Noah's Ark volume calculation

I have two questions for creationists out there with regards to the size of the Ark (specifically volume).The constants according to my understanding of The Bible (correct me if I'm wrong) are:a) It has to be big enough to house two (male and female) of each of every single species that has ever existed on Earth, including the dinosaurs, and some error margin for any species we haven't actually discovered yet, or has become extinct since.<-- life.| correction: it now *does* include dinosaurs, according to Did Noah take dinosaurs on the Ark? (Part 1) (The Great Dinosaur Mystery and the Bible) - ChristianAnswers.Netb) It must also contain enough food and water to last 40 days (40 days is right I think). <-- year.c) It must contain some form of separation between the animals, presumably so they wouldn't eat each other (i.e fences, cabins, etc).<-- other.So my questions are:a) Has anyone actually done this calculation? If not - can anyone tell me (approximately) how many different types of species have ever existed (that we know of) and their approximate size (in cubic centimeters). I'm going for an approximate here - perhaps dividing the different species into different volume brackets(e.g. < 1 cubic meter, 1 to 10 cubic meters, >10 cubic meters).andb) Does it fit with the measurements specified in The Bible?****Results:Approximate size of the Ark is:1,518,000 cu.ft.
Bible Study - You Have Questions. The Bible Has Answers!1,396,000 cu.ft.
Noah's Ark Search - Mount Ararat1,518,000 cubic feet1,400,000 cu ftIf we take an average (mean) we have:
1,458,000 cu ft.http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=2008030907491...How Many Animal Species Are There?How Many Types of Dinosaurs Are Known? http://faculty.plattsburgh.edu/thomas.wolosz/howmanysp.htmHow many dinosaur species were there? - AnswersApproximate number of animals (not including animals that may have become extinct since the flood, not including insects) 14,500 x 2 (one of each gender) = 29,000Approximate average volume of food required for each animal for a whole year:Based on the average size of an animal being the size of a sheep and it eating 1 bail (8ft cu) per week. 400 cu ft.CALCULATION:29,000 animals x 400 cu ft. of food = 11,600,000 cu ft ^ NOTE: This calculation is already larger than the approximate dimensions of the Ark, but let's press on with the calculation regardless...VOLUME ON ARK FOR EACH ANIMAL, WITHOUT FOOD:1,458,000 / 29,000 = 50 cu ft = 3.6ft x 3.6ft x 3.6ftVOLUME FOR EACH ANIMAL, WITH FOOD: Does not fit.Edited by killinghurts, : Spelling errorEdited by killinghurts, : No reason given.Edited by killinghurts, : Updating WRT thread contents.Edited by killinghurts, : Updating WRT thread.Edited by killinghurts, : Updating WRT thread.Edited by killinghurts, : Updating WRT threadEdited by killinghurts, : No reason given.Edited by killinghurts, : No reason given.Edited by killinghurts, : No reason given.Edited by killinghurts, : No reason given.Edited by killinghurts, : Added real life comparisonEdited by killinghurts, : No reason given.Edited by killinghurts, : Adjusting number of animals by 2 (one of each gender)

So far I've learned the approximate size of the arc is:1,518,000 cu.ft.
Bible Study - You Have Questions. The Bible Has Answers!1,396,000 cu.ft.
Noah's Ark Search - Mount Ararat1,518,000 cubic feet1,400,000 cu ftIf we take an average (mean) we have 1,458,000 cu ft.I have not had an answer, though, as to how many animals were on the ark.Can someone please give me a formula to calculate how many animals were on the ark, and the apporximate size of "each kind" or species, or whatever you want to call it.Thanks!

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This sort of matches up with the figures I found from the "Life history on Earth" model developed by the the Niehls Bohr Institute's Center for Models of Life which stated that out of about 36,000 genera of life that have existed, 31,363 are extinct and 4637 genera still exist.

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Thanks DevilsAdvocate - I think one fundamental principle (and I'd like to be corrected by a creationist if I'm wrong) that you're missing is that *every* one of those extinct species (since the flood) would need to have a spot on the Ark, not just the one's that exist today. Remember living organisms, according to creationism, do not have a common ancestor, so they must have existed on the Ark and died later.So it would be 4637 + all kinds that have become extinct since.Is that a reasonable assumption?Edited by killinghurts, : Spelling.

So does 6300+ animals sound right, or is it more like 4637?Remember it must include all animals that have become extinct, since the flood.Once we have the number of animals we can then determine how much food, and therefore the volume of food required to keep that many animals alive for an entire year.I'd prefer to have an answer from somewhere in the bible, if possible!Thanks!

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There is a caculator Here that will caculate the size of the ark for you.

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Using Noah's cubits rounded down to even feet, the ark would be 507 feet long 84 feet wide and 50 feet high.

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Each floor would have 42,588 sq. ft.

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An American football field has 48,000 sq. ft.

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The Ark had a lower floor, a second floor and a third floor below the main deck the door was on.

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If each of this had 9 ft. ceilings with 1 ft. added for the floor you would still have a 20 ft. ceiling on the main deck which you could build a lot of rooms in.

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You have 170,352 sq. ft. of floor space or the equivlant of over 3 1/2 football fields. Plus what you would gain when you built the rooms on the main deck.

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God Bless,

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Hello ICANT, can I (or should I say CANI lol) please have this calculation in volume (i.e cubic feet) so I can add it to the list.Thanks!

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The Bible does not tell you how many animals or what size they were.

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But that really is no real problem as far as God is concerned.

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He has already created these animals at least two times. Once in the beginning, and then again in Genesis 1:2 - Genesis 2:3.

