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comment by mike
mike  ·  4547 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Wordless, visual proof of the area of a circle using only beads and a ruler

Your hunch is dead on. Their number system and notation were very bad, so all their math gains were in geometry. If you look at Archimedes' work you'll see all kinds of calculus ideas, and then some. Archimedes was a badass!