Why did Babylon make improvements in mathematics?

Answer 1

Every time you have the building of cities, the study of Mathematics becomes inevitable, it is not something that can be avoided if there are large residential areas. The main reason the Babylonians made a lot of improvements in mathematics, especially when it came to the measurement of time, was because, well, cities can not survive without farms. Part of the reason the United States has a ridiculous number of large cities compared to other places in the world, is the vast number of farms that covered what was once plains and grassland. What this has to do with ancient Babylon; then as now, the land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, was largely a dry desert in need of irrigation, where rainfall was very rare. See, when you have irrigation, you have to keep careful track of when it is going to rain, because if you are irrigating, and it rains, it will drown your crops. In other words the ancient Babylonians had to keep track of the stars, and the most effective way to do that, is through mathematics. If you have ever studied astronomy, even if only as a hobby, you run into a lot of coordinates, a lot of measurements and later on, equations to determine what is going to appear where, and in what position in the sky. This was important to the ancient Babylonians because if a given star showed up, it meant that horrible rainfall was going to happen. If they predicted it was going to rain, then, all irrigation had to stop; by whatever methods they used, the irrigation ditches that were connected to the rivers, had to be closed off. Also, the Babylonians were not unique; another people who kept track of the sky, where the Maya of Central America, specifically Guatemala. Central America, like much of Africa, has no navigable rivers, and the truth is, death by thirst has plagued the people of Central America for a very long time, until the arrival of the Spaniards, more technology being introduced, yadda, yadda, yadda. In ancient times, specifically from the 100's B.C. to 200 A.D., the Maya got their water from the heavy rainfall that is so common to Central America in fact, the Maya considered huricanes not as a curse, but a blessing from the gods. They considered huricanes a blessing, because the heavy rain would fill up aquifers that they built, specifically to collect rain water. The Maya, built them in a way that rain water was collected, and in that manner, the cities would have their water needs met, that way they did not have to rely on rivers. The Maya paid close attention to the sky, specifically the night sky, just like the ancient Babylonians did because, for survival's sake, they had to become very adept observers, just like the Babylonians. No "magic," no "UFO's," and no Babylonians sailing to Central America teaching them how to do it; just two peoples, on separate parts of the globe, struggling for survival, that is all. Both Maya, and Babylonians, promptly discovered that methods for organizing numbers, besides observation of the sky, it also had other uses, like for example architecture; if Babylonian zigurrats, ressemble Mayan pyramids, is because both cultures were facing similar mathematical problems, and both cultures were obsessed with the sky. Also because steel reinforcement had not yet been developed, the tallest building you could build, was a pyramid shaped building, what else could you build? What else COULD THEY build I mean? Towers would not be practical; since observation of the night sky was something they were planning future generations do, they needed sturdier, more long lasting structures, hence the reason the Maya chose pyramid shapes, while the Babylonians chose the zigurrats. The Mayan calendar has become famous, or I should say INfamous, because of that silly 2012 crap. The Maya were very precise astronomers, and the truth is, the scientific world to this very day bears animosity towards Spain, specifically, the Catholic church, because there is no telling how advanced Mayan mathematics were. The burning of those books by the Spanish Inquisition, and its arm did extend as far as Latin America by the way, many scholars have argued, set back the understanding of math by, possibly, centuries. Although the Babylonians developed earlier, and they figured out a lot of the things the Maya figured out much sooner, the Babylonians did not take Math to such a level, where they could use math for "prophecy." Albert Einstein once stated, that regarding prophecy, there was no magic; he argued that if you truly understood math, you could use numbers to predict the future. Imagine a math so advanced, you scrible a few numbers on a piece of paper, and then you tell someone "in the year 2010, on June 2nd, you will meet a beautiful blonde, you will fall in love, and two months later you will get married." On June 5th, 2010, said person does indeed meet a beautiful blonde, they fall in love and get married. Imagine a math that advanced; some scholars have proposed the theory that the way the Maya eerily predicted the earthquake of Mexico, and the arrival of the Spanish, was more rooted in actual science, an advanced understanding of mathematics, specifically statistical probability, that we ourselves do not have. Hypothetically, the limitless ways numbers can be arranged, means that there in fact is no magic, or hocus pocus, regarding "prophecy," they ancients may have in fact used a forgotten form of math. Because of what the Catholic Church did in Guatemala, humanity may not rediscover those secrets for another 200 years, the damage, is indeed truly unreal because, we will never know for sure will we? Those books are nothing but ashes now. [[User:67.148.120.72|67.148.120.72]]stardingo747