AssemblyBoard
December 05, 2024, 06:45:31 am *
The board has been closed to new content. It is available as a searchable archive only. This information will remain available indefinitely.

I can be reached at brian@tucker.name

For a repository of informational articles and current information on The Assembly, see http://www.geftakysassembly.com
 
   Home   Search  
Pages: [1] 2 3 ... 6
  Print  
Author Topic: Danger: History and Science in the Bible  (Read 79937 times)
Will Jones
Guest


Email
« on: March 05, 2003, 08:31:31 am »

One of the people on another thread said, "Will, I like to think that life is a continual experience of discovery and evaluation and rediscovery."  I agree.  This life is a process and we never arrive fully at perfection or perfect knowledge.  We "peer through a glass darkly" at the moment as it says in 1 Corinthians.  Therefore, it can be dangerous for people who claim they have THE TRUTH because they could deny the truth by believing in a "truth" that is false.  How many times when we said we were right we were wrong and had to eat humble pie?  Many times I am sure.

"Faith" is a "firm persuasion," not a license to assert that you are right and you have the truth and everyone else is wrong simply because they do not agree with you.  We must take pains to be humble and admit that the light in us could be darkness; we should be constantly renewing our minds in light of Scripture AND scholarly findings.  Due to the fallibility of human nature, people can never claim that what they believe in is THE TRUTH, just what they believe is the truth for them at that moment.  The gospel is the truth.

Why do so many Christians have different ideas?  Everyone has a different notion of truth that is right for them or seems to fit in with their concept of theology based on their understanding of the Bible.  This fact that we all have different (though similar) ideas implies that we must decide or interpret truth for ourselves:  that was what Luther stood up to the Pope for—the right to interpret Scripture individually.  He believed that the Bible contained the Word of God, i.e., the gospel, the good news of salvation, BUT he (like many others until the Fundamentalist movement) did not believe that the Bible was inerrant and infallible and "is a completely reliable record of the history of the world" like many modern-day Christians were taught.  Luther (like Augustine and many others) studied the Bible and criticized parts of it and even pointed out discrepancies and stated that they did not believe that some of the stated authors were the real authors.  For example, many people like Luther have commented about the clear contradictions in the Resurrection Narratives if you attempt to compare the four gospels.  (Now, please, nobody tell me there is no contradictions until YOU have attempted to piece together a clear series of events from all four gospels yourself--I have painstakingly tried like Luther and so many others and it is simply not possible unless you omit contradictory passages.) How many women went to the tomb, where did they/she first see Jesus, and how many angels were in or out of the tomb and were the angels sitting, standing and what did they say exactly if you compare all gospel accounts?

If you accept the fact that the Bible contains the gospel, the good news and truth of God’s love for humankind, you have no problem because the Bible was written by men and inspired by God.  But if you assert the Bible is infallible and inerrant and a “completely reliable account” of history and science, nonbelievers can and have used these beliefs to discredit Christianity.  For example, the Fundamentalist notion of a perfect Bible and the Word of God was used against Christians in the famous court case over allowing evolution to be taught in American schools.  Genesis 1-3 was examined and was very easily proven to be contradictory because there are in fact two separate creation stories in Genesis (Gen. 1: 1-2:4 vs. Gen. 2: 4-24) as scholars have shown.  The first creation story was written in reaction to the Babylonian Creation story to show that only one God created the world rather than many.  If you don’t admit that there are two different creation stories in the Bible and the Bible was complied from various human writings, the Bible will have contradictions.  For example, were humans formed before or after the animals (Gen. 1:25-27 vs. Gen. 2:18f)? In Gen. 1:12 it stated the land had already produced vegetation on the third day, three days before the creation of man, but in Genesis 2:5 no vegetation had yet been grown!  If the Bible is innerrant in terms of Science and History, if God created light in Gen. 1:2f, why did He then create the sun, moon and stars on day four (Gen1: 14-19)?  The Creationists had argued in court that evolution/science was the work of humans and therefore flawed but the evolutionists argued the exact same thing and discredited the fact that the Bible is "a completely reliable record" of science and history!  

