4 ms·
The original paper in Science by Mathieu Ossendrijver: http://science.sciencemag.org/content/351/6272/482 http://science.sciencemag.org/content/351/6272/482 "
by acqq 11y ago
The original paper in Science by Mathieu Ossendrijver:
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/351/6272/482 http://science.sciencemag.org/content/351/6272/482
"Ancient Babylonian astronomers calculated Jupiter’s position from the area under a time-velocity graph"
As gene-h noted, it's interesting because it's something close to calculus but done so early in history.
- leoc 11y agoI'm guessing that the mentions of fourteenth-century Europe refer to the work of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford_Calculators https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford_Calculators , an interesting bunch in their own right.
- acqq 11y agoOresme in Paris did it graphically. The calculators apparently produced the "mean speed theorem". It's written in the full text of the paper: "The “Oxford calculators” of the 14th century CE, who were centered at Merton College, Oxford, are credited with formulating the “Mertonian mean speed theorem” for the distance traveled by a uniformly accelerating body, corresponding to the modern formula s = t•(v0 + v1)/2, where v0 and v1 are the initial and final velocities (12, 13). In the same century Nicole Oresme, in Paris, devised graphical methods that enabled him to prove this relation"