Babylonians are ancient people who lived in Mesopotamia; the fertile land

around two famous rivers Tigris and Euphrates, situated in modern day Iraq,
Iran, Syria and Turkey.
Around 2000 B.C., Babylonian geometry was already very well developed.
Babylonians knew the rules of computing simple geometric objects such as
rectangle, triangle, trapezium, cylinder and so on. They use a very advanced
number system, sexagesimal place-valued system, to record measurements.
SEXAGESIMAL PLACE-VALUED SYSTEM
The way Babylonians represent numbers that are larger than 59 or decimal
numbers is very similar to the number theory that we use nowadays. Since
Babylonians did not use decimal point,we need to guesshe value of a
Babylonian number from the context.
CUNEIFORM AND TABLETS
Babylonians wrote numbers and words on a tablet of unbaked clay using the
cut tip of a stylus, which left wedge-shaped marks on it. This is called the
cuneiform writing.
<= The famous Babylonian tablet YBC
7289.
The meaning of the Babylonian number 1
24 51 10 in the tablet is 1+24*60 -1+51*602
+10*10-3
In fact, it is a very good approximation of 2
The numbers 30 and 42 25 35 represent
the length of the side and the diagonal of the
square respectively.

BABYLONIANS PI
Besides computing the length of the diagonal of a square, Babylonians also
knew the formulas for the areas and circumference of a circle.

The Babylonian tablet YBC

7302=>
The Babylonian number at the top is 3, the one on
the left is 9 and the number inside the circle is 45.
The interpretation is as follow:
The circumference of a circle is 3, and
square the circumference to get 9. Then divide it
by 12, we obtain 45, here 45 should be
regarded to 45/60 which is 3/4.
The value of Babylonians pi is 3.
Babylonians Geometry
<= This problem is found on a
Babylonian tablet owned by the British
Museum and this portion of cuneiform
text is coded as BM 96954: find the
volume of a grain pile in the shape of a
rectangle pyramid with an elongated
apex, like a pitched roof as shown.
W and l are the width and length of the rectangular base. H is the height and t
is the length of the top edge.
Solution:
Cut the solid as shown.
The half-pyramids on two sides can be
combined to form the whole pyramid.
The part in the middle is a triangular
prism. Therefore the volume of the solid
is:
The volume of the whole pyramid + the volume of the triangular prism
= (W (l-t) h)/3 + hwt/2
=Hw/e (l-t+3t/2)=hw/3(l+t/2)
Susa Tablet
An isosceles triangle is given such that the lengths of its three sides are 0, 50
and 60. Find the radius of the circumcircle of this triangle.

Let x be the radius of the circle. Using

Pythagoras Theorem again, we obtain the
following equation:
X2=(40-x) 2+302
X2=402-80x+x2+302
80x=2500 therefore x=2500/80=31.25
Tell Dhibayi Tablet
The given rectangle has are o 45 (=0.75) and the length of
its diagonal is 1 15 (=1.25). Find the dimensions of this
rectangle.
Let x and y be the lengths of two sides of the rectangle and
we have two equations:
Xy=0.75
X2+y2=(1.25) 2
Solution (different from the modern substitution):
Compute 2xy=1 30
Subtract from x2+y2=1 33 45 to get x2+y2-2xy=0 3 45
Take the square root to obtain x-y=0 15
Multiply by to get (x-y)/2=0 7 30
Multiply x2+y2-2xy=0 3 45 by to get x2/4+y2/4-xy/2=0 0 56 15
Add xy=0 45 to get x2/4+y2/4+xy/2=0 45 56 15
Take the square root to obtain (x+y)/2=0 52 30
Add (x+y)/2=0 52 30 to (x-y)/2=0 7 30 to get x=1
Subtract (x-y)/2=0 7 30 from (x+y)/2=0 52 30 to get y=0 45
Hence the rectangle has the sides x=1 and y=0.75
Conclusion
Babylonian civilization flourished in Mesopotamia more than 4000
years ago.
They knew how to measure the areas of rectangle, triangle, trapezium,
circle and complicated 3D geometric solids.
They used sexagesimal place value number system to record
measurements and did computations.
They had good understanding of Pythagoras Theorem and could
derive a decent approximation of root 2.
They had profound knowledge in solving quadratic equations.