As the above example so clearly shows, you need to think twice before asserting the Bible as “a completely reliable record” of history and science.  To make the Bible out to be more than just a book written by men and inspired by God causes problems and discredits Christianity in the eyes of secular Biblical scholars and others who think they cannot believe in the truth of the gospel because most Christians hold to the inerrancy and infalibility of the Scriptures.  Such people who seriously study the Bible as literatures know that some “mistakes” in the Bible can be written off as copyist mistakes like 2 Sam. 21:19 vs.1 Chron. 20:5 or 2 Kings 8:25 vs. 2 Kings 9:29), and some can be explained away like who bought the Potters’ Field (Acts 1:18 vs. Matt 27:6-7) or if the Lord or Satan tempted David to number the people of Israel (2 Sam. 24:1 vs. I Chron 21:1).  But were the disciples supposed to take or not take staffs and sandals (Mark 6:8-9 vs. Matt:10-9-10)? How many fighting men were there really (2 Sam. 24: 9 vs. 1 Chron. 21:5)?  Despite its human foibles, however, it still contains the truth of the gospel for us today, but it is not a "perfectly reliable document" in terms of history and science.  I could give more examples but I will stop here.

THE POINT TO THIS POST IS:
We need to interpret the Bible ourselves for today and realize that humans wrote it at a particular place and time and within a culture that no longer exists.  In Genesis is says that the day Adam and Eve ate the fruit they would die.  We do not take that literally and INTERPRET that death as spiritual.  We no longer greet one another with a holy kiss even though Paul tells the saints to.  We no longer own slaves and the role of women has thankfully changed in society.  The Apostle Peter says we are to obey those in authority over us but in Acts he stood against the authorities.  The point to this paragraph is we must interpret the Bible ourselves and decide what God’s will is for us.  He has given us a brain and He wants us to use it so that life can be "a continual experience of discovery and evaluation and rediscovery."

Praise the Lord!
Logged
Will Jones
Guest


Email
« Reply #1 on: March 29, 2003, 04:05:19 pm »

On another thread, I am having quite the discussion with others so I thought that another view point might be justified.  This essay summarizes many of the things I have come to see in my own personal studies over the years:

Literalism, Infallibility and Inerrancy

taken from http://www.geocities.com/christianbiblestudy/Exegesis/inerrancy.htm

Reformed Confessions

After the canon of the Bible was authorized in the fourth century under Emperor Constantine, the church began to resolve disputes about the meaning of its scriptures by issuing authoritative statements on doctrine.  These statements became the creeds and dogma of the Church, which were used to condemn heretical teaching as well as to encourage proper Christian living.

During the Reformation Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Knox and other Protestant reformers rejected the authority of the Pope over the church and argued for the authority of scripture.  Beginning in the sixteenth century and continuing through the twentieth century Reformed confessions have affirmed the authority of scripture and established guidelines for interpreting the Bible.  These confessions all assert that the Bible is the word of God, but they differ in their understanding of that conviction....

Modern Arguments

Claims that the Bible is literally the infallible word of God were first voiced in the Reformation in response to the Roman Catholic Counter-Reformation and the rise of textual criticism of manuscripts.  The seventeenth century Swiss theologian Francis Turretin argued that the first handwritten scriptures were entirely inspired by God, and he and British scholar John Owen asserted that even the vowel points of the Hebrew words of the Bible were of divine origin.  This had not been the teaching of the Catholic church. Moreover, later historical research revealed that vowel points were in early biblical manuscripts but were added by medieval scribes.

The word "inerrant" was first used in English to describe the fixed location of stars in the sky in contrast with the planets, which were seen as wandering (errant).  A century later British theologians, who saw the universe as rational and orderly, taught that the truth of the Bible was as self-evident as the truths of nature known through Newtonian science.  In the newly formed United States of America Charles Hodge, a theologian at Princeton, also taught that God's nature and laws could be known through the Bible without interpretation.  Hodge argued that Calvinist theology supported the inerrancy of Bible, which was taken to mean that the Bible is free from error of fact in every way including science and history as well as ethics and doctrine.

The Civil War in the United States in the 1860s and changes in science after Charles Darwin published The Origin of Species in 1859 led many to challenge the idea that the Bible was literally the word of God and factually true in every respect.  Arguments about evolution and biblical authority for slavery divided churches and led to a revised view of inerrancy among some factions that claimed only the original manuscripts of the Bible to be without error.  Until the late 1920s this position dominated teaching at Princeton Seminary and also the doctrine of the Presbyterian church.

