History of Elementary Algebra - Babylonian Algebra

Babylonian Algebra

The origins of algebra can be traced to the ancient Babylonians, who developed a positional number system that greatly aided them in solving their rhetorical algebraic equations. The Babylonians were not interested in exact solutions but approximations, and so they would commonly use linear interpolation to approximate intermediate values. One of the most famous tablets is the Plimpton 322 tablet, created around 1900–1600 BCE, which gives a table of Pythagorean triples and represents some of the most advanced mathematics prior to Greek mathematics.

Babylonian algebra was much more advanced than the Egyptian algebra of the time; whereas the Egyptians were mainly concerned with linear equations the Babylonians were more concerned with quadratic and cubic equations. The Babylonians had developed flexible algebraic operations with which they were able to add equals to equals and multiply both sides of an equation by like quantities so as to eliminate fractions and factors. They were familiar with many simple forms of factoring, three-term quadratic equations with positive roots, and many cubic equations although it is not known if they were able to reduce the general cubic equation.