Add zero and one to get one, one and one to get two, one and two to get three, two and three to get five. Most of us know this—that each successive number is the sum of the two numbers that came ...

Si.427 is a hand tablet from 1900-1600 BCE, created by an Babylonian surveyor. It’s made out of clay, and the surveyor wrote on it with a stylus. Despite what you may have thought in school, all those ...