More than a thousand years before the first telescopes, Babylonian astronomers tracked the motion of planets across the night sky using simple arithmetic. But a newly translated text reveals that ...

The purpose of four ancient Babylonian tablets at the British Museum has long been a historical mystery, but now it turns out that they describe a method that uses figures on a graph to calculate the ...

All societies have had ways of understanding nature based on their experiences of it. For example, farmers need to understand the seasons and weather to know when to plant and harvest their crops.

Ancient Babylonian astronomers working in the pre-Christian era have long been thought to be way ahead of their time, employing arithmetical methods to predict the positions of celestial bodies. But ...

Clay tablets dating back to between 350 and 50 B.C. have revealed that the Babylonians not only tracked the biggest planet in our solar system but also created the birth of calculus while they were ...

Ancient astronomers were highly sophisticated observers of the night sky. Though they lacked telescopes or any kind of magnification device, stargazing is one of the only things you could do at night, ...

Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to [email protected]. All societies have had ways of understanding ...

(The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.) Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like ...