Lengths, Widths, Surfaces - A Portrait of Old Babylonian Algebra and Its Kin (Hardcover, 2002 ed.)

In this new examination of Babylonian cuneiform texts, Jens Hoyrup proposes a new interpretation, based on the fact that the tablets are almost entirely students¿ workbooks. The knowledge of mathematics expressed in these tablets is entirely ¿practical,¿ for use in surveying, accounting, and building, rather than theoretical. Hoyrup argues that the notion of algebraic manipulation, like other parts of a theoretical mathematics is indeed a later invention.