<HTML>What ever happened to Pyramid Pi?
In 1975 I read a book called "The Riddle of the Pyramids" by Kurt Mendelssohn. Among many theories was one concerning the measuring and laying out of the Great Pyramid. He proposed the use by the AE of measuring wheels. ie measurements were made by counting the number of revolutions of a wooden wheel. He further proposed that they used this to measure horizontal distance but that they measured vertical distance in terms of multiples of the diameter of the disk. This would accidentally build in the value of Pi, or easy multiples of it, into the structure of the Pyramid without any knowledge of Pi itself being needed. This theory is also apparently alluded to in "The Atlas of Ancient Egypt" by Baines & Malek (1980) which has the following caption to an illustration of a wheel measuring a Pyramid.:
"Some pyramid measurements show an accurate use of Pi. The mathematical knowledge of the Egyptians was not sufficient to arrive at this by calculation, but it could have been produced 'accidentally' for example through measuring distances by counting the revolutions of a drum."
At the time this theory became the "in" thing and I even remember a documentary on television complete with a scene of a man trundling along with his wheel.
Recently there has been discussion on this MB and others concerning the AE methods of measuring which usually mention knotted rope and cubit rods but no mention of wheels. Has this method been discredited or has it just gone out of fashion?
A magazine article around the same time also proposed a "simple" method that would have led to the appearance of Phi (another illogical number also know to the Greeks) but I can't remember anything of the method proposed. I have read the chapter in Peter Tompkins "Secrets of the Great Pyramid" which covers both Pi and Phi but found them a little difficult to understand and he seem to suggest that the AE actually understood the mathematics behind these principles rather than just incorporating them accidentally.
Accident, Deliberate, or Delusion?
Jani</HTML>
