Scientific tools and speculation

 Peoples of the Near East were the fi rst to develop writing. They used papyrus, animal skins, and clay tablets. The earliest surviving writing in China was found incised on animal bones and turtle shells and cast into bronze vessels. The Chinese invented paper around the beginning of the Common Era, a much cheaper medium than silk and less cumbersome than clay tablets or metal.Western civilizations made strong contributions to the speculative disciplines of mathematics and sciences. The abacus was invented in the Near East around 3000 b.c.e., an indication of fascination for numbers, mathematics, and the sciences. Famous scientists include Pythagoras (500 b.c.e.), who,in addition to fi guring out useful things related to triangles, developed both scientifi c and eccentric Theories about the physical universe. Euclid (300 b.c.e.) is still studied today for his insights in geometry, and his theory profi ted another Greek mathematician, Aristarchus, who computed the distance between the Sun and the Moon c. 280 b.c.e. Archimedes in turn fi gured out pi and invented such simple machines as the lever and the pulley. Greek astronomers also made observations and deductions that were unparalleled until Galileo during the European Renaissance.Chinese mathematicians were fi rst to use exponential formulae and scientifi c notation (200  b.c.e.) and utilized several other innovations: the magnetic compass (1 c.e.), “negative numbers”(100 c.e.), and north-south, east-west parallels in maps (265 c.e.).