World War I and the Great Depression, as well as advances in scientific research and understanding,  shattered the idea of an orderly world progressing toward the realization of our highest ideals.  Theologians such as Karl Barth and Emil Brunner understood the teachings of John Calvin to assert that the Bible is not inerrant, but rather is God's instrument of self-revelation in the world.  They taught that the Bible does not contain propositions about truth, but instead reveals God's saving grace in Jesus Christ and his continuing presence through the Holy Spirit in the life of the church.

In the 1960s and 1970s the civil rights struggle, the war in Vietnam, advocacy for women's rights, and conflict over homosexuality as well as growing support within American Protestant churches for the infallibility of the Bible led some theologians to assert that the Bible is a very human book with a divine message.  Dutch theologian G. C. Berkouwer argued that 2 Tim. 3:16-17, which states "all scripture is inspired by God and profitable . . . for training in righteousness," is about inspiring love and acts of justice rather than verifying the divine origin of the Bible.  

He and other theologians looked to John Calvin for teachings that emphasize the practical use of scripture to encourage reverence and right living.  They noted that the deviance between scientific understanding and scriptural descriptions of creation did not undermine the authority of the Bible for Calvin, who understood that scripture was shaped by its historical and cultural circumstances.  Calvin emphasized the self-revelation of God in Jesus Christ, the divine will expressed in the limited form of human flesh.  For many Christians today this means reading scripture with awareness of its historical and literary composition even as we remain open to the Holy Spirit to reveal the meaning of the Bible for our faithful and living witness to God's grace.

 

Conclusion

There is nothing in the Bible about scripture being literally true, or infallible or inerrant. These are ideas that have been imposed on the Bible by Christians in order to defend certain interpretations of it. To argue that the Bible is literally true, word for word, and not in some places figuratively true or allegorically true, is to interpret the Bible. To assert that the Bible is the infallible word of God, as though it is fixed in time and does not require any translation or interpretation, is to defend an interpretation of the Bible that flies in the face of church history.

Christians continue to defend the inerrancy and the infallibility of scripture, but this is an interpretation that has little evidence to sustain it and is by no means a plain reading of the text.  Any reader of the Bible can find factual inconsistencies.  For instance, the first three gospels report that Jesus was crucified the day after Passover, but the gospel of John has Jesus crucified on Passover.  Similarly, the first three gospels report that Jesus cleansed the temple of the money changers a few days before he was arrested and put on trial, whereas in the gospel of John this story is placed at the beginning of the ministry of Jesus.  

There are also many examples of teachings in the New Testament that are inconsistent.  In Matthew 5:17-20 Jesus teaches that he has not come to abolish Jewish law, and in Romans 10:4 Paul teaches that Christ came to abolish Jewish law. Which of these contradictory teachings is inerrant? The church has come to agree with Paul and thus has chosen to ignore the literal meaning of the teaching about Jewish law in the gospel of Matthew. The church has long dealt with contradictions in the Bible by interpreting some passages literally and other passages as figurative or spiritual in meaning.  For instance, teachings in the gospel of Matthew and elsewhere in the New Testament about keeping Jewish law are interpreted to mean keeping the spirit of the law rather than the letter of the law.  This interpretation is based on a reading of the entire New Testament, which includes Paul's letters and other gospel texts that present Jesus violating the law for the sake of a greater good.

We cannot read and understand Christian scripture without interpreting it.  Therefore, it is misleading to claim that the Bible is the literal word of God, or the infallible word of God, or the inerrant word of God. God did not dictate the Bible. Human beings wrote the books of the Bible in their own languages, using words that had meanings in their own time and place. Centuries later, when the Bible was translated into English from manuscripts that were not original, scholars interpreted the meaning of its ancient languages so that you and I might understand passages written in Hebrew for Israelites and in Greek for Christians.

