The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Aahmes

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The Encyclopedia Americana

Aahmes

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Edition of 1920. See also Ahmes on Wikipedia, and the disclaimer.

2500434The Encyclopedia Americana — Aahmes

AAHMES or AHMES, ä′mess (c. 1700 b.c.) the author of the hieratic papyrus in the Rhind collection, deciphered by Eisenlohr in 1877, which is the first extant mathematical document from Egypt, or indeed from anywhere. It contains crude approximations to the area of an isosceles triangle or trapezoid, and the fairly correct value $(.mw-parser-output .sfrac{white-space:nowrap}.mw-parser-output .sfrac.tion,.mw-parser-output .sfrac .tion{display:inline-block;vertical-align:-0.5em;font-size:85%;text-align:center}.mw-parser-output .sfrac .num{display:block;line-height:1em;margin:0.0em 0.1em;border-bottom:1px solid}.mw-parser-output .sfrac.nobar .num{display:block;line-height:1em;margin:0.0em 0.1em}.mw-parser-output .sfrac .den{display:block;line-height:1em;margin:0.1em 0.1em}.mw-parser-output .sr-only{border:0;clip:rect(0,0,0,0);clip-path:polygon(0px 0px,0px 0px,0px 0px);height:1px;margin:-1px;overflow:hidden;padding:0;position:absolute;width:1px}⁠16/9⁠)2$ for π. It also contains the first trace of the notion of equation.