Download - Babylonian Maths
Babylonian MathsBabylonian Maths
Numbers in base 60
• What do you think these five numbers are?
• What do you think these five numbers are?
20
• What do you think these five numbers are?
2040
• What do you think these five numbers are?
20 5340
• What do you think these five numbers are?
20
28
5340
• What do you think these five numbers are?
20
4928
5340
In base 60 …In base 60 …• Any number between 1 and
60 corresponds to the units in our numbers.
• Getting to 60 in base 60 is like getting to 10 in base 10.
• We don’t need a new symbol when we get to 10, and the Babylonians didn’t need a new symbol for 60.
• What do you think these three numbers are?
60 + 10 60 + 20 120 + 10= 70 = 80 = 130
• What do you think these two numbers are?
2 x 60 + 13 3 x 60 + 28= 133 = 208
Writing numbers in Writing numbers in base 60base 60• You don’t have to write base 60
numbers in cuneiform symbols.• Look at these base 60 numbers – can
you work out what they mean?
• Can you change these base 10 numbers into base 60?
Base 60
0 18
1 39 3 06 11 20
Base 10
18 60 + 39 = 99
180 + 6 = 186
660 + 20 = 680
Base 10
29 69 149 299
Base 60
29 1 09 2 29 4 59
ZeroZero• The Babylonians didn’t have a
separate symbol for 0.• This number would have meant
3600 + 1 = 3601
• The zero lots of 60 would have just been a gap.
• Is this a good way of showing a zero, do you think?