Babylonian and Egyptian mathematics We now have a more extensive coverage of Babylonian and Egyptian mathematics. Click on one of the links below Babylonian mathematics index Egyptian mathematics index JOC/EFR January 2001 The URL of this page is: School_of_Mathematics_and_Statistics University_of_St_Andrews, _Scotland http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.

Egyptian Fractions Nowadays, we usually write non-integer numbers either as fractions (2/7) or decimals (0.285714). The floating point representation used in computers is another representation very similar to decimals. But the ancient Egyptians (as far as we can tell from the documents now surviving) used a number system based on unit fractions: fractions with one in the numerator. This idea ...