Copyright
The Babylonians knew a thing or two about copyright as well if the tablet is still protected after over 3000 years.
Forget trigonometry, 'cos Babylonians did it better 3,700 years ago – by counting in base 60!
Those of you who can remember trigonometry can feel free to forget it, because ancient Babylonian mathematicians had a better way of doing it – using base 60! That's the conclusion of a new paper, Plimpton 322 is Babylonian exact sexagesimal trigonometry, in the new issue of the journal Historia Mathematica. The “Plimpton 322 …
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Friday 25th August 2017 05:52 GMT eldakka
Re: Copyright
While I did upvote....
technically, I don't think it's the tablet that is protected by copyright, it's the images of the tablet that are copyrighted.
If you had access to the physical tablet, you could take your own photos, and you would own the copyright in those photos (or release them public domain if you so choose).
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Friday 25th August 2017 06:08 GMT Pompous Git
Re: Copyright
"If you had access to the physical tablet, you could take your own photos, and you would own the copyright in those photos (or release them public domain if you so choose)."
There are images already in the public domain, so not much point. I suspect HkraM was only trying to get a laugh...
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Friday 25th August 2017 12:17 GMT Ugotta B. Kiddingme
Re: Copyright
Symon: "Yep. http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/blog/2007/03/fairy-use-tale"
Wow, thank you. That is absolutely brilliant. And quite possibly the best example of passive-aggressive trolling I have ever seen.
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Saturday 26th August 2017 12:51 GMT handleoclast
Re: Copyright
@Antron Argaiv
With puns like that, don't be surprised if somebody hits you with a COSH. Then you'll end up in a hospital COT.
BTW, what's a nortna? The second part of your name is obvious, but not the first (not to me, anyway, I expect about 200 replies pointing out what I've missed).
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Friday 1st September 2017 13:19 GMT DropBear
Re: Copyright
"I'll watch the video again, and this time, I'll try to ignore the SECs and pay more ATAN-tion to the skin tones..."
There's a direct connection to ATAN insomuch every programmer unfortunate enough to have dabbled in geometry-handling maths knows it's an unreliable bitch - you really should use ATAN2 instead...
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Friday 25th August 2017 06:30 GMT Dave 126
Re: So much for digital
I don't know... Something to do with Napoleon possibly?
Whilst I work (measure and cut) in mm, I estimate in feet and inches. However I may be missing a trick because of the way that 12 can be easily divided by 3 and by 4 (and obviously 2 and 6). For centuries, carpenters have been able to make beautiful pieces without a unit of measurement by means of dividers - it is only important that they can express a length as a rational of another.
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Friday 25th August 2017 09:38 GMT Doctor Syntax
Re: So much for digital
"Thought that was why there was 60 seconds / minutes in a hour."
I think that's also derived from the Babylonians as do the divisions of a circle. But, of course, it was they who had the wit to use a number base that was convenient for integer division rather than an inconvenient one based simply on counting their fingers.
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Saturday 26th August 2017 11:54 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: So much for digital
> Thought that was why there was 60 seconds / minutes in a hour. Because it was easy to work out divide by 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20, 30
And by 37⅙, if you're not too bothered about integer results (or your time source shows serious short-term stability issues).
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Wednesday 30th August 2017 16:38 GMT TimNevins
Re: So much for digital
Correct. Numbers like 12 and 60 were used by street market traders due to their high level of divisibility.
This was especially important when buying selling items that could not be easily divided such as fruit/vegetables which would spoil once cut. A cart of 60 apples could be split into 10 different uniform units.
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Friday 25th August 2017 08:06 GMT Pen-y-gors
Re: So much for digital
Obvious. Using base 10 evolved because we have 10 digits (most of us). Using base two reflects the decline in education standards, which means that many people count hands rather than fingers.
Of course, binary is also handy for smart-arse techies because we can count to 1023 on our fingers.
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Friday 25th August 2017 10:20 GMT Justin Clift
Re: So much for digital
Interesting. With that method, using one hand to count units (up to 12), and the other hand to count the groups of 12... it's possible to count up to 60 using your hands.
Hadn't realised that before, but it makes sense as to a practical way to count up to 60 in early historical times.
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Friday 25th August 2017 09:35 GMT Doctor Syntax
Re: So much for digital
"why has the modern world moved so far towards pure binary (and powers of 2 in specific contexts)?"
Imperial measurement made considerable use of binary. Weights from pounds down to drachms were binary as were volumes from gallons down to gills. In general they seem to have been based on measures which were a convenient size for some purpose with a strong inclination to subdivide on a binary basis. It's a natural thing to do. If you have a standard of weight, for instance, you can weigh out that amount of sand, flour or whatever on scales and then, using the same scales, divide that into two equal portions and subdivide further.
The problem arises when two different scales of measurement overlap and we end up with a stone of 14 pounds. Other stones were available - I've seen reference to a stone of 15lbs in the C18th - but I suppose a atone of 16lbs would have required too much adjustment to reconcile with the larger scales in use for other purposes.
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Biting the hand that feeds IT
