Editing Multiplication table (section)

===Pre-modern times===
[[File:Qinghuajian, Suan Biao.jpg|thumb|right|180px|The [[Tsinghua Bamboo Slips]], Chinese [[Warring States]] era decimal multiplication table of 305&nbsp;BC]]
The oldest known multiplication tables were used by the [[Babylonian mathematics|Babylonians]] about 4000 years ago.<ref name=Qiu/> However, they used a base of 60.<ref name=Qiu>{{cite journal | first = Jane | last = Qiu | author-link = Jane Qiu | title = Ancient times table hidden in Chinese bamboo strips | journal = Nature News | date = January 7, 2014 | doi = 10.1038/nature.2014.14482 | s2cid = 130132289 | url = http://www.nature.com/news/ancient-times-table-hidden-in-chinese-bamboo-strips-1.14482| doi-access = free }}</ref> The oldest known tables using a base of 10 are the [[Chinese mathematics|Chinese]] [[Tsinghua Bamboo Slips#Decimal multiplication table|decimal multiplication table on bamboo strips]] dating to about 305&nbsp;BC, during China's [[Warring States]] period.<ref name=Qiu/>

[[File:PSM V26 D467 Table of pythagoras on slats.jpg|thumb|right|180px|"Table of Pythagoras" on [[Napier's bones]]<ref>[[Wikisource:Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 26.djvu/467]]</ref> ]]
The multiplication table is sometimes attributed to the ancient Greek mathematician [[Pythagoras]] (570–495&nbsp;BC). It is also called the Table of Pythagoras in many languages (for example French, Italian and Russian), sometimes in English.<ref>for example in [https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_TBBKAAAAMAAJ/page/n10 <!-- pg=17 quote="table of pythagoras" -Montessori. --> ''An Elementary Treatise on Arithmetic''] by [[John Farrar (scientist)|John Farrar]]</ref> The [[Greco-Roman]] mathematician [[Nichomachus]] (60–120&nbsp;AD), a follower of [[Neopythagoreanism]], included a multiplication table in his ''[[Introduction to Arithmetic]]'', whereas the oldest surviving [[Greek mathematics|Greek]] multiplication table is on a wax tablet dated to the 1st century AD and currently housed in the [[British Museum]].<ref>David E. Smith (1958), ''History of Mathematics, Volume I: General Survey of the History of Elementary Mathematics''. New York: Dover Publications (a reprint of the 1951 publication), {{isbn|0-486-20429-4}}, pp. 58, 129.</ref>

In 493&nbsp;AD, [[Victorius of Aquitaine]] wrote a 98-column multiplication table which gave (in [[Roman numerals]]) the product of every number from 2 to 50 times and the rows were "a list of numbers starting with one thousand, descending by hundreds to one hundred, then descending by tens to ten, then by ones to one, and then the fractions down to 1/144."<ref>David W. Maher and John F. Makowski. "Literary evidence for Roman arithmetic with fractions". ''Classical Philology'', 96/4 (October 2001), p. 383.</ref>