by NICHOLAS WADE
Over a thousand years, the Sumerian alternating-base method was simplified into the sexagesimal system, with the same symbol standing for 1 or 60 or 3,600, depending on its place in the number, Dr. Melville said, just as 1 in the decimal system denotes 1, 10 or 100, depending on its place.
The system was later adopted by Babylonian astronomers and through them is embedded in today’s measurement of time: the “1:12:33” on a computer clock means 1 (x 60-squared) second + 12 (x 60) seconds + 33 seconds.
The considerable mathematical knowledge of the Babylonians was uncovered by the Austrian mathematician Otto E. Neugebauer, who died in 1990. Scholars since then have turned to the task of understanding how the knowledge was used. The items in the exhibition are drawn from the archaeological collections of Columbia, Yale and the University of Pennsylvania.
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