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What folks that don't believe in God don't understand about those of us who believe Genesis 1:1 is that if God can do that then everything else is childs play.

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Hi ICANT, I am making the assumption that the animals that existed on the Arc ark were *exactly* the same type of animals that we see today, or have seen extinct since the flood.I make this assumption because:Evolution (or change over time) does not occur in animals according to creationism - therefore they cannot progressively get bigger over the generations.Is that a reasonable assumption?

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Length times width times height equals cubit ft.

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507 x 84 x 50 = 2,129,400 cubic feet.

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God Bless,

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Hi ICANT, this is about one and a half times the average calculation specified by the other people in this thread - can you explain the difference?Edited by killinghurts, : grammar

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The creationist you are talking about was not raised on a farm.

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But according to the Bible there would have to have been a lot of fowl, cattle, and creeping things on the ark. Those are the ones mentioned. That does not say everything.

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The ones God wanted on the ark came to the ark and Noah allowed them to go into the ark. Whatever showed up.

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You say, what about the rest?

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No details are given.

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God Bless,

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Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the purpose of the flood to kill off everything *except* the entities aboard the Ark?It would stand to reason then, that *every* non-marine entity we see today (or has been seen since) *must* have been on the Ark. What other reasonable explanation is there?

It's strange, I would have thought that understanding the measurements of the Ark would be the *first* thing that a budding Christian would want to figure out...How did Noah get all the animals we see today on his Ark?The first time I heard the story of the flood and Noah, it was the very *first* thing that came to mind.Why has it taken us 6 pages of thread to answer my very *simple* question?Seems to me like there is no answer.

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We have no way of knowing how many animals were on the ark.

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Yes we do, as I said earlier, it stands to reason that if there was a flood, all non-marine animals that exist today and have existed since *must* have been on the boat.Your explanation of "well God can do anything so he may have created them later" is pure speculation. If that were the case I could take the same tangent even further and say that God created everything one hour ago, seeded all these memories in your head, placed dinosaur bones ranging from oldest to newest in corresponding stratum all over the world (just to confuse everyone), made all evidence of the flood disappear and, voila, here we all are. But that would be unreasonable now wouldn't it...

So do we have a number on the animals yet?I'm going to say 6300 from the comments on this thread.Does any creationist have a problem with this?going once, going twice...

ok so the next calculation I want is the amount of food it would take to feed an average animal for a year.Let's say a sheep is the average size of an animal and that it could survive on 1 bail of hay per week (yeah that's pushing it isn't it).One (small) bail of hay is approximately 2ft x 2ft x 2ft = 8ft352 weeks in a year -> 8 x 52 = 416 cu ft of food, per animal.Does anyone have a problem with this calculation?Edited by killinghurts, : corrected units

Just found an interesting one:Bible Study - You Have Questions. The Bible Has Answers!

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Based on railroad industry figures a railroad stockcar can hold 240 sheep and each stock car has a capacity of 2670 ft3. Therefore each sheep requires 11.125 ft3. Most authorities on rabbit husbandry give the dimensions for a rabbit hutch as 3.0 ft3per animal. If the average animal size is indeed the size of a small rabbit the calculations shown below could be reduced by a factor of three.

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The following calculations show the amount of the ark space that would be required to carry the stated number of animals, based on the average size of a sheep.

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40,000 animals x 11.125 ft3 = 445,000 ft3 OR 445,000 ft 3 / 1,518,750 ft3 100 = 29% of the Ark's capacity

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35,000 animals x 11.125 ft3 = 389,375 ft3 OR 389,375 ft3 / 1,518,750 ft3 100 = 25% of the Ark's capacity

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16,000 animals x 11.125 ft3 = 178,000 ft3 OR
(kind = genus taxon) 178,000 ft3 / 1,518,750 ft3 100 = 11.7% of the Ark's capacity

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2,000 animals x 11.125 ft3 = 22,250 ft3 OR
(kind = family taxon) 22,250 ft3 / 1,518,750 ft3 100 = 1.4% of the Ark's capacity

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Summary

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It is obvious that when all the facts of the Genesis account of the flood are examined that there is no reason to doubt that the ark could easily have carried its intended cargo. The biblical account is not a revision of a Babylonia myth. All the scientific evidence shows that the ark could easily have contained all of the animals that were used to repopulate the earth after the flood

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What's wrong with calculation above?This is interesting, and to the layman, it looks like it's completely feasible...But if you reverse the formula (i.e basic algebra) you get, for the first approximation:1,518,750 ft3 / 40,000 animals = 37.5 ft3 per animal = 3ft x 3ft x 3ft per animal (not including food).Either my calculation is wrong or there's something very deceiving going on in the above quote - can anyone pick it?*getting confused here*Edited by killinghurts, : lengthen quote to include approximationsEdited by killinghurts, : added unitsEdited by killinghurts, : added 'not including food'Edited by killinghurts, : Updated quote to include '/' (otherwise it was confusing)

Hi NosyNed, I agree that your reasoning is sound, but currently I'm trying to figure out where the calculation differs...The logic I am putting forward in my calculation is:I have x amount of space, and y number of animals, therefore the amount of space per animal is x/y.The logic biblestudy.com puts forward is:I have x number of animals each taking up y amount of space, therefore the total amount of space required is x * y.And when we do the calculation using real numbers, they are different.I;m wondering, looking at it from a purely mathematical perspective, which approach is correct?

Here's another one.This time we seem to have 50,000 animals.Could Noah's Ark really hold all the animals that were supposed to be preserved from Flood? - ChristianAnswers.NetI'm really interested to know which approach at calculating size requirements is correct, and why.