Blog Post #5 – Babylonian Algebra

This article was simply fascinating. It is amazing to me that the algebra that we do today, differs only in the notation we use to describe unknown variables. We might use x and y to describe the sides of a rectangle, while the Babylonians use “ush” and “sag” to denote the sides of a triangle. Thousands of years ago the Babylonians were able to compute these algebraic problems in the same way we would do it today! With respect to stating a general mathematic principal before the development of algebra and algebraic notation – if you consider the Babylonian notation to be correct algebraic notation then I struggle to think about how else you would be able to state these principles. It seems like the Egyptians struggled to do so given that they didn’t have an efficient number system. I don’t think these concepts in mathematics are all about generalization and abstraction given that mathematics is a substantial part of my day to day life. As a commerce student, we are often using mathematics and algebra in our finance and economics courses.