Dave L Wrote:
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> MJ is totally wrong to imply the method suggests the author did not know Pi.
>
> It suggests nothing of the sort.
>
> It simply shows that in the area case recorded he used a method that was not circumference or diameter based.
Hello Dave,
Perhaps you missed my post above in which I wrote:
"Problem 50 of the RMP makes no mention of the circumference of a circle, therefore it cannot involve the ratio we know as pi.
Gillings interprets Problem 50 as: "Subtract from the diameter its one-ninth part, and square the remainder."
As I have repeatedly mentioned on this Forum, all that Problem 50 of the RMP tells us is that its author did not know or appears not to have known that the diameter-to-circumference ratio (that we know as pi) can be used to accurately calculate the area of a circle."
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To sum up, IMO the 4th Dyn. Egyptians knew that the circumference of a circle was to all their intents and purposes invariably 3 1/7 times the diameter, but they did not know or appear not to have known that this diameter-to-circumference ratio could be used to accurately calculate the area of a circle.
I hope this clarifies my current position on the question of the AEs and pi.
MJ
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/30/2008 03:44PM by MJ Thomas.