Re: AW: Custom Format

[David Kastrup]

Kevin Barry <barrykp@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