OT - pi in the Bible

I blame the stubborn as an ox liberals for that. ;-)

"Ed Huntress" fired this volley in news:sBAxv.3588$ snipped-for-privacy@fx27.iad:

But the earth was a perfect sphere when the ancients came up with pi. It was only in modern times that it started to swell at the waist (probably from middle-agedness or over[h]eating), and get wrinkles (probably from middle-agedness; all that UV and stuff).

LLoyd

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And, according to some of the ancient Greeks, nature would not allow a fundamental relationship to be expressed as an irrational number.

To be fair to the OP, he probably was basing his statement on some assumed value for the earth's radius, and the circumference calculated from that using some contemporary, extended value for pi. From that, he compared the calculated value using the old value of pi he was talking about and came up with a difference of 1 foot, or 11 feet, or whatever. That's a fair thing to do.

I was being a bit of a wiseguy there.

"Lloyd E. Sponenburgh" wrote in news:XnsA36C9E754C581lloydspmindspringcom@216.168.3.70:

The Wikipedia article implies that he determined the decimal value first (it doesn't say how, but probably using Archimedes' method of successive polygons), then figured out a rational approximation for the already-calculated decimal value.

Doug Miller fired this volley in news:XnsA36CE67FC1252dougmilmaccom@78.46.70.116:

Heh... by that late, it had been refined to a dozen digits or more, and had been copied by scribes for distribution. He hardly had to 'proove' it. All he had to do was look it up.

LLoyd

Something that may or may not be interesting... I've often heard that the flood of Noah would be impossible because there is not enough water. According to the Biblical account, the earth raised out of the waters. At first, formless and void, covered with water everywhere, then some land raised out of the water, then the flood, then the land raised higher out of the water. I believe at that time, the oceans got deeper as the land mass was sort of pinched to stick out of the water. So if we were to take our highest land and toss it in the ocean, eventually there would be enough water to cover all of the land.

Just meaning it would have taken far less water to cover the earth at early times than what it would take today.

RogerN

I recently read that the earth is 75% covered by water so looking at area it is that obviously the water will cover the land. The highest mountain is 8,848 M high and the deepest part of the ocean seems to be the Marianas Trench that is 10,911 M deep.

The older Gilgamesh description of a flood claims water only to the visible horizon, which could fit the inundation of the Black Sea about

5600 BC when the Mediterranean broke through the Bosphorus.

You realy need to open a different book.

it's just a reagional story probably related to the sea level rise after the last ice age that breached the straights and flooded the black sea basin. (the only place the story exists)

On flat ground, or at sea, the horizon is about 2.9 miles (4.7 Km) away so you could see a circular area that is approximately 5.8 miles in diameter.

But I suspect that the story was subject to a certain amount of exaggeration as the largest wooden ships I can find listed was somewhat less than the 300 cubits long mentioned in the story, even using the shortest estimate of how long a cubit was.

HMS Orlando, launched in 1858, was 336 ft. long, 52 ft. beam, draft 29 ft. In cubits (assuming an 18 inch cubit) was 225 Cub. long x 32.6 x

19.8, and was said to be "pushing the limits of what was possible in wooden ship construction" and not structurally capable of facing a ship of the line at close quarters.

"The second ship recovered was the larger at 73 meters (240 ft) in length and with a beam of 24 meters (79 ft)."

Ancient ships were assembled by pegging relatively short timbers together edge-to-edge to form the hull shell, like a dowelled tabletop, then braced internally afterwards. The shipwrights weren't limited by the size of the keel, frames and planks they could obtain and steam-bend into curved shapes.

-jsw

The Nemi ship, from what I've read about it was essentially a barge to float in a small lake. And, again, from what I read, it had extensive cross braces to strengthen the rib timbers. It appear, without further research that they were essentially a flat top barge. somewhat different than a vessel intended to haul cargo.

You explanation of how ancient ships were built is not really innovative. Most ships were built with a keel that is several pieces of wood spliced together. See

for examples of "scarph" design.

The Vikings apparently built boats with the planking held on with bindings. And a "boat" built of reeds tied together sailed across the Atlantic.

But these were hardly vessels to carry vast amounts of cargo that the Ark must have carried. Feed for all the people and animals, separation, of some sort to cages to keep the meat eaters away form the plant eaters, provide shelter from the inclement weather, etc. ( the usual rule of thumb for beef cattle is about 1.8 - 2% of body weight per day)

If I remember the voyage of the Ark was nearly a year. That is a lot of food. 2 x (say)800 lb cattle x 1.8% x 10 months (.83 year) = ~9,000 lbs of food. Food for the carnivores is more complicated as the food has to be fed for some part of the 10 months.

It was a big boat :-)

I grew up on the New England coast and know in detail how wooden ships were lofted from the half model, framed and planked. As a kid I studied the work of naval architect Donald McKay who designed the groundbreaking "Rainbow" clipper shown in your reference, and built wooden models from the scrap lumber left from renovating an 1830 house. My father checked me out on the table saw when I was eight so I'd stop asking him to cut planking. I even have some of the old tools, an adze and a tee-handled augur for the treenail holes.

A ship-lap joint has held up the removeable top section of the wooden support for my TV antenna for 30 years.

I won't debate the unproveable accuracy of Biblical stories with you, which is why I referenced the more moderate claims of the Gilgamesh flood instead. You can decide for yourself whether they describe the same event or not.

We know the ancient methods of ship construction allowed Romans to cross the Mediterranean carrying large objects like this, but we have little hard evidence of their seagoing vessels.

-jsw

Wait a minute, whoa! whoa! 40 days is nothing. The internet is full of claims of people fasting (not having eate)n for two months or longer, etc.

That's over 60 days. That's proof that a few people on a large boat filled with many animals and no food for anyone could have survived for 40 days.

The argument is how MANY animals were there.

Nope. It rained for 40 days and 40 nights. Noah entered the ark in the 600th year of his life, on the 17th day of the 2nd month (Genesis 7:11-13). Noah left the ark on the 27th day of the 2nd month of the following year (Genesis 8:14-15) or a 375 day voyage.

As for fasting for long periods. The fasting in the Long Kesh prison in 1981 resulted in the deaths of 10 prisoners. The period that each individual fasted ranged from 46 to 71 days with an average of death on the 62 day.

John B. Slocomb on Mon, 21 Jul 2014 09:02:47

+0700 typed in rec.crafts.metalworking the following:

And ... how much food was aboard was not part of the story.

upon the lambs and sloths and carp and anchovies and orangutans and breakfast cereals, and fruit bats and large chunks..[At this point,

-- pyotr filipivich "With Age comes Wisdom. Although more often, Age travels alone."

And some are saying that the whole timeline of the old and new testament texts add up to the earth being only 6,000 years old.

Do you believe that one, too?

Some are saying. Others are saying "lets stick with the literal meaning, I..e., 'In the Beginning God created the heavens and the earth.' and all the rest is speculation."

On those days I don't believe it all started in "1955".

-- pyotr filipivich "With Age comes Wisdom. Although more often, Age travels alone."

I didn't think we were discussing beliefs. I was quoting a written reference to an event that seems to commonly available.

Although I believe that there may be other accounts of a similar event they aren't as available to the English speaking public :-)