Talk:Plimpton 322

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Mathematics rating: Start Class Mid Priority  Field: History of mathematics (historical)
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[edit] Image of the tablet

Copyright examination has been requested for the material described below. If you are confident that the material is free of copyright concerns based on Fair Use or other considerations, feel free to add it directly to the article. If you do so, or alternatively if you believe it cannot legally be added, please post your analysis below.

It would be nice to add a picture of the tablet to the article, something like those available at [1] or [2]. The tablet itself is of course in the public domain, but the photographs may not be. We could probably add one under fair use, given the historical importance of the topic, but I was wondering if we could argue that the photograph is in the public domain, according to Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp. ? The tablet is a 3D object, but it is photographed as a flat object, with the goal of reproducing it accurately. Any opinion ? Schutz 11:20, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp. fits perfectly for these images. └ VodkaJazz / talk ┐ 13:49, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
Tablets are 3d. So no Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp. probably does not apply.Geni 03:35, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Importance

I'm bumping the importance in the math rating header to mid. This tablet is the basis of claims that the Babylonians knew the Pythagorean theorem prior to the Pythagoreans themselves and prior to the Sulba Sutras; in terms of the history of mathematics it's quite an important document, although its impact on modern mathematics per se is minimal. —David Eppstein 15:49, 20 May 2007 (UTC)