Pi=3?

Can someone provide me the Bible reference where it was calculated that pi=3?I think I should go ahead and add my frank opinion on using pi=3 argument against the Bible. Pi, for all practical purposes, is 3.14. Now, doing a simple percent accuracy calculation ((3 / 3.14)*100%) using the rules of rounding in science (as I was taught anyway) we get a 96% accuracy. To the best of my understanding, 96% accuracy is acceptable for most scientific measurements. Now I can see why we would have trouble with civil engineers calculating pi as three, but I don't understand why we hold it against the Bible.

Gene,Pi DOES equal 3, but only if you stipiulate it is to zero decimal places.Mark------------------
Occam's razor is not for shaving with.

From:
http://www.cecm.sfu.ca/projects/ISC/Pihistory.htmlBabylonians 2000? BCE 3.125 = 3 + 1/8
Egyptians 2000? BCE 3.16045
China 1200? BCE 3
Bible (1 Kings 7:23) 550? BCE 3
Archimedes 250? BCE 3.1418 (ave.)
Hon Han Shu 130 AD 3.1622 = sqrt(10) ?
Ptolemy 150 3.14166
Chung Hing 250? 3.16227 = sqrt(10)So book, chapter and verse would be 1 kings (7:23)...Didn`t some state senator somewhere down south try to get pi changed to 3 in his state a few years ago?Seems to me that if the babylonians got 3.125 in 2000 B.C a God inspired inerrant bible should do better than 3 in 550 B.C....

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[This message has been edited by joz, 02-15-2002]

Those are specifications for Solomon's temple (so it is in a historical rather than miraculous context), and the value of pi is not stated specifically, but calculated (by modern observers) from the measurements of a big brass tub.It seems fairly apparent to me that we have a measurement error of the tub which is probably neither perfectly round nor perfectly 30 cubits in the first place. (Can you imagine Solomon's craftsmen when they were told that the tub was to have a perimeter of exactly 30 cubits in length and ten wide?)

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Originally posted by gene90:
Those are specifications for Solomon's temple (so it is in a historical rather than miraculous context), and the value of pi is not stated specifically, but calculated (by modern observers) from the measurements of a big brass tub.)

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It reads:
"[23] And he made a molten sea, ten cubits from the one brim to the other: it was round all about, and his height was five cubits: and a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about."I`d disagree with you there Gene if they are specifications then the round (circular) tub was designed to have a diameter of 10 units length and a circumfrence of 30 units length. Thus not a measurement error but a geometric error on the part of the tubs designer....As the value of pi is circumference over diameter of a circle and the designer of the tub stipulated a circumference precisely 3 times the diameter it is a fair bet he thought that pi was equal to 3....

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[This message has been edited by joz, 02-15-2002]

[QUOTE][b]As the value of pi is circumference over diameter of a circle and the designer of the tub stipulated a circumference precisely 3 times the diameter it is a fair bet he thought that pi was equal to 3....[/QUOTE][/b]And that's a double-whammy because it implies that the tub was never built, or else they wouldn't call it "round".But it wasn't a specification, as in an order for the craftsmen to build, it was simply the measurements of the alleged tub.

However somewhere along the line a "round" object with a circumference 3 times the diameter crept into the creationists inerrant bible....

Yes, that can't be denied.

This explains it all without any mathematical jiggery-pokery or ingenious interpretations or such like fundamentalist squirmings: http://www.yfiles.com/pi.htmlFor my next trick, the Flying Pigs of the Gadarenes ...

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Originally posted by Mister Pamboli:
This explains it all without any mathematical jiggery-pokery or ingenious interpretations or such like fundamentalist squirmings:

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http://www.yfiles.com/pi.html

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For my next trick, the Flying Pigs of the Gadarenes ...

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Sorry but if as Herr Katz claims the hebrew "line" is really 5+6+100 how does the prescence of 3 digits adding to 111 imply that the author meant the ratio of 111 over 106?(*added by edit* hey Mr P that was sarcasm wasn`t it?)

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[This message has been edited by joz, 02-17-2002]

Joz wrote: hey Mr P that was sarcasm wasn`t it?You've been in the States too long Joz. I know the feeling, I've only been here 8 months and already I feel my sarcastic and sardonic Scots humour slipping.

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Originally posted by Mister Pamboli:
Joz wrote: hey Mr P that was sarcasm wasn`t it?

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You've been in the States too long Joz. I know the feeling, I've only been here 8 months and already I feel my sarcastic and sardonic Scots humour slipping.

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Thank God for small mercies! My Mrs is from Edinburgh, & lived in London for 10 years plus, & has no such "problem" Mark------------------
Occam's razor is not for shaving with.

An interesting site I found about PI in the bible is here
By studying the Hebrew words used in

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1 Kings 7:23 He [Solomon] made the Sea of cast metal, circular in shape, measuring ten cubits from rim to rim [diameter = 10] and five cubits high. It took a line of thirty cubits to measure around it.

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By using the word used for circumference and what they actually used for circumference (which had an extra letter), comparing the ratio of the numbers of these words (remember, Hebrew attaches a number to each letter) they found that the error is only 0.00026% as compared to Babylon's error of 0.0165926% and Egypt's error of 0.0189012%.If nothing else, it is an extreme coincidence then isn't it?

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Originally posted by blitz77:
By using the word used for circumference and what they actually used for circumference (which had an extra letter), comparing the ratio of the numbers of these words (remember, Hebrew attaches a number to each letter) they found that the error is only 0.00026% as compared to Babylon's error of 0.0165926% and Egypt's error of 0.0189012%.

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If nothing else, it is an extreme coincidence then isn't it?

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The word used in Hebrew in Jeremiah according to the Biblia Hebraica Stuggartensia is Kaph Vau He. Strangely enough the word translates as 'yarn' (Hebrew Lexicon, http://www.onlinebible.com) among other things. That is, it refers to a string. Pretty reasonable word choice for describing a means to measure a circle.In other words, it ain't an extra letter, it is a different word.------------------
http://www.hells-handmaiden.com

Like I've said before the circumference could have been an inner measurement and the diametre an outer one.Or the measurements were simply to the nearest cubit!