Problemas do segundo grau na Babilônia

Abstract

At the present study, a bibliographic research has been performed in order to show how the Babylonians solved quadratic problems, establishing a comparison among the way ancient historians, like Otto Neugebauer, believed those problems were solved (from a method which, nowadays, is not accepted anymore) and the way current historians, such as Jens Hoyrup and Victor Katz, believe the Babylonians used to solve those problems. For such analysis, the initial part of this research explains how the Babylonian number system used to work, by taking a walk through the Babylonian´s mathematics history, in order to get to the quadratic problem solving part, in which the same problems were used in order to show the way of solving that had been accepted by the historians before, and the way it is accepted nowadays. Subsequently, other ways of solving quadratic problems, from different peoples, which may have been influenced by the Babylonian solving method or not, are illustrated