the fabulous human brain... 11/27/2017 0 Comments   a 3,700-year old Babylonian clay tablet is the world’s oldest and most accurate trigonometric table. --- The Babylonian tablet Plimpton 322 at the Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Columbia University in New York. (Photo: UNSW/Andrew Kelly) by E.L. Christianson Jr. The human mind is absolutely amazing.  Utilizing a process of thoughts, along with analyzing observations, we have accomplished things that could accurately be described as 'miracles'.  Examples abound.  We have explored our existence in the large scale and small scale forms.  We have looked down at that which is much too small to be seen except for 'in the mind'.  Also, we have looked up at that which is so far away as to be beyond our vision - except for in the vision of our mind. And right here in our own scale (the human scale) we have contemplated the many realms in Earth scale and considered the reasons 'why'.  We have sought explanations as to 'how'.  We have always done so.  Humans took the time away from the pursuit of necessities - food, shelter, etc. - to attempt to understand that which was around  us.  One simple observation led to another observation and we learned to connect those various observations into theories and principles.  Those theories and principles guide much of our lives today. It is awesome to think that as we developed from the 'ape stage' to the 'human stage' and advanced from the 'stone age' through the 'bronze age' and up through the 'iron age' that those thoughts and ideas would guide us in the 'industrial age' and the 'nuclear age'. It would appear that we haven't learned all that much more in the last few thousand years.  What it seems that we have done is to prove the truth of old ideas and to apply those thoughts and ideas to solving today's problems. The existence of unseen microbiological life was postulated by Jainism which is based on Mahavira’s teachings as early as 6th century BCE.  Mahavira asserted the existence of unseen microbiological creatures living in earth, water, air and fire.  Jain scriptures also describe 'nigodas' which are sub-microscopic creatures living in large clusters and having a very short life and are said to pervade each and every part of the universe, even in tissues of plants and flesh of animals. Imagine the mental acumen that allowed an individual 600 years BC to think in terms of 'microbiology'. From a practical point of view, microbiology saves lives every day.  Laboratory medicine is a vital part of public health because it detects disease in individuals and in whole populations. It is also valuable in the detection of various environmental dangers.  Thank you Mahavira. On the large scale, we've been looking up and out throughout our development as humans.  With the efforts of our mental brilliance, today, our equipment is traveling above the planet Jupiter at more than 130,000 miles-per-hour.   NASA's $1 billion Juno probe took its ninth set of stunning flyby images.  The photo-show, the 'perijove' as the spacecraft's flybys are called, is transmitted to Earth from Jupiter.   It was interrupted briefly as the sun got in between Earth and Jupiter.   Researchers posted it all online and a community of amateurs and professionals has been busily processing the data to yield colorful and stunning new pictures of Jupiter. NASA will eventually destroy the $1 billion robot. That way, it can't accidentally crash into Jupiter's icy moon Europa, possibly contaminating its ocean and any alien life.   And, as we look back and study the past, we see that in the field of mathematics, people sat around calculating and creating systems of calculations nearly four thousand years ago (and certainly, even before that).  That we had developed our patterns of civilization to the extent that people could immerse themselves in the study of mathematical formulas seem unbelievable.  But, there we were, in the 'bronze age', believing in all sorts of superstition and paying homage to all kinds of 'gods', and correctly working out the intricacies of trigonometry. Right now, today, we are on the verge of creating an entirely new life form - AI, or artificial intelligence.  As it reaches fruition it will be independent of human life.  Created by human life but living on its own. Our early successes are already moving among us... self driving cars and computerized robotics are the infant level of this development. The human brain.  Wow !! Who could have imagined? It seems almost limitless. Thinking and analyzing are human traits.  Thinking and analyzing... we also seem to be 'non-thinking', in a big way... Something is definitely amiss.  We are concerned with accidentally polluting a body in the solar system that is millions of miles away from Earth, while, at the same time, we don't seem to have that same level of concern here at home.  We are careful not to destroy life on a moon of Jupiter, but we don't have that same concern about life here on our own planet. And those robotic machines in some forms are 'guided missiles' designed to destroy 'some' of us.  We look at the world of bacteria and viruses and we create weapons designed to exterminate our enemies... other human beings.  Those ventures to other planets are, in part, to find a living space elsewhere after we have destroyed the living space we have now, here at home.   If only we could get ourselves 'together' and throw off that genetic baggage of eons ago wherein war and killing was the only thing we knew - the only universal practice of human-kind.  The very same brain that does that 'war thing' is the brain doing the 'genius thing'.  If we can't create the proper separation, soon, it will be too late.  Our brilliance will be our un-doing. That other life form that we are creating, the 'artificial intelligence', if we are successful, may be the only life left on our planet, and that's the truth !!! Churning storms at the poles of Jupiter constantly change their appearance. Some storms are the size of Earth. Ancient Babylonian Tablet May Hold Earliest Examples of Trigonometry If true, it would mean the ancient culture figured out this mathematical field more than a millennia before its known creation. from the Smithsonian by Ben Panko A new analysis of a long-studied Babylonian tablet suggests that trigonometry, the subject so many of us struggled through in high school, may actually be a lot older than previously thought. The small clay tablet, which dates back to the year 1800 B.C.E., is dubbed Plimpton 322 after George Arthur Plimpton, a New York publisher who purchased it in the 192o’s.  