The researcher Mathieu Ossendrijver , from the Humboldt University of Berlin (Germany), has discovered in the transcription of four tablets from ancient Babylon, dated between 350 and 50 BC , that this ancient civilization already used advanced geometry techniques (and not arithmetic) to calculate the position of the planet Jupiter in the solar system.
This discovery undoubtedly redefines history books , specifically astronomy books, since until now it was thought that advanced geometry techniques to delimit the positions and trajectories of celestial bodies had been invented in the fourteenth century in Europe.
“The idea of calculating the displacement of a body in space with speed and time usually goes back to 14th century Europe, but I show that in four ancient Babylonian cuneiform tablets, the displacement of Jupiter along the ecliptic it is calculated on the surface of a trapezoidal figure obtained by drawing its daily displacement with respect to time ”, clarifies Ossendrijver.
In this way, the Babylonian tablets – which arrived at the British Museum in 1881 – would today make up the oldest method of calculating the position of a celestial object in space using geometry.
The text that appears on the tablets (which are astonishingly intact) presents up to seven lines that point to two intervals of the period in which Jupiter first appears on the horizon, calculating its position at 60 and 120 days using geometric calculations based on the surface of a trapezoid, with its ‘short’ and ‘long’ sides, to follow Jupiter through the sky.
The finding has been published on the cover of the journal Science .
