Where did the Egyptians come from ?

Well that's one way to settle an argument. Ignore evidence. Ignore logic. Ignore analysis of comparable examples. Just refer to some biblical quotes!If it can't be relied on to provide an accurate value of pi, why should it be trusted as reliable on any issue?

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Originally posted by blitz77:
So you expect the bible to have pi to whatever number of digits? Anyway, we ourselves use just 1 letter- pi! Whatever happened to rounding off anyway-scientists use rounding off a lot.

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This isn't one which the vast majority of people will lose any sleep over , except perpaps the biblical literalists who seem to work overtime tying themselves in knots trying to reconcile biblical inerrancy and biblical literalism"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."
1 Kings 7:23 KJVIncidentally, I'm not sure why biblical literalists seem to prefer the King James version. Is it easier to determine the correct meaning of a version written in a language 400 years old?So, using blitz77's logic, does the story mean than the diameter was inerrantly 10 cubits and the circumference was rounded off to 30 cubits? Wouldn't 31 be a better rounding off? Or, was the circumference inerrantly 30 cubits and the diameter rounded up to 10 cubits? Or should we read the literal meaning of the verse that the circumference was 30 cubits and the diameter 10 cubits and therefore pi has to be wrong because the bible says so!Using blitz's same rationalisation, was it 6 days of creation or maybe 5 and a bit, or did the divinity slip in some overtime on the sixth evening? Did it rain for 40 days and 40 nights, or was it approximately 5 weeks with some light showers preceding it? Was it inerrantly 7 pairs of clean animals or approximately?"22 Everything on dry land that had the breath of life in its nostrils died." Genesis 6 KJVOr approximately everything died? Maybe a few got through?I'll leave blitz to give us the rounded off inerrent answers.

Ah TB, always willing to accept the least likely possibility because it agrees with your religious dogma.Don't you mean internal circumference and external diameter to achieve a ratio of 3? I'm sure even the ancient hebrews, ignorant of geometry, would see the inconsistency of taking one internal measurement and one external measurement.But, whilst happy to believe in extraordinary variation in the speed of light over about 10,000 years and a spike in the rate of radioactive decay about 4,500 years ago, why draw the line at a change in the value of pi? Is that stretching your belief too far?

I know it is rather irrelevant applying logic to the bible but let's try it for the exercise.Pi is a constant ratio, irrespective of the units of measurement or the numerical system used. The numerical value will vary with the numerical system involved but it will be eqivalent in any numerical system.So, it doesn't matter whether the diameter and circumference are measured in inches, millimetres or cubits - you get the same ratio. You don't have to use the decimal numerical system.Now, given a circular shape of 10 metres diameter, what is the circumference? And you can round it of to the nearest metre. Did you get the biblically correct answer?

So halycyonwaters, the bible is not precisely accurate? It works within a margin of error? Which bits of the bible are precise and to be read literally and which bits are only approximations? Which bits are allegorical? the creation week? Noah's flood? Toewr of Babel? Moses and the burning bush? Bats as birds?