Well what he's done is play around with the dimensions that occur in that slope range to find one case which fits in that range and where three of the dimensions A,B and C are related such that A is to B, as B is to C.

This triple relationship is something found in vitruvius 'de architectura', and was related to good proportioning of buildings, and has also been used by some to show that the Greeks (and Romans) used the Golden Section. If you divide any length in three parts such that the short to the long part is as the long to total, the ratio is the so called golden one of 1.618.

In fact, this almost certainly wasn't the design criteria used by the Old Kingdom architects, but its interesting to see. Can we get the whole article?

The actual relationships used were:

Meidum: Height is radius of circle equivalent to perimeter.
Khufu: Height is radius of circle equivalent to perimeter.
Khafre: 3-4-5 triangle half section
Menkaure: Height is radius of circle equivalent to perimeter.

Dave Light.




Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/14/2008 10:21AM by Dave L.