Comments on: Neil deGrasse Tyson on pi and other constants

By: ocker3

ocker3 — Sat, 19 Jan 2013 14:34:00 +0000

From the size of the thing, I think they were really going for “It was Huge” rather than “here are it’s exact measurements and a description of the exact casting processes so you can make one at home”

By: ocker3

ocker3 — Sat, 19 Jan 2013 14:30:00 +0000

Considering cubits were based on the ruler’s arm length (change of ruler, change of length), surely a short consideration of the unit in question pretty much implies it’s an approximation?

By: Richard

Richard — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 21:39:00 +0000

Surely the value of Pi depends on your geometry? For example, in a spherical geometry, the ratio of a circle’s diameter to its radius isn’t a constant:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FC4q_D0al5M

By: BillStewart2012

BillStewart2012 — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 20:22:00 +0000

Cubits are normally measured with your arm. They may have measured the 30 cubits around using a line, at whatever level of precision they got, but the “10 cubits from rim to rim” is highly unlikely to have been precise enough to distinguish it from 9.5 cubits.

By: DewiMorgan

DewiMorgan — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 19:45:00 +0000

Or just that the vessel had non-zero thickness, and “rim to rim” was measuring the vessel’s capacity, and “measure around it” was giving the outer dimension.[edit: this was posted below, and yeah, me wrong.]

By: wysinwyg

wysinwyg — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 16:49:00 +0000

Word of God. Infallible. Inerrant.

These words apparently do not mean as much to Christians who supposedly believe them as they do to atheists who don’t.

By: Colin Curry

Colin Curry — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 13:49:00 +0000

Isn’t that worse than trying to define pi as 3? If you’re rounding to the nearest whole number, then 3.1415… would be 3. If you’re rounding to the first decimal place, then 3.1415… would be 3.1.

I didn’t realize that Indiana voted on this in 1897… a tidbit not mentioned above. It doesn’t excuse the now deceased legislators that brought it forward though.

By: scav

scav — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 12:22:00 +0000

Well, it is possible to take any two apparently contradictory statements in the bible and interpret each in a way that makes them consistent. It’s also possible to interpret pairs of statements in the Bible in ways that make them irreconcilably contradictory.

Neither occupation is a good use of anyone’s time. Compared to say, feeding the poor, forgiving people for offending you, and attending to your own sins and errors rather than those of others. It’s just a book after all.

Even if the various authors of the books of the Bible were divinely inspired, implausibly good at conveying what was revealed to them, and always correctly translated, the book itself says God made the whole *universe*. Next to that the Bible is a *negligible* fraction of the works of God that are there for our understanding.

By: scav

scav — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 12:02:00 +0000

If someone posted here saying something so clearly wrong, that because the bible says so, pi must be equal to 3, then by Poe’s law it would be impossible to tell whether they meant it anyway.

I prefer to give all such statements the benefit of the doubt and assume they are jokes.

The US certainly does have the most comedic political and criminal justice systems in the world. It must be so much fun to live there!

By: dasanjos

dasanjos — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 09:02:00 +0000

Worry not – at least you’re doing! Some people don’t even bother trying…

By: PurpleWyrm

PurpleWyrm — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 06:16:00 +0000

Actually there is a semi-logical explanation.

The bit of the Bible in question is in the first book of Kings and describes a vessel in the Temple of Solomon…

He made the [vessel] of cast metal, circular in shape, measuring ten cubits from rim to rim and five cubits high. It took a line of thirty cubits to measure around it.

If you do the maths on that, Pi equals 3. Derp.

The explanation put forward by people who can’t countenance the idea that the holy-sacred-literal-unalterable-word-of-almighty-god could contain a rough estimate (which is, frankly the most likely explanation) is that the vessel was irregular in shape and flared out a bit at the top. That way the maths works out fine.

By: GlyphGryph

GlyphGryph — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 05:33:00 +0000

No, no, you need to imagine a diameter too!

