# @gravitonomy on Instagram

- **Type:** Image
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/DcdTNa_PrOb
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/69677451-gravitonomy-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/postThumbnails/48716f8488.jpg
- **Posted:** 2026-08-25T09:19:37.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** Gravitonomy (@gravitonomy) — https://gondola.cc/gravitonomy

## Caption

Long before Pythagoras, Babylonian mathematicians were already working with the mathematical relationships behind right angled triangles. The clay tablet known as Plimpton 322, dating to around 1800 BCE, contains numbers corresponding to Pythagorean triples, such as sets of whole numbers that satisfy a² + b² = c². One famous example is 3, 4, and 5, because 3² + 4² = 5². The tablet shows that Babylonian scholars understood these relationships roughly 1,000 years before Pythagoras lived.

What makes Plimpton 322 especially fascinating is that it appears to contain a systematic method for generating these triples, rather than being a random collection of numbers. However, scholars still debate exactly why the tablet was created. It may have been a mathematical teaching aid or a tool for solving problems involving right triangles. 

Source (MLA): New York University. “Plimpton 322.” Before Pythagoras: The Culture of Old Babylonian Mathematics, Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, New York University. "NYU Institute for the Study of the Ancient World".

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## Tags

science, pythagorastheorem, pythagoras, maths, greeks

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