Mesopotamia civilization Mesopotamia civilization is the civilization which was found between rivers Tilgris and Euphrates now present in countries like Turkey, Syria along with major part of Iraq having following civilizations, Sumerian civilization: They were present between the period 3500 BC – 2400 BC (appox.) and later invaded by Babylonians Babylonians: They were present from 2000 BC to 550 BC. Most of the mathematical work found was between the period 2500 – 1600 BC. Facts Cuneiform Scripts: Sumerians were using form of writting which was based on cuneiform (i.e. wedge-shaped) symbols. They wrote symbols/alphabets/numerals on wet clay tablets and were allowed to get baked in the hot sun or fire. Many such tablets, not all, have survived today. They had a proper civilization with schools and it is believed that Babylonians students had written most of the tablets as exercises or in class rooms and made an effort to preserve them for references. Various topics the tablets covered are algebra, quadratic equations,fractions, cubic equations, square roots, Pythagorus Triples, geometry but scientists found that they were not very correct in geometry. Babylonian Mathematics: Sumerians and Babylonians used sexagesimal number system i.e. they followed Base 60 pattern (We follow decimal pattern | Base 10) and thay had NO ZERO concept. It is believed that they followed base 60 pattern as 60 is a number which has wide range of factors like 1,2,3,4,5,6,10,12,15,20,30 and 60. They used 2 wedges(") to represent 0. Eg: 106 were written as 1”6 or 1 6. But no wedges were found if the last digit was 0. Eg: 16 would be written as 16 and 160 would be written as 16 as well. No differentiation was present between them. Babylonians probably didn’t knew the circle has 360 degrees but they successfully subdivided the circle in 360 parts by using the angle of an equilateral triangle as the basic unit and further subdivided into 60 more parts following … [Read more...]