By: Joseph Francis

Joseph Francis — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 04:32:00 +0000

Maybe I got the details reversed, but I think I found the explanation:
http://www.purplemath.com/modules/bibleval.htm

By: Scott Elyard

Scott Elyard — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 03:44:00 +0000

I just imagine a circle.

One symbol. Simple!

By: humanresource

humanresource — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 02:37:00 +0000

I agree entirely. Its not as if this book is meant to be the word of God.

By: robcat2075

robcat2075 — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 02:36:00 +0000

Apparently the story about Indiana trying to define pi as 3 is not accurate either.

Aside from the fact that voting to reject a bill is rather different from “trying to” do something, the rejected bill was to make pi equal to 3.2, not 3.

http://www.agecon.purdue.edu/crd/localgov/second%20level%20pages/indiana_pi_bill.htm

By: robcat2075

robcat2075 — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 01:56:00 +0000

It’s about significant digits.

A result of circumference 30 and diameter 10 is consistent with pi when you consider that they are just rounding to the nearest unit. Did their number system even have a way of representing complicated fractions?

For example 9.65 cubits and 30.32 cubits might be the actual measurements that agree with a true value of pi but rounded off they would give 10 and 30.

Do we suppose that anyone seeing this structure had a cubit tape measure accurate to 100ths? More likely they made a quick measure so they could describe the size of it.

It isn’t as if the writer of that passage is making a huge error. The error is not recognizing how the writer was using numbers.

By: KWillets

KWillets — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 01:24:00 +0000

Cut a circle out of paper and weigh it.

By: Donald Petersen

Donald Petersen — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 01:00:00 +0000

My Granny had inconstancy as well, which led to my mother having seven or eight stepfathers.

By: tmcsweeney

tmcsweeney — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 00:50:00 +0000

Except that 30 cubits (implying pi=3) is less than the 31.415… cubits it should be. Measuring the circumference around the external measurement when the diameter is measured internally would give you a ratio even bigger than pi, not less.

By: skimedic

skimedic — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 00:42:00 +0000

Hey, biblical sig figs. Chill.

By: Joel Moore

Joel Moore — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 00:42:00 +0000

Kings 7:23 (as stated in the article everyone is commenting about)

By: Antinous / Moderator

Antinous / Moderator — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 00:08:00 +0000

Try reading the rest of the thread. Like the comment directly above yours.

By: judgeandjury32

judgeandjury32 — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 23:43:00 +0000

Indian tried that in 1897; 115 years ago and it never passed. And please cite where the Bible says Pi is 3. I can’t find anything to support that. A lot of misinformation just being flung around here.

By: Timmy Corkery

Timmy Corkery — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 23:39:00 +0000

I don’t have enough math to know if this is trolling or just a really cool practical method. But since it’s math, it might be both. Or neither. Or both neither and both. Damn I wish I had more math…

By: echolocate chocolate

echolocate chocolate — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 23:37:00 +0000

Same as everything else: by applying the bible selectively.

By: echolocate chocolate

echolocate chocolate — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 23:36:00 +0000

Oh, very good!

By: Milton Pope

Milton Pope — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 23:27:00 +0000

In First Kings, Hiram made a big bowl. How big was it? Ten cubits across. Thirty cubits around. Pretty big for a bowl. That was the point.

I can’t even claim this is a cheap shot. There are Christians who would argue that pi must be 30 / 10 because the Bible says so. As someone who takes the Bible seriously, I get really embarrassed when (a few of) my co-religionists try to tease out God’s hidden scientific truths in the Scripture.

By: Boundegar

Boundegar — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 23:12:00 +0000

It never occurs to them the Bible isn’t an engineering document.

By: angusm

angusm — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 23:08:00 +0000

It’s not as if the Indiana state legislature didn’t do due diligence before attempting to define the value of pi. The House sent the bill first to the Committee on Swamp Lands. When they approved it, the Senate referred it to the Committee on Temperance, who also said it seemed OK to them. That’s more consideration and expert attention than many bills get.