Christians trust in the Bible as the word of God, but the church throughout history has had the responsibility of discerning what that word is. The Scots Confession affirmed in 1560 that "we dare not receive or admit any interpretation which is contrary to any principal point of our faith, or to any other plain text of Scripture, or to the rule of love." We should be guided by these words and by the history of biblical interpretation that is central to the Reformed tradition of Christian faith.
Logged
vernecarty
Guest
« Reply #2 on: September 20, 2003, 02:04:53 am »

There are 39 books which comprise the "Old Testament" portion of the Bible. They can loosely be divided into a middle experiential five:
JOB, PSALMS, PROVERBS,SONGS OF SOLOMON,ECCLESIASTES.
These central ("heart") five are bracketed by two historical/prophetical groups of Seventeen books each.
The Seventeen are further sub-divided into two groups of Twelve and Five books respectively.
The Twelve books are divided into sub-groups of Nine and Three books respectively.

The first Seventeen are of course Genesis through Esther.
This group divides into Five : Genesis to Deuteronomy(Books of Moses or the Pentateuch)

And Twelve: Joshua to Esther (Historical)

The group of Twelve Joshua to Esther divides into:
Nine: Joshua to 2 Chronicles
Three: Ezra to Esther

The first Nine of this group of Twelve describes Israel's pre-exile history.
The last Three of this group of Twelve describe Israel's  post-exile history.

The second group of Seventeen are Isaiah through Malachi.
This group also divides into sub-groups of Five and Twelve.
Five : Isaiah through Daniel. The Major prophets
Twelve: Hosea through Malachi. The Minor prophets.

Note the strategic location of lamentations in dividing the four great pre-exile and post exile prophets.

The group of Twelve Hosea to Malachi divides into:
Nine: Hosea to Zepheniah
Three: Haggai to Malachi

Again of course the first Nine prophetical books speak of Isarael's pre-exile history and the last Three speak of Israel's post -exile history.

Interesting symmetry is it not? Man's ingenuity? or Divine superintendancy? You decide.  Wink
« Last Edit: September 20, 2003, 02:15:51 am by vernecarty » Logged
M2
Guest
« Reply #3 on: September 20, 2003, 04:22:19 am »

Honey Comb

The honey comb is a marvel of engineering. Though it looks like simple six sided tubes stacked together, the back is not a flat plate like one might expect. It is a most interesting shape. Each tube is actually a truncated regular rhombic dodecahedron, which being interpreted is a cut twelve sided thing where each side is roughly diamond shaped and all the sides are the same. Of all the known regular polyhedra (flat sided things) there is none that can enclose as much volume per surface area (hold as much with as little material). In other words, bees can store more honey with less wax this way that any other way. God is great!

Claude
Logged
sfortescue
Guest


Email
« Reply #4 on: September 20, 2003, 03:53:57 pm »

The following numbers are the area cubed divided by the volume squared of some shapes:

374.123 --- tetrahedron
216.000 --- cube
187.061 --- octahedron
152.735 --- rhombic dodecahedron --- face-centered cubic lattice
150.123 --- truncated octahedron --- body-centered cubic lattice
149.858 --- dodecahedron
136.459 --- icosahedron
113.097 --- sphere

Of the two lattice polyhedra listed, the truncated octahedron seems to be a little better than the rhombic dodecahedron.  Also listed are the five regular polyhedra and the sphere.

The rhombic dodecahedron is semi-regular since the faces are all the same.  The truncated octahedron is uniform since the vertices are all the same.  If the faces are all the same and the vertices are all the same, then the polyhedron is regular.

Soap bubbles are much more strictly governed by the principle of minimizing surface area than the honeycomb.  A rule of differential geometry says that minimal surfaces must meet at 120 degree angles.  If you look carefully at soap bubbles you can see that their surfaces all meet at 120 degree angles.  The truncated octahedron must not be optimal since the angles between its faces are not 120 degrees.  The optimum is probably something irregular.  One way to find out would be to try to create a bunch of soap bubbles of exactly identical volume, and see how they arrange themselves.

Of course with the bees, as with most practical real world engineering problems, there are many other considerations besides just surface area versus volume.
Logged
M2
Guest
« Reply #5 on: September 20, 2003, 07:17:06 pm »

> The following numbers are the area cubed divided by the volume
> square of some shapes:

Why do you cube the area and square the volume? Is it to have the same units?

