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Mathematics In Ancient Egypt
Al-Ahram ^ | 1-26-2007

Posted on 01/26/2007 3:09:50 PM PST by blam

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To: snarks_when_bored

And unless I'm much mistaken, an oft repeated history.


21 posted on 01/26/2007 5:14:02 PM PST by null and void (<----- Shocked and odd...)
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To: null and void

Indeed.


22 posted on 01/26/2007 5:20:12 PM PST by snarks_when_bored
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To: blam

Fascinating stuff. Thanks, Blam!


23 posted on 01/26/2007 5:34:28 PM PST by TXnMA ("Allah": Satan's current alias...)
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the four so-called "air shafts", two in the King's Chamber and two in the Queen's. In each chamber, one is directed precisely to the North while the other is set precisely to the South.
Actually, at least one of these air shafts (IMV, they are vent holes to let the geopolymer blocks cure) makes a sharp bend to miss another structure. None of them were visible from the chambers inside until the modern era.
24 posted on 01/26/2007 10:48:19 PM PST by SunkenCiv ("In theory, theory and practice are the same, but in practice, they're not." -- John Rummel)
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Africans Invented Arithmetic and Algebra [double bagger barf alert]
Black Voice News | Sunday, 27 August 2006 | Joseph A. Bailey, II M.D., F.A.C.S.
Posted on 08/30/2006 1:41:19 PM EDT by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1692648/posts


25 posted on 01/26/2007 10:48:59 PM PST by SunkenCiv ("In theory, theory and practice are the same, but in practice, they're not." -- John Rummel)
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great pyramid

26 posted on 01/26/2007 10:52:59 PM PST by SunkenCiv ("In theory, theory and practice are the same, but in practice, they're not." -- John Rummel)
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Great pyramid entrance tunnel not astronomically aligned
William R. Corliss
Science Frontiers Online
No. 42: Nov-Dec 1985
http://www.science-frontiers.com/sf042/sf042p02.htm

Early in the Nineteenth Century, astronomer John Herschel speculated that the ancient Egyptians had constructed the Great Pyramid so that the downwardly slanting entrance would be aligned precisely with the pole star, Thuban (Alpha Draconis), when the star was at its lowest culmination. Over 70 years ago Percival Lowell ran through the calculations and found that Thuban was not near the tunnel's line of sight when the pyramid was constructed (about 2800 BC). No one seems to have listened to Lowell, even though he was quite correct. Most books on the Great Pyramid still insist on the fancied pole star alignment.

If the entrance tunnel wasn't pointing at the pole star, what other esoteric reason did the pyramid builders have for the 26°.523 angle? (It seems that everyone expects all dimensions of the Great Pyramid to have special significance.) R.L. Walker, of the Naval Observatory, has come to the rescue. He observes that the tangent of 26°.523 is almost exactly (actually 0.4991). Although there may be some occult significance to ?, this fraction also signals to us that 26°.523 is also the angle created when two cubical blocks are laid horizontally for every one installed vertically, as in the sketch. It seems that 26°.523 is simply the natural consequence of the internal pyramid construction process.

(Anonymous; "End of a Pyramid Myth," Sky and Telescope, 69:496, 1985.)

Comment. P. Lowell also showed that Thuban did cross the tunnel entrance centuries before and after the accepted date of construction. Could the date of the pyramid be in error, or were the builders planning for the future? Anything is possible in Pyramidology!


27 posted on 01/26/2007 10:56:37 PM PST by SunkenCiv ("In theory, theory and practice are the same, but in practice, they're not." -- John Rummel)
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To: blam; FairOpinion; StayAt HomeMother; Ernest_at_the_Beach; 24Karet; 3AngelaD; 49th; ...
Thanks Blam.

To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. Thanks.
Please FREEPMAIL me if you want on or off the
"Gods, Graves, Glyphs" PING list or GGG weekly digest
-- Archaeology/Anthropology/Ancient Cultures/Artifacts/Antiquities, etc.
Gods, Graves, Glyphs (alpha order)

28 posted on 01/26/2007 10:57:04 PM PST by SunkenCiv ("In theory, theory and practice are the same, but in practice, they're not." -- John Rummel)
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To: snarks_when_bored; patton; null and void
How many ages hence Shall this our lofty scene be acted over In states unborn and accents yet unknown!

