Pyramid of Giza and Speed of Light

After a quick check of Google Earth, currently, the longitudinal coordinates line up with the Tomb of Hemon, which is a short distance from the Giza pyramid. He was considered the architect.

originally posted by: bloodymarvelous
What I'm getting at is: The idea of Egyptians knowing the circumference of the Earth, or even calculating the speed of light is no more impossible than the idea of Egyptians moving a 2 ton block of stone.

That's quite an absurd point of view.

Harte

originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: bloodymarvelous

I found my error. As pointed out before you replied.

This is why i respect you bud

This is a pretty good article on how to measure the speed of light using primitive tools.

www.wired.com...

The way Hippolyte Fizeau did it in 1848 doesn't even require optics.

Ole Roemer's method of doing it in 1676 by measuring the orbit of IO around Jupiter, would probably require some kind of telescope or basic lens technology, which the Egyptians didn't have.


Thinking Egyptian technology wouldn't be sufficient to measure the speed of light is no different than thinking their technology wouldn't be sufficient to lift or cut a large stone.

a reply to: bloodymarvelous

This was an estimate you can't use planets to measure the speed of light without there being a huge margin for error. For example his estimate was 220,000 kilometres per second. Light travels at 299,792.458 km/s. Meaning he was off by 26 percent from actual speed and you want to believe the Egyptians got it right? By the way we didnt get that number until 1983.

originally posted by: bloodymarvelous
Thinking Egyptian technology wouldn't be sufficient to measure the speed of light is no different than thinking their technology wouldn't be sufficient to lift or cut a large stone.

That's a pretty silly statement. Moving stones and calculating the speed of light have nothing to do with each other.

There's zero evidence they even understood the concept of a speed of light, let alone could measure it.

And if they could have measured it, it wouldn't be using the metre - this is an arbitrary measure invented in 1793. There is nothing universal about it.

We've been over this. The metre is not arbitrary. It's very close to being one 40 millionth the circumference of the Earth. Taken North/South the distance is 39,031 kilometers and taken at the equator it is 40,070 kilometers


Anyway, the Pyramid is so large that its base actually spans from 29.97806 degrees North, up to 29.98008

So as long as their estimate fell within a range between 299,780,600 m/sand 299,800,800 m/s , it is entirely possible they put it there in purpose.

Just have to remember that our measure of time is based off of our measure of degrees (evenly divisible by 60, and 360), and our unit of measure of distance is based off of the size of the planet.

That means NO MATTER WHAT UNITS they used, they would STILL put the pyramid in the same place, so long as planet Earth is their means of expression. Because seconds of time map to degrees of latitude/longitude (meaning that if their second were longer, their degree would also be longer.)


If you want me to go into great detail about this, I am happy to, but I don't think anyone will read it.

a reply to: bloodymarvelous

But, see, the AEs didn't have the kind of number system we do.
Things like one 40 millionth make no sense without a system like we use.

Have you ever tried to find out what Egyptians knew about fractions, and how they represented them?

Harte

originally posted by: bloodymarvelous
We've been over this. The metre is not arbitrary. It's very close to being one 40 millionth the circumference of the Earth. Taken North/South the distance is 39,031 kilometers and taken at the equator it is 40,070 kilometers

One 40 millionth is an arbitrary fraction. Why not use one 20 millionth?

Ok, it was an arbitrary decision. But the number 40 million is convenient, because in our modern units for time, it happens to take 4 seconds for the Earth to rotate one arc minute on its axis.



The Mesopotamians of that era used the 360 degree system, and an arc minute had meaning for them. Whether the Egyptian scientific elite were in contact with Mesopotamian scientists or not is, of course, up for debate. But it stands to reason that if two societies are co-advancing at the same time of history, they're probably communicating with each other, at least a little. (Perhaps spying on each other, and stealing the secrets they get.)


So "one second of time" might not mean anything to them, but one arc minute of rotation would. (Which happens to take 4 seconds.)


Measured in units of universal geological time, where time is the Earth's rotation, and distance is the Earth's size, their speed of light constant would then match ours.

Except instead of being 299,792,458 meters per seconds, the number is 29.9792458 Earths per arc minute of Earth rotation.

Why wouldn't a number of Earth's per arc minute of rotation be significant to them?