> 374.123 --- tetrahedron
> 216.000 --- cube
> 187.061 --- octahedron
> 152.735 --- rhombic dodecahedron --- face-centered cubic lattice
> 150.123 --- truncated octahedron --- body-centered cubic lattice
> 149.858 --- dodecahedron
> 136.459 --- icosahedron
> 113.097 --- sphere

The sphere wins every time.

> The rhombic dodecahedron is semi-regular since the faces are all the
> same.  The truncated octahedron is uniform since the vertices are
> all the same.  If the faces are all the same and the vertices are
> all the same, then the polyhedron is regular.

I sit corrected: The Rhombic dodecahedron is semi-regular.

> Soap bubbles are much more strictly governed by the principle of
> minimizing surface area than the honeycomb.  A rule of differential
> geometry says that minimal surfaces must meet at 120 degree angles.
> If you look carefully at soap bubbles you can see that their
> surfaces all meet at 120 degree angles.  The truncated octahedron
> must not be optimal since the angles between its faces are not 120
> degrees.  The optimum is probably something irregular.  One way to
> find out would be to try to create a bunch of soap bubbles of
> exactly identical volume, and see how they arrange themselves.

Soap bubbles are amazing. The physical nature of the bubbles (surface
tensions, etc.) causes them to rearrange themselves into a minimal
arrangement.

> Of course with the bees, as with most practical real world
> engineering problems, there are many other considerations besides
> just surface area versus volume.

Yes, the most significant consideration is that they must stack (two
levels deep) without empty space. Square and hexagonal (flat ended)
tubes stack well but are inefficient.

On a related topic (God as engineer and mathematician), what do you
think of daisies, the two sets of spirals (clock-wise and counter
clock-wise), and the numbers we find? Specifically, when we count the
number of spirals in one direction and the number in the other
direction, we discover that they are one after the other in the
Fibonacci series. The numbers that Fibonacci discovered (God invented
them) lead us to architecture and beauty: as one goes up the series,
the ratio of consecutive numbers approach the golden ratio. This of
course leads us to consider the concept of beauty: our appreciation
of the beauty God created in the universe demonstrates that we are
indeed created in His image.

Claude Marinier
Logged
Arthur
Guest
« Reply #6 on: September 21, 2003, 04:49:11 am »

Soap bubbles are much more strictly governed by the principle of minimizing surface area than the honeycomb.  

Soap bubbles...and planets.  I've heard some speculate that the holy city, the heavenly Jerusalem, will be spherical because that is the epitome of perfection.  (Ever seen the movie Sphere with Dustin Hoffman, Samuel Jackson and Sharon Stone?  -- If not, don't.  It's not very good).  But then again, I don't think the spiritual realm operates according to this one's physical laws.



« Last Edit: September 21, 2003, 12:23:30 pm by Arthur » Logged
vernecarty
Guest
« Reply #7 on: September 21, 2003, 08:35:04 am »

It's not very good).  But then again, I don't think the spiritual realm operates according to this one's physical laws.

One could make a fairly cogent argument that the workings of things physical, were intended to teach us something of the nature and reality of things spiritual...
 eg. Christ's comment "Look at the sparrows..."

For the invisible things of Him, from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things which are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse
Romans 1:20

Through faith we understand that the worlds were famed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear
Hebrews 11:3


There was a time in which I would experience great puzzlement by the psuedo-intellectual dialectic of some claiming that the Bible is the Word of God, but also maintaining that it was unreliable, particularly in matters of history and science. This poses a most serious problem if you accept the a priori claims of the above verses.
I was profoundly at a loss to understand how anyone who claimed to have made a diligent study of the Holy Scriptures could come away from that endeavor with the conviction that God was either a liar or an ignoramus.
I am now more than ever convinced, that that which drives men to try and invalidate the teaching of the Word of God in one particular area, is opprobrium to its clear and unmistakable claims in another.
This, I fear, is the way of the depraved human heart...
Verne

For the Word of God is quick and powerful. and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit. and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and itents of the heart
Hebrews 4:12
« Last Edit: September 21, 2003, 10:15:49 pm by vernecarty » Logged
sfortescue
Guest


Email
« Reply #8 on: September 21, 2003, 10:56:32 am »

Why do you cube the area and square the volume? Is it to have the same units?
If you double the size, the area is quadrupled and the volume is multiplied by eight, so the larger size is more efficient.  One way to compare the merits of different shapes is to specify that the volume of each is equal to one, and to compare their areas.  Raising the area to a positive power doesn't change the comparison of which is bigger.  By dividing the cube of the area by the square of the volume, the result is unaffected by the size.

