Which pre-Greek civilization brought forth the most significant technological innovations?
 |
 Shopping Cart Returner Shirt $21.68 |
|
Which pre-Greek civilization brought forth the most significant technological innovations?
Which pre-Greek civilization brought forth the most significant technological innovations?
|
Shopping Cart Returner Shirt $21.68 |
|
The chinese before during and after
/thread
>before
lol
during - it's the hellenistic world
after (Tang/Song) - yes
Before; definitely no and its not even funny. Though i think there is an argument for during. Warring states and han have a lot of innovations that the world uses now. Meritocracy, civil service examination, paper, gears, slide calipers, paper printing(in paper inb4 phaistos disk), and further development of sericulture(important basis for computers long story). Its just that most chinese innovations were technical. While the greeks built upon the fundamental understandings of the world with an axiomatic approach that was seldom replicated in china. Really the main apllicable and lasting legacy of abstract thoughr would be the I Ching as it was co-opted by leibniz to create computer binary. This is not to say they were better but their achievements i feel stleast put them at the level of the hellenistic/roman world.
frick off chang
Mesopotamia and it's not even close. Also, most of these innovations happen before there was any civilization, also in the Middle East.
Chinese civilization is younger than Greek.
The only correct answer is Babylon.
This /thread
They were incredibley important in the field of mathematics and we still continue to learn novel approaches for geometry from them to this day. They are the reason we have 360 degrees and our seconds are counted in 60. They were definately the giants whose shoulders the greeks stepped on. Its a shame they arent recognized more.
I don't think any of these things are true.
I implore you to enter the world of ancient babylonian mathematics. There is still much to be learned from the past. I am not an authority on this subject so I tried to paraphrase my understanding to the best of my knowledge. If you would like to know more and research there are sources available. This is one such source that talks about a discovered tablet labeled plimpton 322. I hope you find it as interesting as I did.
Robson, Eleanor. “Words and Pictures: New Light on Plimpton 322.” The American Mathematical Monthly, vol. 109, no. 2, 2002, pp. 105–20. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/2695324.
You're mistaken, I was politely requesting you prove your point. I can't think of anything more dull than mesopotamia semites.
Alright as per your request I will explain the points that I wrote. To address the 360 degrees in a circle and our time measurements. The babylonians used a sexagesimal(base 60) counting system. Instead of counting each finger in their hand they counted the digits in each finger except for the thumb. This allowed for quite a few advantages in counting and at the same time explains why the measurements they established for their mathematics revolve around base 60. They did this atleast by 1800 BC as shown by tablet YBC 7289; well before greek mathematic innovations. Greek numerals are decimal meaning base 10 so it would be unlikely that they established a base 60 measurement system for time and angles it is something they most likely adopted from the babylonians or adjacent civilizations. I am talking of the greeks here as I also stated that they stood on the shoulders of proverbial giants; in this case the babylonians. The greeks served as a foundation for all of our modern mathematics but they did not lay the groundworks. Plimpton 322 the tablet that I was talking about and provided citations for the study of was a tablet that showed pythagorean triples over a millenia before pythagoras even existed and is the earliest such example. To my final point that we still learn from them. Before Hipparchus of Nicea the babylonians demonstated a practical understanding of trigonometry. Plimpton 322 was a table of exact triginometric ratios. Because we use base 10 finding right triangles becomes harder and many approximations must be made because we are applying a decimal system to an inherently sexagesimal problem. When using the novel babylonian techniques we are able to find exact solutions due to exact ratios of the sides of right triangles. Its not super revolutionary but certainly a novel approach. I cannot make you interested in this topic and in truth babylonian history is not a focus of mine. I however appreciate the contributions to mankind.
