The Palindrome

The Palindrome

How did the Babylonians know √2 up to six digits?

The greatest known computational accuracy in the ancient world

Tivadar Danka's avatar
Tivadar Danka
Jan 21, 2026
∙ Paid

There’s an ancient Babylonian clay tablet from 1800-1600 BC that contains the square root of two with 99.9999% precision.

How did they compute it?

Let me show you:

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