29 posted on 01/26/2007 11:05:08 PM PST by SunkenCiv ("In theory, theory and practice are the same, but in practice, they're not." -- John Rummel)
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To: blam
"Squaring the circle" is the most fascinating problem that the Egyptians tackled, and, by far, the most famous and intricate mathematical problem ever posed in antiquity. By using simple geometrical instruments such as a compass and ruler, it seeks to find a square of an area equal to that of a given circle. Only after three and a half millennia (in the late 19th century) was it shown that such a square could not be constructed.

That's not exactly true. Chuck Norris can square the circle using a ten penny nail and a #2 Eberhardt-Farber pencil.

30 posted on 01/27/2007 5:36:09 AM PST by Lonesome in Massachussets (When I search out the massed wheeling circles of the stars, my feet no longer touch the earth)
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To: megatherium; Publius6961

All the assertions in this article need to be taken with a few hekats of salt.

The Egyptian calendar was 365 days long. The peoples living in Mesopotamia mastered positional astronomy to a far greater degree than anything ever acheived in Egypt. And yes, Egyptian mathematics was inductive and proscriptive, meaning it was strictly limited as to what it could achieve.

There was an article in Nature a few years ago showing that the alignment of the Pryamids of different eras drifted with the precessions of the poles, meaning that even if they "found" the celestial pole once, their alignments drifted with their guide stars.

See http://www.grahamhancock.com/forum/BauvalR1-p1.htm for a lively discussion.

Cherrypicking one good alignment in a population of 90 is not convincing evidence that they understood positional astronomy or geodesy.

The Hindus, not the Arabs created the positional number system, which was adopted by the Arabs and from them, by Europeans.


31 posted on 01/27/2007 6:04:56 AM PST by Lonesome in Massachussets (When I search out the massed wheeling circles of the stars, my feet no longer touch the earth)
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To: Lonesome in Massachussets
Actually, the Babylonians invented a positional number system, the base 60 system I mentioned in my earlier post. This lacked a zero and a 'decimal' point (missing 'digits' were indicated by leaving a space, and the position of the decimal point was implied by context). Yet it was an extremely powerful number system well-adapted for astronomical calculations (due to the length of the year of roughly 360 days) and also handy for fractions. (Base 60 fractions are more likely to terminate instead of repeat. For example, 1/3 is 0.333... in our system but is 0;20 in the Babylonian system, i.e., 20/60. Of course they didn't use our ten digits, they used cuneiform 'wedge' marks; each digit was a collection of 1's and 10's, up to 59.)

The drawback of the Babylonian base 60 system is that multiplication was laborious, each 'digit' was a number that could be as big as 59. The big advantage of our base 10 is that the multiplication table can be easily memorized, making calculations by hand rapid and accurate. (The multiplication table for base 60 would have more than 3500 entries.)

Of course you are right about base 10, it came via the Arabs from India. The Arabs get some credit for preserving much of classical mathematics and philosophy, but in reality what happened is that they conquered much of the Byzantine Empire, appropriating portions of Greek culture in the process. (The West was in decrepitude in that era, only rediscovering classical philosophy in the 12th and 13th centuries. It was in the early 12th century that decimal numbers came to Europe, popularized by Leonardo of Pisa, better known as Fibonnaci.)

32 posted on 01/27/2007 10:56:40 AM PST by megatherium
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To: mtbopfuyn
I've never understood why scientists insist on claiming humandkind beyond a couple hundred years ago could barely find their rears with two hands tied behind their backs.
People also forget that the modern's didn't invent most of the problems we face today. Human beings have been human beings for a very, very long time, and they've gotten quite adept at being stupid about it.
33 posted on 01/27/2007 2:15:37 PM PST by nicollo (All economics are politics)
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To: SunkenCiv

There's no mistaking the Bard's pen...


34 posted on 01/27/2007 4:49:09 PM PST by snarks_when_bored
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To: megatherium
Lest we forget, the library at Alexandria was burned by the Muslims to heat their baths. Supposedly there were enough manuscripts to heat their baths for 6 months. Thus perished the largest collection of ancient manuscripts know to the world. Alas!
35 posted on 01/27/2007 7:33:32 PM PST by Citizen Tom Paine (An old sailor sends we need a 800 ship Navy.)
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To: snarks_when_bored

Interesting tale about Atlantis, thanks for posting.


36 posted on 01/28/2007 7:35:29 PM PST by Ciexyz (In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths. Proverbs 3:16)
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To: Citizen Tom Paine

Muslims took baths??????????? Shouldn't this be in Breaking News?


37 posted on 01/29/2007 8:06:02 AM PST by Hegemony Cricket (Alec Baldwin is not a real actor, but he plays one on TV.)
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