Egyptian Predictions of Solar Eclipses
Item
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Title
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Egyptian Predictions of Solar Eclipses
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Author
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Eva Batenhorst
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Joshua Omer
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Matt Strutz
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Date
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1 June 2017
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Type
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Text; Image; StillImage
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Identifier
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aes/83
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Language
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eng
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Abstract
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Egyptian historians rely on tomb paintings, a variety of temple inscriptions, and a small amount of papyrus documents such as the Rhind Papyrus. It has been documented that the oldest known example of a sundial dates from Egypt ca 1500 BC, as depicted below. Egyptians introduced the earliest fully developed base 10 numeration system at least as early as 2700 BCE (and probably much early). Written numbers used a stroke for units, a heel-bone symbol for tens, a coil of rope for hundreds and a lotus plant for thousands, as well as other hieroglyphic symbols for higher powers of ten up to a million.Unfortunately, it is thought the majority of information regarding Egyptian mathematics was lost when the great library of Alexandria burned in 48BC.
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Description
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This presentation was delivered on May 25, 2017 at Western Oregon University Academic Excellence Showcase (Monmouth).
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Rights
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Western Oregon University Library has determined, as of 06/20/2018, this item is in copyright, which is held by the author(s). Users may use the item in accordance with copyright limitations and exceptions, including fair use. For other uses, please ask permission from the author(s).
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http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
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Department
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Mathematics
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Faculty Sponsor
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Laurie Burton
