Posted on 02/20/2006 5:33:50 AM PST by ToryHeartland
A rather bold assumption on your part.
So the inside circumference would be almost exactly 30 cubits and since a cubit was not an exact measurement but an approximation, you would have to round the number off to the nearest "hand" which of course would equal exactly 30 cubits.
If the walls were 4.29 inches thick then it would be exactly 30 cubits without having to round off.
19. Therefore this is what the Sovereign LORD says: `Because you have all become dross, I will gather you into Jerusalem.
[snip]
22. As silver is melted in a furnace, so you will be melted inside her, and you will know that I the LORD have poured out my wrath upon you.'"
(Ever hear of them Nazi furnaces?)
What was your point with the "Nazi furnaces" comment following the passages about the Lord melting people in a furnace?
The 35 cm was a rounding up of 3/4 of a cubit (I like to work with nice, round numbers). A cubit was about 18" or 45cm. Three-quarters of that is 13.5" or 34.29 cm.
Festival-of-ignorance placemarker.
The law took the state's engineering community by surprise. "It would have been nice if they had consulted with someone who actually uses pi," said Marshall Bergman, a manager at the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization. According to Bergman, pi is a Greek letter that signifies the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. It is often used by engineers to calculate missile trajectories.
Prof. Kim Johanson, a mathematician from University of Alabama, said that pi is a universal constant, and cannot arbitrarily be changed by lawmakers. Johanson explained that pi is an irrational number, which means that it has an infinite number of digits after the decimal point and can never be known exactly. Nevertheless, she said, pi is precisly defined by mathematics to be "3.14159, plus as many more digits as you have time to calculate".
"I think that it is the mathematicians that are being irrational, and it is time for them to admit it," said Lawson. "The Bible very clearly says in I Kings 7:23 that the alter font of Solomon's Temple was ten cubits across and thirty cubits in diameter, and that it was round in compass."
Lawson called into question the usefulness of any number that cannot be calculated exactly, and suggested that never knowing the exact answer could harm students' self-esteem. "We need to return to some absolutes in our society," he said, "the Bible does not say that the font was thirty-something cubits. Plain reading says thirty cubits. Period."
Science supports Lawson, explains Russell Humbleys, a propulsion technician at the Marshall Spaceflight Center who testified in support of the bill before the legislature in Mongtomery on Monday. "pi is merely an artifact of Euclidean geometry." Humbleys is working on a theory which he says will prove that pi is determined by the geometry of three-dimensional space, which is assumed by physicists to be "isotropic", or the same in all directions.
"There are other geometries, and pi is different in every one of them," says Humbleys. Scientists have arbitrarily assumed that space is Euclidean, he says. He points out that a circle drawn on a spherical surface has a different value for the ratio of circumfence to diameter. "Anyone with a compass, flexible ruler, and globe can see for themselves," suggests Humbleys, "its not exactly rocket science."
Roger Learned, a Solomon Society member who was in Montgomery to support the bill, agrees. He said that pi is nothing more than an assumption by the mathematicians and engineers who were there to argue against the bill. "These nabobs waltzed into the capital with an arrogance that was breathtaking," Learned said. "Their prefatorial deficit resulted in a polemical stance at absolute contraposition to the legislature's puissance."
Some education experts believe that the legislation will affect the way math is taught to Alabama's children. One member of the state school board, Lily Ponja, is anxious to get the new value of pi into the state's math textbooks, but thinks that the old value should be retained as an alternative. She said, "As far as I am concerned, the value of pi is only a theory, and we should be open to all interpretations." She looks forward to students having the freedom to decide for themselves what value pi should have.
Robert S. Dietz, a professor at Arizona State University who has followed the controversy, wrote that this is not the first time a state legislature has attempted to redifine the value of pi. A legislator in the state of Indiana unsuccessfully attempted to have that state set the value of pi to 3. According to Dietz, the lawmaker was exasperated by the calculations of a mathematician who carried pi to four hundred decimal places and still could not achieve a rational number. Many experts are warning that this is just the beginning of a national battle over pi between traditional values supporters and the technical elite. Solomon Society member Lawson agrees. "We just want to return pi to its traditional value," he said, "which, according to the Bible, is three." [2]
No, it was a question which you 1) failed, as usual, to answer in a comprehendable way, and 2) following which, you called me a liar on a public forum. The slander shoe is on the other foot. As usual.
I am gone from FR for a few days, and all heck breaks loose...a lively, interesting thread is what this has become......I offer a few days late thanks for the ping...its taken me all morning to read this thread...
Sorry; it should have gone to Junior.
Methinks your average Christian takes the "child of God" sobriquet far too seriously. It gives him or her an excuse never to mature spiritually. Sure, he or she may claim otherwise, but will still act like a fearful child in the presence of a vengefull father. Like any parent, though, God wants His children to grow up and stand on their own feet.
But is it an assumption on my part?
Just look at what Junior wrote - just WHO is doing the assuming here?
If HE can state that I am afraid of my God, can I not do the reciprocal and state that he isn't??
Your post #1635 was very thoughtful and eloquent...and I could not help myself, but think, that what you state in this post is so very close to how I also believe, and am grateful for your thoughts, on this matter...
I was especially struck by your quote from Lucretius, and how wise it appears to be...could our contemplation of the universe with a tranquil mind actually take place, perhaps true piety would replace the false piety seen all too often on these threads...
Thanks for your thoughts, I for one, very much appreciated them...
Uh... did not the Jews MELT in those furnaces??
There's really nothing new under the sun!
Like the writer of Kings? ;^)
(You left off the 'In my humble opinion'.)
What do you call raising Him for the dead, then?
What do you call raising Him for the dead, then?
Join the party then.
Plagarist!
We already TRIED that in Indiana, long ago.
Well then, since I was wrong (iyho) I guess you'll post where I said the things you CLAIMED I did, and then I'll retract my statement.
Until then, you'd better what out for dimensio!
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