What everyone is talking past here is that the Babylonians discovered what engineers call a "rule of thumb", and engineering is focused on getting things done u

What everyone is talking past here is that the Babylonians discovered what engineers call a "rule of thumb", and engineering is focused on getting things done using rules of thumb. The best possible rule of thumb is a mathematical proof or a scientific discovery, but it's by no means necessary. . Observing that something always holds and even having a formula for it is not the same thing as having a proof, and the proof is what makes it mathematics and geometry and not "just" engineering. The babylonians had a rule of thumb -- the greeks discovered the theorem -- and more than that, they seem to have invented the mathematical/geometrical proof as a concept, along with formal logic. Without that mental framework, it's hard to say that the babylonians proved anything or had any theorems at all, only collections of rules of thumb. It's quite likely that lots of babylonians sort of independently and intuitively understood _why_ it must be true, but they don't seem to have ever written it down. Not that there's anything wrong with having rules of thumb -- it's a huge achievement to even notice and collect and teach those things, all the stuff around you is built relying on them. I encourage everyone to watch this series of videos. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ivqWN4L3zU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ivqWN4L3zU