Humble Pi: When Math Goes Wrong in the Real World

by Matt Parker

These clay tablets are from the Sumerian city of Uruk (in modern-day southern Iraq) and were made between 3400 and 3000 BCE, so over five thousand years ago. It seems the Sumerians developed writing not to communicate prose but rather to track stock levels. This is a very early example of math allowing the human brain to do more than it was built for. In a small group of humans you can keep track of who owns what in your head and have basic trade. But when you have a city, with all the taxation and shared property that it requires, you need a way of keeping external records. And written records allow for trust between two people who may not personally know each other. (Ironically, online writing is now removing trust between humans, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.) Some of the ancient Sumerian records were written by a person seemingly named Kushim and signed off by a supervisor, Nisa. Some historians have argued that Kushim is the earliest human whose name we know. It seems the first human whose name has been passed down through millennia of history was not a ruler, a warrior, or a priest . . . but an accountant. The eighteen existing clay tablets that are signed by Kushim indicate that their job was to control the stock levels in a warehouse that held the raw materials for brewing beer.