Solomon's Sea value of pi correct!

[rwald]

I know that many of you probably consider the following Bible quote as evidence that God did not directly write the Bible:

And he made a molten sea, ten cubits from the one brim to the other: it was round all about, and his height was five cubits: and a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about.The line of reasoning goes, "If the diameter was 10, the circumference should have been 31.4, or at least 31. So the Bible's wrong!" However, this argument is easily refuted. If the sea's real diameter was 9.65, the circumference would have been 30.32. These values round to 10 and 30, and so the Bible is right again!

(By the way, I don't think the Bible is infallible, unless bats became mammals in recent times. I just wanted to point out that, mathematically, this particular scene is not necessarily inaccurate.)

[BillyJoe]

If you "made a molten sea" would you make one with a diameter of 10 cubits or a diameter of 9.65 cubits. No. If he had said that he "came upon a molten sea", then the 10 cubits would very likely be an approximation. No. He "made a molten sea" with a diameter of 10 cubits. He then multiplied the 10 cubits by the then accepted but incorrect factor of 3 to get 30 cubits for the circumference. Wrong.

[Tez]

well, perhaps the sea is held in a vessel of finite thickness, and the 30 qubits is the inner circumference, while the 10 qubits was measured to the outer edge...

[CurtC]

What, this molten sea is a quantum computer?

[Diogenes]

Originally posted by rwald
I know that many of you probably consider the following Bible quote as evidence that God did not directly write the Bible:

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
And he made a molten sea, ten cubits from the one brim to the other: it was round all about, and his height was five cubits: and a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


The line of reasoning goes, "If the diameter was 10, the circumference should have been 31.4, or at least 31. So the Bible's wrong!" However, this argument is easily refuted. If the sea's real diameter was 9.65, the circumference would have been 30.32. These values round to 10 and 30, and so the Bible is right again!

(By the way, I don't think the Bible is infallible, unless bats became mammals in recent times. I just wanted to point out that, mathematically, this particular scene is not necessarily inaccurate.)

To suggest that the figures are somehow wrong, is to assume the vessel was perfectly round, which the Bible does not state.

So, this particular story would not be my first choice, when trying to debunk the Bible.



P.S.

I have some other clues that God did not write the bible..

[SpaceLord]

Originally posted by Diogenes


To suggest that the figures are somehow wrong, is to assume the vessel was perfectly round, which the Bible does not state.

So, this particular story would not be my first choice, when trying to debunk the Bible.



P.S.

I have some other clues that God did not write the bible..

One reason I hold is that, given the popularity of his book, God would have been holding book signings. I mean, that has to sell a ton of books if they knew The Author of the Universe was going to be signing his biggest hit.

[MRC_Hans]

Honestly, even if they had pi right to a couple of decimals, it would not prove God wrote it, just that somebody consulted a mathematician.

Hans

[rwald]

Yea, yea. Though, since most people in pre-Greek times thought that pi was three (I bet someone's going to correct me on this, but state it anyway), it would have been amazing if the Bible had a different value.

[FutileJester]

Originally posted by rwald
Yea, yea. Though, since most people in pre-Greek times thought that pi was three (I bet someone's going to correct me on this, but state it anyway)

Well, with an opening like that...

It seems 3 was commonly used but there were many more accurate approximations which were used when needed. By the time the Bible was being put into writing, the Egyptians used 4*(8/9)^2 = 3.16, and the Babylonians used 25/8 = 3.125.

Some history here (http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/HistTopics/Pi_through_the_ages.html).

[Diogenes]

Originally posted by rwald
Yea, yea. Though, since most people in pre-Greek times thought that pi was three (I bet someone's going to correct me on this, but state it anyway), it would have been amazing if the Bible had a different value.

I'll go along with:

" most people in pre-Greek times( not to mention today) had no use for the ratio of a circle's diameter to it's circumferance."

How's that?:D

[Soapy Sam]

Rwald- are you implying that HE only works to 2 digit precision?

The WORD is INSPIRED, man. Correct to the nth degree.

Blasphemer! Ye're DOOMED. DOOMED!

By the way. Did you know the first man in the Bible was Scottish?

James the Sixth, also the son of Mary.

Aye, ye'll burn for this Devil's work.:D

[Occasional Chemist]

Originally posted by rwald

The line of reasoning goes, "If the diameter was 10, the circumference should have been 31.4, or at least 31. So the Bible's wrong!" However, this argument is easily refuted.