The fact that bigger is more efficient would seem to be the opposite of what the bees actually do.  The cells of the honeycomb are no bigger than necessary for the bees to fit into them.
The rhombic dodecahedron is semi-regular since the faces are all the same.  The truncated octahedron is uniform since the vertices are all the same.  If the faces are all the same and the vertices are all the same, then the polyhedron is regular.
Oops, I goofed!  I left out the requirement that the above mentioned faces and/or vertices must be related to each other by symmetry.  (These definitions are by Coxeter, who is famous for his books on polyhedra and geometry.  He died on March 31, 2003 at the age of 96.)
Soap bubbles are amazing.  The physical nature of the bubbles (surface tensions, etc.) causes them to rearrange themselves into a minimal arrangement.
Your use of the expression "A minimal arrangement" is correct.  The soap bubbles may not find "the" minimal arrangement, but merely an arrangement that is "locally minimal", meaning that any change that is small enough will result in a greater total surface area.
On a related topic (God as engineer and mathematician), what do you think of daisies, the two sets of spirals (clock-wise and counter clock-wise), and the numbers we find?  Specifically, when we count the number of spirals in one direction and the number in the other direction, we discover that they are one after the other in the Fibonacci series.  The numbers that Fibonacci discovered (God invented them) lead us to architecture and beauty: as one goes up the series, the ratio of consecutive numbers approach the golden ratio.  This of course leads us to consider the concept of beauty: our appreciation of the beauty God created in the universe demonstrates that we are indeed created in His image.

Claude Marinier
The Fibonacci series and the golden ratio come out as a special case from the Euclidean algorithm and the continued fraction series, which are in turn related to a tiling of the hyperbolic plane with triangles in which all three angles are zero.  The symmetry of this tiling pattern is called the modular group.

The Euclidean algorithm produces the continued fraction series which provides an efficient way to find successive rational approximations of irrational numbers.  The golden ratio produces continued fraction terms which are all equal to one.  Any solution of an integer coefficient quadratic equation produces a periodic continued fraction series.

The mathematical constant e produces the terms: (2,1,2,1,1,4,1,1,6,1,1,8, ...)

The helical pattern of leaves around the stems of some kinds of plants follows the golden ratio in a manner similar to the spiral arrangement of sunflower seeds.  A rational twist rate would result in leaves shadowing each other.  The golden ratio is optimal in a sense by being as far away as possible from rational numbers.  As a ratio gets closer to a rational number, terms in the continued fraction series get bigger.
Logged
editor
Guest
« Reply #9 on: September 22, 2003, 05:04:51 am »

You guys amaze me.

All of this stuff is way beyond me, but I love reading about it.

Brent
Logged
M2
Guest
« Reply #10 on: September 22, 2003, 07:51:00 am »

The helical pattern of leaves around the stems of some kinds of plants follows the golden ratio in a manner similar to the spiral arrangement of sunflower seeds.  A rational twist rate would result in leaves shadowing each other.  The golden ratio is optimal in a sense by being as far away as possible from rational numbers.  As a ratio gets closer to a rational number, terms in the continued fraction series get bigger.
More confirmation of God's genius. I do not quite get the sense of that last sentence.

Claude
Logged
sfortescue
Guest


Email
« Reply #11 on: September 22, 2003, 10:00:00 am »

Pi produces the terms: (3,7,15,1,292,1,1,1,2,1,3,1,14, ... )

This means that Pi = 3 + 1/( 7 + 1/( 15 + 1/( 1 + 1/( 292 + ... )))).

Since 292 is a rather large term in the series, that means that Pi is close to the rational number you get by replacing 292 with infinity, which is 355/113.  This fraction agrees with the first seven digits of Pi.

Replacing 15 with infinity gives 22/7 which is a common crude approximation of Pi.

http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continued_fraction

The calculation can be described using matrix multiplication:

(  0   1  )(  0   1  )(  0   01  )(  0   1  )   =   (  106   113  )
(  1   3  )(  1   7  )(  1   15  )(  1   1  )   =   (  333   355  )

where:

(  1   2  )(  5   6  )   =   (  1*5 + 2*7     1*6 + 2*8  )
(  3   4  )(  7   8  )   =   (  3*5 + 4*7     3*6 + 4*8  )

The answer of 355/113 appears upside down in the right column of the matrix.


