Mmmm Pi
I’ve been prompted to check out this blog by an atheist blogger who describes himself as “A student of science, he is frustrated by the level of pseudoscience and manipulation vomited daily and the willingness of people to swallow it hook, line and sinker.” The blog in question refers to the fact that according to the bible, Pi=3. Now, I’m no mathematician, but even I know that Pi= 3.1415 (surely Joe will add to this later by letting people know what the 1000th decimal is).
You can read his blog here: Gospel of Reason
Posted Friday, June 15, 2007
Ok…you’ve drawn the line in the sand, and I’ll take it. The thousandth digit of pi is 9. And, as pointed out by my colleague here, your notation is incorrect. Since it is irrational, and you’ve condensed it but implied that it keeps going, you should put “…” after the number.
*snicker*
Held two thousand baths? Given that the implication is that this a unit of mesurement, we can assume that this refers to the old Hebrew definition in which a bath is equal to approximately 38 liters, or 10 gallons. Calculating the volume in cubits (using God’s Pi) we get 5^2×3x5=375 cubic cubits (that’s fun to say). Since a cubit is about 20.62″ we can further compute this into 375×1.718^3 = 1901.888 cubic feet. Since 1 cubic foot equals 7.48051945 gallons, we find the volume of the Sea to be 1901.888×7.48051975 = 14227.112 gallons, or (divide by 10) 1422.711 baths. That’s less than three quarters the answer found by the author of I Kings 7:23-26. An attempt to fill said Sea with 2000 baths would like result in getting all the gourds wet and drowning the bulls that were supporting the whole thing. So instead of getting all hung up on the literal implications of the bible, I would posit that the Prophet Jeremiah was simply bad at math.
Well played, Doug, well played.
Last time I checked, there were no decimals in the bible. And the scripture wasn’t meant to be a blueprint. It’s more of a scripture intended to highlight the immense size of the thing.
Yeah, but it’s fun to punch holes in. I mean, the cubit as a unit of measure is supposed to be equal to the length of your forearm. Since this differs from person to person the guy who measured the circumference COULD have had a forearm exactly 1.0471… times the length of the guy who measured the diameter. This easily fits into the variance given for a cubit (somewhere between 18 and 22 inches).