I don't get all the fuss. He just reported His numbers to one significant figure, that's all!

[SortingItAllOut]

I've heard this quote used by both sides of the issue and think it is not particularly strong evidence of anything.

There are far more compelling arguments that support/refute the notion of the Bible being "written by God" than this one.

I could argue that the authors of the Bible weren't particularly good at math and so didn't think of things in terms of non-integral distances.

I could just as easily argue that God certainly would understand pi and wouldn't approximate.

I could argue that an approximation is just dandy in this case, in much the way we might say that it is "3 miles to the store" when it is in fact, 3.14 miles to the store.

I could argue that God didn't believe that fractional units were of much use to the readers of the Bible, that stating pi to 2 or 3 or 100 decimal places added nothing.

And as someone stated previously, I could also use the argument that it might not be a circle.

Cheers,
Sort:)

[Zep]

Let's look at some practical issues as though this were a real situation.
[list=1]
A "molten lake" would quite possibly be difficult to measure in cubits directly. Molten anything is bound to be fairly hot, possibly even burny. I can imagine the guy owning that cubit being a bit distressed crawling across the molten lake while measuring with his forearm. So could it have taken a few attempts by different people to get the final measurement, thus having a variation in cubits there?
If they did the diameter with a string then it may have caught fire a few times in the heat too. And string stretches.
So might it be that the "10 cubits" diameter was really just a "sighter"?
Did someone have ruler based on the Hebrew Standard Cubit(tm)? Or did they use the same cubit-person for both measurements? Or was it a big guy doing the diameter and a small guy doing the circumference and trusting God that they had the same sized cubits?
[/list=1]
Yes, like all paranormal claimants, there's some room for error that explains it in a reasonable fashion!
:D
Zep

[BillyJoe]

Zep. he MADE the molten lake, he didn't FIND it.
If he made the thing, wouldn't he know what its diameter was. Wouldn't he, in fact, make it exactly 10 cubits in diameter as he said. He then multiplied the diameter by 3 (the recognized value of pi at the time) to get 30 cubits for the diameter. Simple as that.

[xouper]

bump

[BillyJoe]

Have you thought of an answer to my question yet Zep? :)

[LW]

Originally posted by BillyJoe
Have you thought of an answer to my question yet Zep? :)

And have you found any sources for your claim that "the recognized value of pi at the time was 3"? Or even that the Hebrews were even aware of the concept of 'pi'?

For example, the Egyptian "value for pi" quoted earlier in this thread was not, in fact, used by Egyptians at all.

What Egyptians had was an algorithm to compute the area of the circle. The algorithm was:

(1) Subract 1/9th portion from the radius
(2) Multiply the result by 2.
(3) Square the result to get the area

The result of this algorithm is that a circle with the radius r has the area of 256/81 r^2. This corresponds to the value of ~3.16 for pi. However, there is not a shred of evidence to suggest that the Egyptians themselves realized that you can get the value directly by squaring the radius and multiplying with the single number. Similarily, there is no evidence to suggest that the Egyptians knew that the ratio of circumference to radius is constant for all circles.

And also, your argument the "he MADE the molten lake" is rather strange as the writer of 1 Kings 7 most probably lived several hundreds of years after Hiram cast the "molten lake". The writer didn't make the lake. [Edited to add: Moreover, Hiram was a Phoenician from Tyre. He wouldn't have had anything to do with Hebrew sacred texts in any case.]

Of all arguments against the Bible, the "pi is 3" is in my opinion among the most stupid. There's nowhere a sugestion that the figures are meant to be exact.

[Brown]

Originally posted by LW
Of all arguments against the Bible, the "pi is 3" is in my opinion among the most stupid. There's nowhere a sugestion that the figures are meant to be exact. Agreed. However...

There are some folks out there who read the Bible ultra-literally. Although the Bible is full of numerical exaggerations, round-offs and approximations, many folks take the position that the numbers reported in the Bible are exact.

This says more about the stupidity of people interpreting the Bible than it says about the Bible itself.

[Diogenes]

Originally posted by LW


Of all arguments against the Bible, the "pi is 3" is in my opinion among the most stupid. There's nowhere a sugestion that the figures are meant to be exact.

At least in the case of " Molten Sea "....

Nowhere does it state that the circumferance was a perfect circle..



( I pointed this out earlier )


Sheesh.. We revive old threads and repeat our old comments...

