Parallel (Simon Singh): The Rhind Papyrus

The Ancient Egyptian Rhind Papyrus dates back to around 1550 BC and is full of mathematical ideas and puzzles. Not surprisingly, it has a section about calculating the slopes of pyramids.

I particularly like that it opens with the statement: “Directions for Attaining the Knowledge of All Dark Things”. That’s quite a way to describe mathematics.

1. The papyrus has a great deal about “Egyptian fractions”, which means that every fraction has to be described in terms of other fractions which have the numerator 1.

Or, instead of 215, you would write 110+130.

So, instead of 710, you would write 23+130.

If 23 is represented in Egyptian fractions, it could be written as 13+14+1x. What is the missing denominator x?

2.  If 2101 is represented in Egyptian fractions, it equals 1101+1202+1303+1x.

What is the missing denominator x?

3. The Rhind Papyrus also has a riddle about 7 houses, each containing 7 cats, who each eat 7 mice, who each ate 7 stalks of barley, which each contained 7 grains of barley. The question is how many items do we have in total? To get you started, we have 7 houses and 49 cats, so we have 56 items in total.

(BTW, this is similar to the much more modern St Ives riddle. If you have never heard about that puzzle, then google it.)

Parallel: All Dark Things