Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Ancient Math Problem- Babylonian
It was a normal day in the market when a man came up to me with a very valuable piece of art that i had been looking for for many years. At first I offered him 20 gold. He said to me how about you multiply that by 2 and add 15. So I had to take out a piece of clay to solve this that the man had given me. So I started out with 20 marks on the clay. Then I made another 20 marks below that to make 40. Then I had to add 15 to get my final answer of 55 gold pieces. But then the man said I want half of that total product added on to the price. So I knew I had 55 gold pieces, then I tool the two 20s and took half of them to get another 20. But then I needed to take half of 15 which is 7.5. When you add that sum with the next sum on the clay you get 82.5 gold pieces for his piece of art which is 27 and a half fingers if you go by the three knuckles.
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I-capitalize
ReplyDeletesecond line- separate the ''for's" with a comma
3rd line- At first,
3rd line- by saying, "he said to me"you are implying you are quoting him. try something implying you are going to generalize the conversation
4th line- don't need the "so"
5th line- "solve this.." ???? problem
5th line- don't need the "so"
7th line- you are repetitively using "then". you could take it out
8 line- this is creative writing, try varying your writing style throughout. like "the man then said'
9th line- don't need "so"
9th line- you wrote tool, you meant took
11th line- you need a comma after "when you add the sum with the next sum on the clay
you had a seemingly good plot to the story, but try varying your writing and not making it so repetitious. also refrain from using superfluous words like 'so'.The concept you were trying to explain was a bit confusing. try just putting the context into an easier to understand form.
i like the story simple way of demonstrating roman math!
ReplyDeleteNice example; this would benefit from primary sources as back-up. Google the 'Internet Ancient History Sourcebook'.
ReplyDelete