Egyptian and Babylonian Mathematics

After reading the document on Egyptian and Babylonian mathematics I found it extremely interesting that the started to deal with fractions but weren't able to get to the same sophistication that we have today. This seems to imply mathematics is an evolving discipline. It is also necessary to note that both civilizations used mathematics more as a way to relate to observed objects and not some abstract thought that current exists today. This seems to imply that humans used mathematics in the beginning as a relationship between objects in our observed reality and the names we give them (one, two, three,...) to make some understanding of the world around us. Once this understanding was reached did we start to play with the concepts as the Egyptians did with circles to find pi and the Babylonians did to find a relationship between squares and triangles to reach an early form of the Pythagorean theorem.

Looking at each civilization independently we see that our counting system relates to the Egyptian counting system, which is based in tens, but varies greatly from the Babylonian counting system, which is in base 60. Two civilizations separated from each other came to described the same world each observed by means of two different counting systems. This relates to the exercise we did in class where each group developed different counting systems. It seems that this implies that mathematics started off as a human construct, a tool if you will, created to understand and manipulate the world about us. But simple arithmetic seems to have come from observing our world and algebra and geometry came from relating object to each other and trying to manipulate them. The intrinsic number of stuff never changed, rather our ways to understand the objects did (base 10 vs base 60). In this case mathematics seems like a tool created by use based on some abstract relation between our understanding of the world and how it actually is. Or alternatively put, amounts of objects never change but our understanding of the relations will, and this is where mathematics seems to be evolving with us.

Any ethical implications would come from how to apply the algebra and geometry the ancient civilizations found by way of relationship. The reading gives one account of it being used for astronomy and astrology. Once a stable cycle of the stars has been mapped out the civilizations could plan events by the year, when to plant crop, harvest, and react to other environmental phenomena associated with the region (like winter and summer). This would give the kings and scribes great power to dictate the course of their civilizations well being and open up questions of ethics for conducting their orders.