The short version is that the Egyptians lived on the same Earth as we do now.

originally posted by: bloodymarvelous

The Mesopotamians of that era used the 360 degree system, and an arc minute had meaning for them.

Where is your evidence for that statement?
The use of a sexagesimal number system does not imply knowledge of Earth's rotation, nor of a degree system for angle measure nor of the subdivisions of a degree.

Harte

originally posted by: Harte

originally posted by: bloodymarvelous

The Mesopotamians of that era used the 360 degree system, and an arc minute had meaning for them.

Where is your evidence for that statement?
The use of a sexagesimal number system does not imply knowledge of Earth's rotation, nor of a degree system for angle measure nor of the subdivisions of a degree.

Harte

Yes.... it really pretty much does. You could only support a hypothesis that one would be existent without the other if you are speaking from a position of ignorance about how trigonometry works (and how it would work even if aliens from another galaxy were doing it.) It is possible, but not plausible.

The most useful angles for making ideal measurements are at 30,45,60, and 90 degrees. So you need a notation that is evenly divisible by 12, 8, 6, and 4 If they used a 60 degree circle, they lose the 8.

And the ENTIRE point of the 60 count system was to make it easy to use fractions. 60 was chosen because it is evenly divisible by more numbers than any other number between 1 and 100. It is kind of an "anti-prime" in a sense, which is useful if you want to construct a numbering system and use as few decimals/fractions as possible.

Nobody wants to have to mess with 7.5 degree angles, if it can be avoided. Not when you're doing your calculations on an abacus.

originally posted by: bloodymarvelous

originally posted by: Harte

originally posted by: bloodymarvelous

The Mesopotamians of that era used the 360 degree system, and an arc minute had meaning for them.

Where is your evidence for that statement?
The use of a sexagesimal number system does not imply knowledge of Earth's rotation, nor of a degree system for angle measure nor of the subdivisions of a degree.

Harte

Yes.... it really pretty much does. You could only support a hypothesis that one would be existent without the other if you are speaking from a position of ignorance about how trigonometry works (and how it would work even if aliens from another galaxy were doing it.) It is possible, but not plausible.

The most useful angles for making ideal measurements are at 30,45,60, and 90 degrees. So you need a notation that is evenly divisible by 12, 8, 6, and 4 If they used a 60 degree circle, they lose the 8.

And the ENTIRE point of the 60 count system was to make it easy to use fractions. 60 was chosen because it is evenly divisible by more numbers than any other number between 1 and 100. It is kind of an "anti-prime" in a sense, which is useful if you want to construct a numbering system and use as few decimals/fractions as possible.

Nobody wants to have to mess with 7.5 degree angles, if it can be avoided. Not when you're doing your calculations on an abacus.

I teach trigonometry. No, such a number system doesn't imply any knowledge about the rotation of the Earth.
Besides that, wouldn't you need to show that they knew the Earth was rotating before you could support such a claim?
Their own writings and mythology indicate they knew nothing at all about the shape, or motion, of the Earth.

Harte

a reply to: Vasa Croe

Not sure if you have looked into this info that was known in ancient times but I found this guys set of vids building the machines very fascinating . This is his latest but watching the whole series is well worth it .

The three queen pyramids appear to be deliberately aligned along the same latitude.
The Earths flattening at the poles and bulging at the Equator may have been predicted.

Check out the Kryptos puzzle at the old CIA building for a fuller disclosure.

So I come here long ago build the pyramids.
I want to show off my mental prowess in my construct, except I know none of the idiots in existence can understand the clues I want to encode into them so I can really show off how far advanced I am then your simple civilization. So after this realization I decide to quickly hop into the future to study up on the basic science of the earliest time line to begin to pick up on my clues...
Of course I knew meters were in use so I implemented the unit into a clue...
Go figure

a reply to: 5StarOracle

They successfully predicted that the measurement of the quadrant along the meridian, measurement by Delambre and Méchain would be one of the first disclosures (the Mona Lisa). I think later art such as the Kryptos puzzle commissioned by the US CIA would be considered more self evident. The original instructions for the Kryptos puzzle suggested that the age of the internet where enormous amounts of information can be correlated in a short period of time might make a more thorough solution much easier.

a reply to: Vasa Croe

That is kilometers per second not miles miles per second is 186272 miles per sec: