Babylonian Word Problems

In terms of practicality, which to me means something is useful and in terms of math has real world context, the Babylonians word problems appeared to be practical in the sense that they were related to real life tasks and topics. However it seems as though they were not practical at all given that the dimensions and calculations given in the word problems were highly unlikely in the real world, particularly during that time. I don’t think the idea of practicality relies on our familiarity with algebra, as to make something such as a word problem practical, real world values and measurements should be used, which I believe is possible to carry out regardless of the knowledge of algebra available. 

When it comes to generality and the ability for the formula or problem to be applicable across several situations, it seems as though the properties of Babylonian mathematics were not very generalizable. This is given that the goal of Babylonian mathematics was to  train students in particular methods, not to generalize their mathematics to solve new problems.  I do, however, think the idea of practicality relies on our familiarity with algebra, as using it may make it easier to generalize previous mathematics to other problems. 

In terms of abstraction, I believe that Babylonians could carry out this idea similar to us given the lack of algebra familiarity, as abstraction is based on constructing or extracting a diagram or pattern from the mathematics. Given the Babylonian’s extensive use of geometry and diagrams, I don’t think the knowledge of contemporary algebra would have affected their abstraction techniques.

When it comes to the idea of pure vs applied mathematics, although Babylonian mathematics may have been ‘practical’ in the sense that they are applied in form, they are still pure in substance as the reading addresses. Thus, although Babylonian’s were only applying the mathematical problems, the problems that they created had pure matter. Potentially with more knowledge surrounding the concept of algebra they could have had more pure based problems.