纪录片《大英博物馆世界简史》 017莱因德数学纸草书(6)

There must have been a whole lot of discussion of mathematics and how to solve the problems of managing huge building projects like the pyramids and the temples, and managing the huge work-forces that went with it, and feeding them all.

当时一定有许多 关于如何管理金字塔和庙宇这样大型的建筑工程，管理数量庞大的建筑工人，并保证工人饮食等问题的数学讨论。

How that more sophisticated discussion of mathematics was conducted, or transmitted, we can only guess.

如此复杂的数学讨论是如何进行和表达的，我们只能想象。

The evidence that has come down to us is maddeningly fragmentary, because papyrus is so fragile, because it rots in the damp, and it burns so easily.

传到我们手里的证据都支离破碎，因为莎草纸太易碎，不耐潮，又易燃。

We don't know where the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus came from, but we presume that it must have been a tomb.

我们甚至不知道莱因德纸草书是如何保存下来的，只能推测它来自某座古墓。

There are some examples of private libraries being buried with their owners-presumably to establish their educational and administrative credentials in the afterlife.

历史上曾有不少私人藏书与主人一起埋葬的例子，大概是为了保证他们来生仍有学识，有成为管理人员的资格。

This loss of evidence makes it very hard to form a view of how Egypt stood in comparison to its neighbours. Eleanor Robson again:

由于证据的缺失，很难了解埃及的数学水平在当时邻国中所处的位置，也无法确知公元前一五五〇年左右埃及数学的真实水平。埃莉诺罗伯森说：

It's quite difficult to tell exactly how representative Egyptian mathematics is in the early second millennium BC.The only evidence we've got to compare it with at the same time is from Babylonia, southern Iraq.

目前唯一能与之比较的物件来自与它同时代的巴比伦，位于今伊拉克南部。

Because they were the only two civilisations at that point that actually used writing.

它们是当时仅有的两个使用文字的文明。

So I'm sure that lots of cultures were counting and managing with numbers, but they all did it-as far as we know-without ever writing things down.

我肯定当时还有别的民族也会计数运算，但从目前的发现来看，他们都没有书写下来。

The Babylonians we know a lot more about, because they wrote on clay tablets and, unlike papyrus, clay survives very well in the ground over thousands of years.

我们对巴比伦人的情况更为了解，因为他们的书写载体是黏土板，不像莎草纸，黏土板可以在地下保存数千年。

So for Egyptian mathematics we have perhaps six, maximum ten, pieces of writing about mathematics, and the biggest of course is the Rhind Papyrus.

至于埃及， 我们则仅有大概六份，顶多十份数学记录，其中最完整的就是莱因德纸草书。