Pythagorean triples of Plimpton 322
Ternas pitagóricas de la tablilla Plimpton 322
- Date
- c. 1800 BCE · confidence medium
- Place
- Larsa, Mesopotamia (Iraq)
- Credited to
- Anonymous Babylonian scribe
- Field
- Knowledge & symbols
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What was discovered
Tablet with fifteen rows of numbers forming ordered Pythagorean triples, evidence that the relationship between the legs and hypotenuse of a right triangle was known a thousand years before Pythagoras.
Whether it was a trigonometric table, a list of school problems or a table of reciprocals is debated; its exact function remains open.
What it led to
- the Pythagorean theorem
- trigonometric tables
- number theory
Built on
- Sexagesimal number systemc. 3000 BCE
- sexagesimal system
- tables of reciprocals
Made possible
- Pythagorean theoremc. 530 BCE
- land surveying
- construction