Producing the terms of the series is not all that mysterious.  Taking away the integer part of Pi, which is 3, leaves the fractional part, which is 0.14159...  The reciprocal of the fractional part can then go through the same procedure.  Roundoff errors can be avoided by using a quotient to represent the number.  Thus the reciprocal is obtained by simply swapping the numerator and denominator.

314159/100000 = 3 + 14159/100000
100000/14159 = 7 + 887/14159
14159/887 = 15 + 854/887
887/854 = 1 + 33/854
854/33 = 25 + 29/33
33/29 = 1 + 4/29
29/4 = 7 + 1/4
4/1 = 4

This procedure is the Euclidean algorithm.  The last denominator in this example came out equal to one.  The last denominator is the greatest common divisor of the two numbers in the original fraction.

3.14159 = (3,7,15,1,25,1,7,4)

The first four terms are correct for Pi.  Usually about the first half of the terms produced are correct if the number you start with is rounded.
« Last Edit: September 22, 2003, 11:39:36 am by Stephen M. Fortescue » Logged
BeckyW
Guest


Email
« Reply #12 on: September 22, 2003, 08:42:34 pm »

A quick thanks to all who post here.
I really enjoy reading this thread.  
"How marvelous are Thy works..."
I'm looking forward to that great Day when even I, too, will understand it. Smiley

Becky




Logged
Joe Sperling
Guest


Email
« Reply #13 on: September 22, 2003, 08:46:17 pm »

I've got a question perhaps someone could answer for me since you are speaking of science and math:

At work, while operating our retrofit multiplexer, what would you consider optimal speed(non-sequential and ultra-gyroscopic of course), when coaxial fusion is thermo-pulsating near arculus(In a non-static, fero-dyanmic environment)? Retrograde may be analytical, so consider humidity when figuring logyrhymic flashpoint.

Please give the answer in a non-sequential series, as the photonic gradient is not mutually exclusive in neutrionic, non-combustive utilities.

Thanks.

« Last Edit: September 22, 2003, 08:50:10 pm by Joe Sperling » Logged
M2
Guest
« Reply #14 on: September 23, 2003, 03:56:23 am »

I've got a question perhaps someone could answer for me since you are speaking of science and math:

At work, while operating our retrofit multiplexer, what would you consider optimal speed(non-sequential and ultra-gyroscopic of course), when coaxial fusion is thermo-pulsating near arculus(In a non-static, fero-dyanmic environment)? Retrograde may be analytical, so consider humidity when figuring logyrhymic flashpoint.

Please give the answer in a non-sequential series, as the photonic gradient is not mutually exclusive in neutrionic, non-combustive utilities.

Thanks.
I am shocked to find that the retrofit mutiplexer is still in operation. We only use the finest fero-magnetic paired electron p,s,f-orbital imagers with computer assited regression. However for those who use the fashionably obsolete last generation machines, the calculations are complicated. Take the atmospheric pressure in the vicinity of the arculus point and multiply it by the spherical volume occupied by the coaxial fusion distorsion. Be careful to compensate for the brownian motion of the deutrium isotopes and their cooresponding isomers by dividing the cooeficient of the ratio of d-heavy water vapour to t-heavy water vapour with the square thermo-pulse rate (in isoHertz of course). This will give you the P-gradient K which is then substituted into the following formula: K[(2.34Pi((23N/m)/(isometric fusion density*J m/s)+ Hydrigen-3 particle acceleration]
This is of course assuming that the device in question opperates using 2,3-dimethyl-6-propyleneglycohol as a coolant.
Just a note, the 92, 93 and 95 models have a glich in the isolation matrix for the cycloalkene conversion tower.

Philippe Marinier
Logged
Pages: [1] 2 3 ... 6
  Print  
 
Jump to:  

Powered by MySQL Powered by PHP Powered by SMF 1.1.11 | SMF © 2006-2009, Simple Machines LLC Valid XHTML 1.0! Valid CSS!