Noah’s Ark could have floated with the weight of 70,000 animals inside, researchers calculate

National Post ^ | 04/04/2014 | Sarah Knapton, The Telegraph

[SeekAndFind]

Noah’s Ark could have floated even with two of every land animal in the world packed inside, scientists have calculated.

Although researchers are unsure if all the creatures could have squeezed into the huge vessel, they are confident it would have handled the weight of 70,000 animals without sinking.

A group of master’s students from the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Leicester University studied the exact dimensions of the Ark, set out in Genesis 6:13-22.

According to The Bible, God instructed Noah to build a boat that was 300 cubits long 50 cubits wide and 30 cubits high — recommending that it be constructed from gopher wood. The students averaged out the Egyptian and Hebrew cubit measurement to come up with 48 centimetres, making the Ark around 144 metres long.

Using those dimensions, the Archimedes principle of buoyancy and the approximate weight of various animals, they were surprised to discover that the Ark could have floated.

Benjamin Jordan, 21, a student from Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, said: “Using the dimensions of the Ark and the density of the water, we were able to calculate its buoyancy force, which, according to Archimedes’s principle, is equal to the weight of the volume of fluid the object displaces. This meant we were then able to estimate the total mass the Ark could support before the gravitational weight would overcome the buoyancy force, causing the Ark to sink.”

[cloudmountain]

I think the only wood that last that long is redwood. He would have had to turn the entire wooden structure into some sort of polyethylene debacle.

Perhaps the entire Noah story was a teaching tool. For us folks it was just entertainment.

The flood scenes WERE spectacular. But then, that's what Hollyweird does very well.

[Cloverfarm]

“How did the various breeds survive?”

Do you mean like Holstein and Angus cattle? Draft horses and ponies? Dalmations and dingoes?

Breeds were developed by humans over the years. For instance, a lot of people believe all modern breeds of horses came from two or three orgininal breeds. Ditto for European cattle.

I wonder if Noah took young animals on board. A calf, for instance, can weigh less than 100 pounds at birth but grow to 1,400 as a mature cow.

[SeekAndFind]

RE: To try to explain the unexplainable, you’re bringing in divine intervention and I still can’t come to accept that.

Well, I am not saying that you are wrong in your not accepting what cannot be explained. All I am saying is that is the creationist view of things. If you accept the premise that God is the all powerful creator who can do as He pleases, then the explanation makes sense.

If you insist on no supernatural intervention, I guess you’ll have to come up with other explanations, including how life came about from non-life....

[Cloverfarm]

“... assuming Adam and Eve were Caucasian ...”

Well, no, I don’t think anyone assumes Adam and Eve were Caucasian. Why would anyone think so? Why wouldn’t they look Middle Eastern or North African?

If we assume that God created a perfect world, and Adam and Eve were perfect when created, then there would be no defects for them to pass on at first. If we assume corruption entered the world at the Fall then disease and defects would start to appear. So there might not have been enough generations for many defects to develop by the time Noah’s family came along.

[moose07]

I've had a theory on this for some time.
The Flood was caused by the rising of Sea levels at the end of the last Ice age.
There is evidence of civilisations being wiped out during this time.
A culture involved with this tumultuous change would create a history of these events passed down orally until the written word was created.
The contents probably are accurately recorded, just human imagination has expanded the meaning from a major localised event to a global all encompassing cataclysm. It would appear to be global to those involved.
Africa was not totally covered in water, only coastal areas.
The story does appear in cultures all around the planet, there are other “anomalies” to the original story not just Africa.
Just my take on the story.

[Salamander]

There is no such thing as a dead atheist.

:)

[CatherineofAragon]

Can I get an amen.....

[Salamander]

Amen

;]

[Morpheus2009]

Noah also spent 120 years warning people,and asking them to repent. Call me arrogant, but IMHO, very few people have the kind of faith in God that Noah did.

[Morpheus2009]

Maybe they weren’t. They are portrayed as Caucasian by artists. Nothing says tbat they were any race in particular, they could have been black or asian for all we know.

[Neidermeyer]

The problem with that is the first planks put in would have already ROTTED away long before the 500 years needed to build it.
********************************
Language has changed and in particular numbers and time in the bible are symbolic to a great degree ,, I’m not the brightest bible scholar but I know enough to understand that the number “40” doesn’t mean 40 ,, it simply means A LONG TIME ,, my 500 year guesstimate was just based on the sheer immensity of the job , that it was one families work , they couldn’t devote all their energy to it and the lack of modern tools. You should take it to mean “a long time”.

[cloudmountain]

Language has changed and in particular numbers and time in the bible are symbolic to a great degree ,, I’m not the brightest bible scholar but I know enough to understand that the number “40” doesn’t mean 40 ,, it simply means A LONG TIME ,, my 500 year guesstimate was just based on the sheer immensity of the job , that it was one families work , they couldn’t devote all their energy to it and the lack of modern tools. You should take it to mean “a long time”.

Oh, okay, I'll do that.

[MrB]

Since every human extant came from Adam and Eve,

they had to have all the necessary genetic information to produce every human trait we see.

“Caucasian” is simply one of the resulting trait combinations after the split at Babel.

[SarahPalinForPresident2012]

“I believe the Holy Spirit covered that boat and brought peace to everyone and every thing aboard it; otherwise there WOULD have been bloodshed. I think, too, that God’s power enabled Noah and His sons to build such an enormous vessel in the first place.”

This is the most logical explanation I have read.

[SunkenCiv]

Note: this topic is from 4/04/2014. Not pinging, just adding to the catalog. Ludicrous.

[SunkenCiv]

All that's required is, all 70,000 animals be fed into a juicer and stored in one large container, then the cubic feet figures will work. That would also solve the problem of having to feed them for six months. Of course, all of them would be dead...

With modern power tools it took over 300 man-years of labor to build each of the Ark 'replicas'.

join or quit view topics view or post blog bookmark post new topic subscribe