With all due respect every single aspect of what you're claiming is contrived. That tablet does not prove geometric advances whatsoever. It has shapes without context. And yes, I've even seen newspapers claim that it is evidence of calculus. It isn't evidence of anything other than simple mapping. Nextly, the Greeks using base ten has no bearing on numerical system assumptions. Germanics have used a base of twelve and that never informed us of any deviation from Greco Roman systems. The Plimpton article is much more interesting but ultimately meaningless for indicating who understood the Pythagorean geometries first since A) we know Pythagoras wouldn't have been the first anyways and B) anyone building from stone, particularly monuments, would already have some conception of this.
Oh, and the Sumerians used base sixty,so if that was to be your leading evidence then it would point to Soomies gifting it to semites.
The sumerians may have very well imparted the knowledge unto the babylonians I do not know as much about them and my pool of knowledge regarding the babylonians is pretty much exhausted. I bring up the decimal numerical system because it is the one we currently use and what the greeks used which is why it is unlikely that our measurments for time and degrees in a circle would be in base 60 if we created them. The importance of emphasizing that the babylonians had a sexigesimal system was that they were a very influential and old polity and that influence is expressed in their systems' adoption. It is far more likely that the greeks took what already worked but did not abandon their own decimal numeric system which is why they decided to deal with approximations. Decimal numerical systems were more advantageous for what the greeks were using them for. I share your sentiment about newspapers claiming that the babylonians had calculus. These articles are anachronistic at best. These tablets were more static in their uses and would not be as applicable to change in motions like later calculus. In regards to the 'germanics' and their base 12 system in question; they did not form the basis of our time measurements and degrees. It is explicitly because the hellenistic world adopted a sexagesimal tool that they were unable to get exact values using their decimal system .I apologize for sounding like a broken record but I believe that does justify the point that it (time and degrees) was an innovation given to the greeks (and to us be extension) by the babylonians. The sumerians could make a claim for these mathematics however the oldest and most comprehensive tablets we have are from babylon, not sumer so the jury is still out on that until more discoveries are made. We know that the greeks were directly influenced by the babylonians because Hipparchus cites moon period values from previous ephemerides which match the exact values made by the babylonians.
I hope the effort post sparks even a little bit of interest in learning more about 'mesopotamian semites'. If you dig deep enough anything can be interesting.
>I can't think of anything more dull than mesopotamia semites.
what is interesting to you if one of the cradles of civilization is ''dull''?
This is pure contrarianism because you're extending your anti-israeliness towards any member of the semitic language family.
Egypt invented a portable, fiber-based writing industry before China. Europe didn't adopt papyrus because it is shitty in many ways, but that doesn't mean it didn't get invented first.
They were also first with a shitload of irrigation technology, construction, astronomy, mathematics and that kind of "technology."
I'm not saying the egyptians were geniuses or anything but if your civilization gets started in 3000 BC you are going to be first in a lot of categories
>Europe didn't adopt papyrus because it is shitty in many ways
They actually did during the Greco-roman period, they stopped when it became to expensive to get it from Egypt because Muslims
wax writing boards were probably invented in Mesopotamia
They were all ancient aryans, even the ancient chinese.
For science and mathematics the Babylonians, but I'd say the Egyptians where better at architecture.
What contribution did the indus valley offer? I thought they were a brief, incredibly isolated civilization that kind of fell apart.
They possibly influenced the Aryan Vedic religion with their own religious customs
They invented irrigation and plumbing (well, something close to it) independently, but their civilization collapsed before the Aryans showed up so it didn't contribute to anything. Most of Indians civilizational achievements come from post-invasion Aryans. The IV-Civilization is cool, but it's only really relevant in discussions of Jainism and as a way for India to WE WUZ to assuage their fragile egos about humanity not originating in Delhi.
They had irrigation and plumbing, but did not invent it.
There are earlier examples, just on smaller scales.
invented pajeets and cursed the earth
Egypt, but it's mostly lost forever
Or Atlantis
go away graham
The irish
But if we're including antediluvian civilization then I'd have to pick them since they had the same technology if not more advanced then we have today.
>antediluvian civilization
What's that? I need detailed context of this topic.
Hyperborea
Hwan Empire
No contest.
>archetologist
>ethiopian numerical characters