Kevin Barry <barr...@gmail.com> writes: > On Thu, Apr 01, 2021 at 08:24:08PM +0200, David Kastrup wrote: > >> Sure. And even if you wanted to do this with numbers, the 12th root of >> 2 can be calculated by doing a cube root and 2 square roots. And cube >> roots were already calculated by Babylonian mathematicians close to >> 4000 years ago. > I think you are overestimating the effectiveness of the heuristic > methods available before root extraction was developed
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cube_root#History> > - either that or the ability of music theorists to apply their > Babylonian lessons. There are a few attempts in the early 17th century > by theorists to calculate the 12th root of 2, but they contain errors, > so I think it was not as easy as you imagine. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelfth_root_of_two#History> > P.S. I think we have reached the limits of the usefulness of this > discussion, and in any case we've gotten quite far from the original > topic, so I'll stop feeding it now. -- David Kastrup
