Page:The Rhind Mathematical Papyrus, Volume I.pdf/57

Rh explained very skillfully how they may have arisen (see pages 63, 119, and 124). There are indications in the papyrus of corrections and alterations made after it was completed. We may think of an earlier author, or earlier authors, who wrote the original from which our copy was made; of the scribe Aꜥh-mosè who may have been an ignorant copyist, but who understood something at least of the problems and may have added details of his own; corrections or changes in the copy that is now in the British Museum may have been made by a still later hand. It is not likely that Aꜥh-mosè made all the mistakes and the earlier writers none. In two or three problems there is some confusion as to the meaning of the problem or of portions of the solution (53, 84, and certain lines of 82), that may be due to the fact that some parts are missing or that the writer or some copyist attempted to put down a problem that was but imperfectly known to him. It is interesting to speculate on the relation of these different writers to the book, but for the most part we shall have to take it as we have it now, the product of Egyptian mathematics, and Egyptian mathematics at its highest development. As to the mistakes, if a problem is obscure it may be necessary to notice them, but if it is clear we are not interested in them. We wish to know what the Egyptians understood, what they could do, and the methods that they employed. Everyone makes mistakes, and almost any modern mathematical book, in spite of the careful proof-reading that it receives, contains mistakes just like those in the papyrus, and some of them contain many more than the papyrus. The remarkable thing is not that there are mistakes, but that most of the calculations are carried through without them.

There are some cases where the method employed does not give a result that is exactly correct. This indicates the limits of the Egyptian's knowledge and is a matter of interest. But we should hardly call the