Mark Heaton Wrote:

> The author makes the point, rather well, that the
> architect of G1 need not have been a brilliant
> mathematician to have deliberately designed G1 in
> the pi ratio.

Hollenbrink may have been trying to make this point, but he certainly did not do it well. He is trying to show that a "mathematically unsophisticated peasant" could have essentially squared the circle in terms of circumference without even knowing that this was what he was doing. The flaw in his argument is, of course, that those designing and laying out the Khufu Pyramid were neither "unsophisticated", nor were they "peasants". Rather, they were of the most highly skilled and most highly trained elite that the society had to offer.

Hollenback's argument can therefore be taken to mean the reverse of what it appears to be saying - that is, that the pyramid's architects, being mathematically sophisticated, would have noticed the inherent "squaring" relationship, whereas an unsophisticated peasant would not.

Given that they operated within the 28 finger royal cubit measurement system, and given the 280 to 440 cubit height to base ratio for this pyramid (which Hollenback acknowledges), I should think the much stronger argument is in the likelihood that they were indeed aware of the circumference-squaring nature of their design. I am not saying here that the design was necessarily based on this principle, only that they were aware of this relationship.

Hollenback's essay is a strange one, riddled with contradictions throughout. So much so, in fact, that I am not entirely sure that he did not write the piece tongue in cheek. It is therefore always a little surprising to me whenever it gets brought forward as some form of touchstone.

Lee Cooper