Don Barone Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Amazingly at Sakkara we get this:
>
> From an earlier post:
>
> The entire complex was once surrounded by an
> enclosure wall, that when complete, was about 600
> yards (549m) long and 300 yards (274m) wide and
> rose to over 30 feet (9.1m).

Ummm the word 'about' has me disturbed, if you're going to start into math behind this.
Can you get more precise measurements here? Even a reference I can find in my local library?

Don Barone Wrote:
> The pyramid was situated in the center of a large
> enclosure (about 1800 by 900 feet), entirely


again, that troublesome word 'about' -- math is a pure science - exacting in its precision. The word 'about' throws everything else off as it indicates rounding.
1800 by 900 is about 2000 by 1000 or 'about' a 2 to 1 ration -- which is typical for any rectangle construct, yes?


Don Barone Wrote:
> surrounded by a paneled and bastioned wall of
> white limestone. The enclosure wall still survives
> in some places on the south side (though much
> shorter) and has been rebuilt on the east side to
> its original height of more than 30 feet.

I'm rather curious - why was only side rebuilt? Perhaps a later reconstruction effort? or a Reuse of an existing wall? Several other potential speculatory explanations -- *all* of which would obscure the meaning of the height.

Also, you say the 'original height' of 'more than' 30 feet.
1) how do we know what the original height was? (especially if reconstruction was done()
2) 'more than' is even more imprecise than 'about'

Don Barone Wrote:

> Note 1800 feet is 1047.63 cubits and 900 feet is
> 523.815 cubits

I'm still worried about your precision...
First off, you're apparently using 1800 ft/1047.63 cu => 1 foot = 1.71816385555969.. cubit
Which matches up with other sources, such as say [en.wikipedia.org]
although, again, without any 'real' precision in the matchup.

Now, if 1 cubit = 1.71... ft, then 1800ft/1.71....cu = 1047.63.
With windows calculator and 32 digit precision.
So, I'm not worried about the precision of your math anymore, but the assumptions you made in translating ~1800 (about 1800) to a precise 1800.00000.... 32 digit precision do worry me. I know that it would take some very sophisticated tools to measure that precisely, and I can't imagine AE doing it... still, some greater precision in your measurement may, very well, disprove your whole theory. If ~1800 turned out to be 1798 or 1801 or even 1812, it would certainly throw off the math.


1 ordinary cubit, mh = 24 db = 6 šsp = 450 mm ≈ 1.48 feet
1 royal cubit, mh = 28 db = 7 šsp = 525 mm ≈ 1.72 feet
(from [en.wikipedia.org])

FYI, as I understand it, the royal cubit came into use *after* 2700BC, and the Djoser Step & enclosure were built before? Yes or no?



Don Barone Wrote:
>
> Interesting to note Hermione is the fact that
> 523.815 is the number of millimeters in a cubit.

Hmm.. using that same 32 bit precision above
1800 ft times 12 times 254 divided by your 1047.63 cu is 523.696343 mm to the cubit again.... I got 523.696343174 mm to 1 cubit?
And wikipedia got 525 for what it's worth...

Alright, maybe I'm doing the math wrong, I'll work it backward.
1 cu = 523.815 mm. 10 mm = 1 cm, so 523.815 mm = 52.3815 cm. There is 2.54 cm to the inch, so 52.3815 divided by 2.54 is 20.62263... (32 again). Divided by 12 is your 1.71855 number again.

But wait. It's not quite. There's a difference at the 4th significant digit.

IE it's off... by a 1/1000th of an inch per cubit.
In 1800 feet, you could be off by as much as 21.6 inches.
So I'm not sure how you got to .815 instead of .696, but it is a significant difference that can add up over the full length of the 1800 feet, much less the 1800x900 estimated length.




Don Barone Wrote:
>
> Just interesting I thought.
>
> Deliberate ? What do you think ?
>
> 20.618034 = 523.7 millimeters
Again, we've drifited apart on the significant digits, so further computation isn't reliable.

Don Barone Wrote:
>
> 20.62 = 523.748 This would make the length
> 1047.5266 and the width 523.7633 and tie in all
> three measuring systems: feet, cubits and metric.
>
> A pretty neat trick, don't you think ?
Games with significant digits can be fun, I agree.
But when you move from 523.696 to 523.815 to 523.748 cubits, I start failing to see the significance? Given that degree of flexibility I can show you how to relate plancks constant to PI and e... But it's not really all that significant is it?

Don Barone Wrote:
>
> What I also suddenly noticed is that 180[0] is 1/2
> a circle and 90[0] is 1/4 of a circle so perhaps
> this is what was meant here is that it was
> representing a circle. It would certainly make
> sense when the data so nicely corresponds to Pi in
> the final analysis.
<blink> I really didn't follow this. I'm not sure how allegedly relating a cubit to a foot (with significant digit mismatched) indicates a circle?
From what I gather, I could say that 1800/900 is 3/1 or 1/3, therefore the enclosure represents a polar graph in radians??
No offense, I'm just not following, and I was a math minor many years ago.


[edited]
Removed the rest, Johnny describes it ever so much more eloquently.




Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/25/2010 12:19PM by sansahansan.