On Fri, May 11, 2007 at 23:02:11 -0400, Roberto C. Sánchez wrote: > On Sat, May 12, 2007 at 04:01:39AM +0200, Florian Kulzer wrote:
[...] > Actually, sort of. The issue was that someone pointed out that the > Bible "redefined" pi to be 3. My point was that if people want to > criticize the Bible for not being scientific enough, they need to also > evaluate the context in a scientific light. If we are speaking in a > scientific context, then the numbers thirty and ten, without any further > evidence to the contrary, need to be assumed to be only significant to > one digit. This is what I was (and I imagine many students were) > taught. That is, you cannot assume greater precision for your > measurements than your "instruments" allow. In this case, have words > recorded on paper. The point is we don't know. If it is that important for you to argue for the technical correctness of 1king7:23 then you can even concede two significant digits in "ten" and apply the usual error propagation to get from a diameter of 10±0.5 to a circumference of 31.4±1.6, which is better written as 31±2. (I hope the plus/minus signs are reproduced correctly). This range obviously includes "thirty". Whether that is "good enough" if one assumes that the bible is literally the word of the all-powerful and all-knowing creator of the universe is probably just as much a matter of faith as is believing in this creator in the first place. Therefore I will shut up about this now. -- Regards, | http://users.icfo.es/Florian.Kulzer Florian |
