching 10 ~ 16

Thursday, 21 January 2016

did the Babylonians use similar triangles?

IM55357 is a tablet showing right angled triangles

it is sometimes used as evidence that the Babylonians (around 1900 to 1600BCE) were able to use similar triangle techniques




















EM Bruins points out that there is not widespread evidence of this being the case

he shows that a relationship can be derived just by using areas of triangles and a trapezium

how?


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