<HTML>Here are some exerpts from jr Skeptic #9 to provoke some discussion here:
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"Oddly enough, these alternative theories came from the same historic event that inspired increased scientific knowledge of Egypt's past--Napoleon's 1789 invasion. Two camps of opposing viewpoints arose--those in the academic/scientific world, and those who sought alternative or spiritual explanations.
Though many of the promoters of alternative theories rejected the discipline of science, they still liked to look scientific by using measurements and mathematical calculations to "prove" their ideas."
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"Pyramidologists used elaborate measurements to discover hidden codes built into the halls, chambers, and dimensions of the Great Pyramid. They tried to link measurement to events in Christianity in an attempt to prove that their idea of what the Bible said was literally true.
Noah and his sons built the Great Pyramid of Giza under the guidance of God. It is really "the Bible written in stone." Measurements of its chambers and passages are a record of the past and can also be used to predict the future, Christ's Second Coming, and the end of the world. (The Pyramidology movement was inspired by John Taylor's book The Great Pyramid: Why Was It Built and Who Built It, written in 1859.)
The Great Pyramid of Giza was built by the devil. (This was the idea of Joseph T. "Judge" Rutherford, a leader of the early Jehovah's Witness movement, in The Watch Tower, Nov. 28, 1928, in response to his predecessor Charles Taze Russell's enthusiastic support for Pyramidology.)
Pyramidology analyzes the interior chambers of the Great Pyramid. The floor of the Queen's chamber in the Great Pyramid meets the angled floor of the ascending chamber at a point 33 1/2 inches before the end of the passage--this represents the date of the Crucifixion, exactly 33 1/2 years after Christ's birth. If this measurement is taken as the hypotenuse of a right triangle, the base of that triangle is 30 inches--the exact number of years from Christ's birth to his baptism."
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"These contemporary stories express modern hopes and fears. They suggest the secret codes are warnings about the need to change our ways because of moral decay, the coming end of the world, nuclear war, or environmental pollution.
A spaceship of defeated survivors of a galactic war escaped to our solar system and interbred with our primitive ape-like ancestors to create a new species--us! They provided us with pyramid building technology--laser beams to cut huge stones, anti-gravity machines to move them, and radioactive paste to fuse them together. (From Chariots of the Gods? by Erich von Daniken in 1968.)
Structures on Mars and Earth are a great cosmic blueprint created by alien civilizations. Mathematical relationships connected Giza to an area on Mars called Cydonia where there are pyramids and the Sphinx-like face on Mars. (From The Mars Mystery written by Graham Hancock in 1998.)
People from the lost continent of Atlantis used advanced technology (lost when Atlantis sank into the ocean) to build the pyramids.
Egyptian priests used psychic power--now lost to our modern scientific mindset--to move the great stones.
These current theories still depend upon some of the old discoveries of pyramidology that relate pyramid measures to astronomy, geology, and mathematics.
The famous bestselling book Chariots of the Gods? claimed that the height of the pyramid multiplied by a billion equals the distance from the earth to the sun, or 98,000,000 miles. (Actually, the earth makes an oval path around the sun, so the distance between them varies. That distance is usually averaged as 93--not 98--million miles.)"
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"But a favorite way to prove an advanced intelligence built the Great Pyramid is to point out that the distance around the base of the Great Pyramid divided by twice its height gives a special number called "pi"--3.14. First of all, just because a number is discovered in pyramid measurements doesn't mean it was deliberately hidden there. (This is explained below in the section called "The Number Game.") Also, pi was already known 4000 years ago by the Babylonians who used 3.125, and by the Egyptians who used 3.1605.
Technical Stuff About Pi
The distance around the outside of any circle is about 3.14 times greater than the distance straight through the center of that circle. This number was important for ancient builders and surveyors who needed to be able to calculate the area of circles to compare them to square spaces. Pi fascinates people because it never comes out exactly even.
Mathematicians love the game of finding ever more accurate values for it. The last we heard, a computer calculated pi to over 51 billion decimal points. Many ancient cultures used an even 3 for pi. Modern engineers usually don't need more than 7 decimal points, and scientists rarely need more than 20.
Some claim to get a 6-decimal figure for pi--3.141592--from Great Pyramid measurements, but this is not as amazingly accurate as it seems because it was calculated from estimates of the thickness of the pyramid's missing outer layer and top.
The 5th century Greek historian Herodotus claimed a different mathematical ratio was built into the pyramid--that the area of each lateral face equals a square whose sides are as long as the pyramid is tall--this coincidentally produces a ratio close to pi."
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"The Number Game
The custom of manipulating numbers to discover hidden meanings is called Numerology. It is so easy to come up with startling coincidences that "hidden" numerical relationships should not be used to prove the existence of helpful space aliens or unknown advanced civilizations. Finding these relationships is really a game of "Pick and Choose."
Mathematician Martin Gardner demonstrated how easy it is to find a pattern within a bunch of unrelated numbers. He analyzed the Washington Monument to see if he could "discover" the property of fiveness to it:
Its height is 555 feet and five inches. The base is 55 feet square, and the windows are set at 500 feet from the base. If the base is multiplied by sixty (or five times the number of months in a year) it gives 3,300, which is the exact weight of the capstone in pounds. Also, the word 'Washington' has exactly ten letters (two times five). And if the weight of the capstone is multiplied by the base, the result is 181,500--a fairly close approximation of the speed of light in miles per second.
He then joked "it should take an average mathematician about 55 minutes to discover the above 'truths.'"
You can find amazing "coincidences" by measuring your own home. On my first try I discovered that the length of my house times 10,000 is the same as the distance to the sun divided by the number of days in a year! I started out by dividing the distance to the sun by the days in a year just because it sounded like an impressive (but actually meaningless) astronomical fact. I instantly saw that it more or less matched the length of one side of my house, give or take a few zeros. So, I added the (times 10,000" to get a match!
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Which reminds of John Walls article on precessional numbers.....
KRs,
Duncan</HTML>
