One line in the oldest math text hinted at hidden universes [video]

Wikipedia says "Elements is the oldest extant large-scale deductive treatment of mathematics."

There is a category for which we can count it as "the oldest"

The only older "important publications in math" Wikiepedia has are * "Moscow Mathematical Papyrus" from 1850 BC. This is referred to as a manuscript rather than a "text" though. * "Baudhayana Sulba Sutra" from 8th century BC. Which by all accounts seems to be actually a mass produced text with large reach. But also seems like these general don't contain proofs. and are more like a reference book than an explanation book.

So Elements is several hundred years behind the competition, but for a journalist to simplify "Oldest major math book that made an attempt at explaining the core fundamentals of how math works instead of just giving equations and examples" down to "oldest math text" feels fair enough.

As far as I can see, any older texts basically fall under "here is how the pythagorean theorem works" and not "here are the intrinsic laws that explain how math works, and thus why/how the pythagorean theorem works". The title is true for some definitions of "math text".