A correction, and an apology to Ray and to the group - talk.origins

Message from discussion A correction, and an apology to Ray and to the group

Jim Willemin

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More options Feb 24 2008, 2:51 pm

Newsgroups: talk.origins

From: Jim Willemin <jim***willemin@hot***mail.com>

Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2008 13:51:26 -0600

Local: Sun, Feb 24 2008 2:51 pm

Subject: A correction, and an apology to Ray and to the group

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In a previous thread, I calculated the date at which the star Thuban
would be three and a half degrees from the celesital pole, and arrived
at dates of 2581 BCE and 3089 BCE ( MessageID
<Xns99575C1BEDB3Fjimwillemingmail...@194.177.96.78>). I made an error
in this calculation. I forgot that the pole precesses along a small
circle, not a great circle, and that degrees in a small circle do not
subtend the same length of arc as degrees on a great circle (the
correction required is to multiply by the sine of the angular radius of
the small circle, in this case 23.5 degrees; the correction factor is
0.399). That is, when the pole had precessed three and a half degrees
along its small-circle path, the actual angular distance between the
pole and Thuban was (0.399 x 3.5), or 1.4 degrees. Making this
correction in my calculations, I discovered that the pole would need to
precess roughly 8.8 (small circle) degrees along its path for Thuban to
lie 3.5 (great circle) degrees from the pole. Taking the nearest
approach of Thuban to the pole as 2831 BCE, and a period of precession
of 25,800 years gives 629 years for the necessary precession to occur,
or dates of 3640 BCE and 2202 BCE for alignment of Thuban with the
descending passage of Khufu's pyramid. The latter date is only 60 years
from Ray's invulnerable date of 2141 BCE for the alignment.

Thus, I apologize to Ray, for insisting on an erroneous date (2581), and
to the group for providing flawed results. However, in pursuing
curiosity about the other pyramids in the Giza complex, I ran across an
interesting site that offers a geometric construction for the interior
arrangements of all three Giza pyramids
(http://www.atara.net/pyramids/index.html), which, although not
published per se, provides a possible and plausible alternative to
stellar alignments for the interior design of the monuments.

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