[Rolfe]

This is annoying me disproportionately to its trivial importance.

It's "Solomon's Seal".

S-E-A-L. No, not the aquatic mammal with flippers and whiskers, the round embossed thing that you imprint wax with to seal a document or validate it as legal. (I think it's the name of a flower as well.)

S-E-A-L. That's why it's round. That's why pi comes into it.

Rolfe.

[LW]

Originally posted by Rolfe
This is annoying me disproportionately to its trivial importance.

It's "Solomon's Seal".

That's too bad, since the "SEA" without 'L' is correct.

Check 1 Kings 7:23 if you don't believe.

[Rolfe]

I'll have to wait till I get home, but if I'm wrong, I apologise.

Rolfe.

[Diogenes]

Originally posted by Rolfe
I'll have to wait till I get home, but if I'm wrong, I apologise.

Rolfe. The Bible Gateway (http://bible.gospelcom.net/bible?passage=1KGS+7&language=english&version=KJV) 23 And he made a molten sea, ten cubits from the one brim to the other: it was round all about, and his height was five cubits: and a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about.

[LW]

Originally posted by Rolfe
I'll have to wait till I get home, but if I'm wrong, I apologise.

Or you could check online from Bible Gateway (http://bible.gospelcom.net/cgi-bin/bible?passage=1KGS+7&language=english&version=NIV&showfn=on&showxref=on).

In short:

Salomon's Sea: a bronze circle 10 cubits across located outside the Temple of Jerusalem.

Salomon's Seal: a mystical symbol used by the occultists.

(Though you don't find the latter from the Bible).

[Agammamon]

Originally posted by Diogenes
. . .To suggest that the figures are somehow wrong, is to assume the vessel was perfectly round, which the Bible does not state. . .


yes, but if it were't perfectly circular wouldn't the circumference have to be greater than pi*d rather than less?

In any case the accuracy of the bible is called into question either way. Either of the measurements may be correct (the diameter may be 10 cubits or the circumference may be 30), but not both. The value of pi really isn't up for debate. Or the values given are approximations. Either way you look at it it's a blow for biblical inerrancy.

[Diogenes]

Originally posted by Agammamon


yes, but if it were't perfectly circular wouldn't the circumference have to be greater than pi*d rather than less?

In any case the accuracy of the bible is called into question either way. Either of the measurements may be correct (the diameter may be 10 cubits or the circumference may be 30), but not both. The value of pi really isn't up for debate. Or the values given are approximations. Either way you look at it it's a blow for biblical inerrancy.

Good point.. Someone should have hammered me with that sooner...

I'm still thinking they probably weren't as precise with their cubits as we are with some of our measurements, and when they called 3.14159.... cubits = 3 cubits, it wasn't like they were lying or ignorant.. They just didn't have a term for .14159.... cubits..

[Agammamon]

I think you're quite right. However if the bible is inerrant and the universe is supposed to be 6 kyr (old despite all observations to the contrary), then I for one am not going to give God partial credit on this exam problem.

[Rolfe]

I'm here to eat my statutory portion of humble pie. I was wrong. That'll teach me to post without being sure of my facts. Except maybe it won't!

Just goes to show. Sometimes what you think you know, just ain't so.

Sorry.

Rolfe.

[TeaBag420]

Originally posted by rwald


(By the way, I don't think the Bible is infallible, unless bats became mammals in recent times. I just wanted to point out that, mathematically, this particular scene is not necessarily inaccurate.)

Where in the Bible does it say bats are not mammals? Inquiring minds want to know.

[Abdul Alhazred]

The Biblical value of pi is correct to one significant digit. That's not good enough for you?

It is exactly correct if a circle is really a hexagon.

Oh ye of little faith! :p :D

[BillyJoe]

I also stand corrected.
My reading was much too superficial
to have warranted any contribution.

I want ceptimus to erase my big pencil permanently


BillyJoe
(ceptimus, I was only joking of course)

[LW]

Originally posted by TeaBag420

Where in the Bible does it say bats are not mammals? Inquiring minds want to know.

Well, it doesn't say exactly that but it says that they are birds. Leviticus 11:13-19:

13 'These are the birds you are to detest and not eat because they are detestable: the eagle, the vulture, the black vulture,
14 the red kite, any kind of black kite,
15 any kind of raven,
16 the horned owl, the screech owl, the gull, any kind of hawk,
17 the little owl, the cormorant, the great owl,
18 the white owl, the desert owl, the osprey,
19 the stork, any kind of heron, the hoopoe and the bat.


I don't know ancient Hebrew so I can't comment on their general usage of the term 'bird'.

The same chapter also mentions that grashoppers have four legs.

[LW]

Originally posted by Diogenes

I'm still thinking they probably weren't as precise with their cubits as we are with some of our measurements, and when they called 3.14159.... cubits = 3 cubits, it wasn't like they were lying or ignorant.. They just didn't have a term for .14159.... cubits..

That particular Bible passage is not a mathematical treatise. It is a description of a temple. The point of the text is to tell everybody how great ruler Solomon was as he could build a temple such that was never seen before in Palestine. In two parts of the text the author gives dimensions of various structures "as measured by line".

1 Kings 7:15
15 He cast two bronze pillars, each eighteen cubits high and twelve cubits round, by line.


1 Kings 7:23
23 He made the Sea of cast metal, circular in shape, measuring ten cubits from rim to rim and five cubits high. It took a line of thirty cubits to measure round it.


The modern (1992) Finnish translation has slightly different words in both places and translating it to English results in: "a line had to be [18/30] cubits long before it measured round the [pillar/sea]".

So, this gives the idea that the author measured the circumference of the Sea, not computed it from the diameter. Note that he doesn't give the diameter of the pillars but gives the diameter of the Sea. To me this seems like an indication that he didn't know how to compute diameter from circumference or vice versa, and the diameter of Sea is also a result of measurement.

The Hebrews certainly knew of fractions [the Pentateuch is filled with laws using them] so author probably could have written, for example, that "The Sea measured 9 and 2/3 cubits from rim to rim" (or whatever fraction in the measuring line would have been closest to the correct diameter). However, he wasn't aiming for mathematical precision, so he rounded it to 10.

Similar thing happens almost daily even now. When there's a news item that "there were 50,000 persons in the audience of a concert", no one thinks that there were exactly 50,000 persons but the news writer just took the closest convenient figure. He would do this even if he knew the exact ticket sales figure and no one really claims that the "50,000" is an error.

On the other hand, the Egyptian "value" for pi comes from a papyrus that was basically a mathematics textbook. The scroll contains a number of excercises for student scribes with the aim of teaching them how to solve practical problems: measuring the area of a field, dividing daily rations of workers equally, etc. Here we can say that the Egyptians were in error with regards to their circle handling since their computational methods give results that we know to be incorrect. [And thinking again, I may have remembered the algorithm incorrectly, since it was first square the 8/9 of radius and then multiply it by four, but the result stays the same.]

[The Don]

Is it *so* unreasonable for the value of pi to be changing. When that verse was written, the value of pi was exactly 3 and it has gradually crept up to the current value. in 20,000 years time it'll be nearly 4.

Is it so unreasonable that a 5 % increase occurs in over 2000 years ? After all the average size of servings in the U.S. have doubled in the last 20 years. On that rate of increase, pi would now be around 30 billion.

[BillyJoe]

The Don,

You are still having a party. :D^*
Get out of that ridiculous outfit and behave yourself please.
LW is the only one making sense here and you know it

BillyJoe
(Yeah, I know, he has no sense of humour. :cool: )


* "Don's Party" was a famous Australian film.

[Abdul Alhazred]

Originally posted by BillyJoe
The Don,

You are still having a party. :D^*
Get out of that ridiculous outfit and behave yourself please.
LW is the only one making sense here and you know it

BillyJoe
(Yeah, I know, he has no sense of humour. :cool: )


* "Don's Party" was a famous Australian film.

The Creator hath said unto me,
That pi is equal to three!
As for you heathens, well
you are going to Hell!
And a circle's a hexagon. Wheee!

[TeaBag420]

Thanks for the citation, I couldn't find it.

Interesting to note that none of the birds cited are flightless. After all, who hunts eagles? Although in Kazakhstan they hunt WITH eagles (considering hawks somewhat effeminate, maybe okay for kids, but not a man).

How stupid do you need to be to have to be told to concentrate your efforts on birds that are easy to catch?

The anthropologist Mary Douglas wrote some good stuff on Leviticus and how some of the dietary rules actually made sense.

Originally posted by LW


Well, it doesn't say exactly that but it says that they are birds. Leviticus 11:13-19:


I don't know ancient Hebrew so I can't comment on their general usage of the term 'bird'.

The same chapter also mentions that grashoppers have four legs.