A new archeological study has revealed that the ancient Babylonians managed to plot Jupiter’s course on the night sky long before medieval astronomers. The study conducted by Mathieu Ossendrijver proves that Babylonian mastered astronomical calculus before Europeans.
- The method of calculating the trajectory of planets was thought to have been invented in the 14th century by Oxford scholars;
- The clay tablets spoke of a celestial body called the “White Star”;
- This method of calculation takes into account time and velocity;
- Historically speaking, the method was invented somewhere between 350 and 50 BC in Babylon.
According to more traditional theories, the geometrical calculus necessary to plot Jupiter’s trajectory was invented in the 14th century by a group of mathematicians from Oxford. Ossendrijver’s recent approach demonstrated that not only geometrical calculus precedes Christianism, but that the Babylonians were the first to discover it.
Mathieu Ossendrijver is an astrophysicist working at the University of Berlin. In 2014, the astrophysicist got particularly interested in a couple of photos send by a retired archeologist, who was specialized in Assyriology. The pictures depicted several clay tablets, each of them no bigger than two-by-two inches.
The scientist soon realized that all the tablets had something in common, a leitmotif of sort, by the name of the “White Star”. After extensive research, the scientists discovered that the elusive star mentioned by the tables was actually Jupiter and that all the tablets actually contains guidelines on how to calculate the position of the planet, using a trapezoid-like graphic.
His discovery was so astounding, that it determined historians to reconsider the chronology of science. The ancient tablet proves that geometrical calculus was not invented in the 14th century by the Oxford scholars, but 1400 years ago by the scholars from Babylon.
Ossendrijver also declared that one of the clay tablets was crucial to understanding the rest. Basically, the first tablet could very well be considered another Rosetta stone. After deciphering the rest of the tablets, the scientist has figured out that the ancient Babylonians used complex mathematical computation in order to determine the position of the planet.
Bottom line idea is that the Babylonians were the first to calculate the position of a planet by taking into the velocity of the celestial object and the time it takes to complete a full crossing of the sky. The graphic resulting from using this method of calculation resembles an upside down trapezoid. When asked about the method, the scientist argued that the Babylonians discovered a simple method to calculate the position of a planet, somewhere between 350 and 50 B.C.
A recent study has proved that ancient Babylonians mastered astronomical Calculus before Europeans, thus shifting the chronology of geometrical calculus by approximately 1.400 years. In regards to the clay tablets, Ossendrijver said that no tablet mentioned the name of Jupiter. All of them spoke about how to calculate the trajectory of a certain star called the “White Star”.
Photo credits:www.wikipedia.org
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.