He donated the tablet with its scrawled rows of numbers to Columbia University in 1936—where it still remains today, researchers of the new study Daniel Mansfield and Norman Wildberger write for The Conversation. In the decades since its discovery, researchers have debated about the meaning of those numbers, reports Carl Engelking for Discover magazine. In his 1945 book, mathematician and historian Otto Neugebauer first suggested that Plimpton 322 represents a glimpse at early trigonometry, a field of math concerning the relationship of the sides and angles in triangles. The numbers on the tablet represented Pythagorean triples in Neugebauer’s mind, which are sets of three numbers that can be used to solve the Pythagorean theorem (a2+b2=c2), writes Engelking. Later researchers, such as mathematical historian Eleanor Robson, threw cold water on that idea, arguing that Plimpton 322 was more simply a teaching aid. Robson argued that the chosen numbers didn’t seem to align with groundbreaking research. Science historians have long regarded the creator of trigonometry to be the Greek astronomer Hipparchus and his contemporaries. They are believed to develop the system around the second century C.E. to precisely calculate the movement of the zodiac signs in the sky. But in the new study, published in the journal Historia Mathematica, Mansfield and Wildberger lend some credence to Neugebauer’s thinking, reports Ron Cowen for Science Magazine. The key is to get a new angle on the tablet’s numbers. Instead of the traditional method of trigonometry based on the angles of triangles, Cowen reports, Plimpton 322 actually uses calculations based on the ratios of the lengths of sides of right triangles, rather than relationships based on their angles. And instead of the base-10 system of numbers used today, the study suggests that the Babylonian tablet uses a base-60 system (similar to how we count time). Using this tablet and its system of numbers, the Babylonians could precisely calculate figures to a whole number more accurately than we could today with traditional trigonometry, Mansfield and Wildberger argue. The write: “The sexagesimal system is better suited for exact calculation. For example, if you divide one hour by three then you get exactly 20 minutes. But if you divide one dollar by three then you get 33 cents, with 1 cent left over. The fundamental difference is the convention to treat hours and dollars in different number systems: time is sexagesimal and dollars are decimal.” Researchers Crack Mathematical Code of ​3,700-Year-Old Babylonian Tablet from My Modern Met by Jessica Stewart The code has been cracked on a 3,700-year-old clay tablet dug up in southern Iraq almost a century ago. It was Edgar J. Banks, the inspiration behind Indiana Jones, who discovered the ancient Babylonian tablet later named Plimpton 322. He eventually sold it to publisher and collector George Plimpton for $10, and it was later bequeathed by Plimpton to Columbia University in the 1930s. It's only now that its full meaning, and importance to mathematics, is coming to light. Thanks to the work of Dr. Mansfield and Associate Professor Norman Wildberger, both from the University of New South Wales, we have discovered that it was actually the ancient Babylonians who discovered trigonometry, not the Greeks as is commonly thought. The researchers argue that the 4 columns and 15 rows of cuneiform numbers are actually part of a highly accurate trigonometric table, not a teacher's aid to checking student solutions to math problems—the previously accepted explanation. “Our research reveals that Plimpton 322 describes the shapes of right-angle triangles using a novel kind of trigonometry based on ratios, not angles and circles. It is a fascinating mathematical work that demonstrates undoubted genius,” the researchers reveal in a UNSW statement. Trigonometry, which involves the study of relationships between the lengths and angles of triangles, was thought to have been invented in ancient Greece. Greek astronomer Hipparchus, who lives around 120 BC, is regarded as the father of the field. Yet, the Plimpton 322 predates his work by more than 1,000 years. ​ The discovery is an important one, as most Babylonian tablets have never been closely studied. “It opens up new possibilities not just for modern mathematics research, but also for mathematics education,” shares Dr. Wildberger. “With Plimpton 322 we see a simpler, more accurate trigonometry that has clear advantages over our own.” By delving into the history of mathematics, we open up avenues to understand how ancient societies functioned. The tablet, for instance, could have been used for surveying fields or in architectural constructions of palaces or step pyramids. “It opens up new possibilities not just for modern mathematics research, but also for mathematics education,” Wildberger says in a statement. “With Plimpton 322 we see a simpler, more accurate trigonometry that has clear advantages over our own.” The tablet could have had practical use in surveying or construction, writes Sarah Gibbens for National Geographic, allowing builders to take the heights and lengths of buildings and calculate the slope of a roof. Other mathematicians urge caution in the latest Plimpton 322 interpretation, writes Cowen at Science. Babylonian mathematics expert Jöran Friberg is skeptical that the culture had any knowledge of ratios advanced enough to create this form of math, while mathematical historian Christine Proust says there is no evidence in other surviving texts that tablets like this could have been used in the way the authors suggest. Meanwhile, mathematician Donald Allen tells Gibbens that it’s hard to really know whether Mansfield and Wildberger’s theory is right because they had to recreate a broken section of the tablet, making any conclusion “conjecture.” However, the Australian mathematicians hope to see more research done on the insights that the Babylonians might have for modern-day people, as they write for The Conversation. “We are only beginning to understand this ancient civilization, which is likely to hold many more secrets waiting to be discovered.” Those Sumerians knew a thing or two !!! Urukagina ruled the Sumerian state of Lagash more than 2000 years before the birth of Christ. The official chronicle of Urukagina’s reforms contains the first use of the word “freedom” in recorded history.