s*** your teacher told you

[StrangeSox]

Come on. The only reason it is taught that the pyramid was built by Kufu was because of one tiny statue found in the sand.

 

As far as I can find, this is completely incorrect.

[iamshack]

Formally? No. But I do know and understand that scientific process and, to an extent, the academic publishing process. It is far more rigorous than the process a pop-psuedohistory book goes through.

There is no scientific process involved in History. I'm not sure why you keep mentioning it. The sources are built on years and years of documents, which were created when? Certainly before there were any rigorous academic standards.

 

Archaeology is about as theoretical a field you can get as anything. "Based on what has been left here, this is what we think..."

 

Again, I'm certainly not saying mainstream science is not the best manner in which to approach things. But in the absence of evidence necessary for it to be useful, it really offers very little.

[StrangeSox]

There's absolutely a scientific process involved in history, archaeology, anthropology, etc. I'm pretty shocked anyone would completely deny that.

[Balta1701]

I just don't understand all the evidence of machining. There are formations of rock (I believe diorite or something) that can only be cut by diamond or whatever and are absolutely perfectly cut and then placed together so that not even a human hair can fit in between the cut rocks. Almost as if they were levitated in some way and then heat-fused together. We have absolutely no explanation for how this could have been done.

I've got one more fun bit here.

 

Quick math suggests to me that the great pyramid exerts a pressure of about ~30-40 mpa on its base. (2500 kg/m3 * 10 m2/s * 150m ~ 3x10^7 pascals). The normal yield stress of basic sandstone units is on the order of 20 mpa. The Great pyramid therefore exerts enough pressure at the base that unconfined, unsupported rocks would fracture.

 

However, the rocks are not fully unconfined, there are rocks next to them. Hypothesize that there was 1 mm of space between the rocks. Then, let the rocks sit there in their new pressure state for a period of ~3000 years. In terms of the ductile response of rocks, this is a fairly large amount of time. If the rocks are 1 meter across, then filling up 1 mm of space entirely requires a strain of 0.1% per rock. This is a very small amount of strain.

 

Furthermore, it is probably a fair assumption that the rocks at the top and outside of the pyramid were found deeper in the quarries than the rocks forming the core. This means that the pressure state on the last quarried rocks was previously compressive, and now that compressive force has been lessened or removed. The normal response of rocks to this effect is to expand slightly over time. Meanwhile, the rocks at the core would have previously seen lesser compressive stresses than they currently see, and thus would have also seen large shifts in their stress regime.

 

The normal response of rocks under these conditions is to flow slightly over long timescales. In other words...the fact that a human hair can't go through the cracks is exactly what one would expect if the rocks were sitting there in new stress states over several thousand years. It's not going to fill in a crack a foot wide, but some flexure of the rocks should be the expected behavior over time.

[StrangeSox]

^scientific methodology applied to archaeology itt

[Balta1701]

It's not just a manner of knowing how...it's a matter of it being physically impossible and completely illogical to do some of the things that they did. What is it, the Great Pyramid of Giza that supposedly was built in 20 years? It's been calculated that they would have had to place a new stone every THREE SECONDS for it to have been built in that time frame. Impossible.

 

I don't think anyone is trying to convince anyone else of these "crank" theories. All we're pointing out is that the mainstream science is full of just as much crank as the non-mainstream theories.

You're off by an order of magnitude here. 20 years of construction would have required about a block every 5 minutes.

[iamshack]

There's absolutely a scientific process involved in history, archaeology, anthropology, etc. I'm pretty shocked anyone would completely deny that.

I'd love to hear the scientific process involved in history, especially, anything written prior to 1900.

[Balta1701]

I'd love to hear the scientific process involved in history, especially, anything written prior to 1900.

You know, some of our best records for volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, and weather comes from written records. The Royal Navy in particular was wonderful at this, they spent centuries recording the noontime water temperature in the exact same way. We know when a whole lot of events happened from historical records...and then when we check things like the date of the rock, age dates of fires, superposition of earthquake layers, things work surprisingly well.

[iamshack]

You're off by an order of magnitude here. 20 years of construction would have required about a block every 5 minutes.

I read the same thing on Wikipedia, Balta.

 

There are other theories...

 

Considering the fact that the great pyramid, (Khufu’s), contains 2 ½ million stones weighing between 2 and 70 tons each, and that each stone had to be quarried and shaped away from the site, transported by barge up the Nile River and then set in place, (some at a height of over 400 feet), doesn’t fit the time schedule referred to. To accomplish this, a stone would have had to be set in place every 90 seconds, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for 30 years. Prior to the Aswan Dam being completed in 1970 on the Nile, the river flooded annually, which seems to me would have created problems for transporting the massive stones from the quarry to the site, and not allowed for the continuous placement of each stone.

 

Link

[iamshack]

You know, some of our best records for volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, and weather comes from written records. The Royal Navy in particular was wonderful at this, they spent centuries recording the noontime water temperature in the exact same way. We know when a whole lot of events happened from historical records...and then when we check things like the date of the rock, age dates of fires, superposition of earthquake layers, things work surprisingly well.

Explain to me the scientific process involved in the recording of events say, 5,000 years ago.

[Balta1701]

I read the same thing on Wikipedia, Balta.

 

There are other theories...

 

 

 

Link

Do the math yourself man. 20 years = 6 x 10^8 seconds. 2 million stones in 6 x 10 ^8 seconds is 315 seconds per stone. 315 seconds is 5 minutes, 15 seconds.

[Balta1701]

Explain to me the scientific process involved in the recording of events say, 5,000 years ago.

It's iffy...but there are a few texts that date back nearly that far and tell fairly detailed historical accounts which can be matched up with archaeological information. For example, there's very plausibly a solid correlation between the 3 days of darkness referred to in the Bible and the eruption of the Greek Island of Santorini.

[iamshack]

Do the math yourself man. 20 years = 6 x 10^8 seconds. 2 million stones in 6 x 10 ^8 seconds is 315 seconds per stone. 315 seconds is 5 minutes, 15 seconds.

There are three pyramids supposedly built in this timeframe. The Great Pyramid had approximately 2.5 million stones alone.

 

I think that is why your math is not adding up.

[iamshack]

It's iffy...but there are a few texts that date back nearly that far and tell fairly detailed historical accounts which can be matched up with archaeological information. For example, there's very plausibly a solid correlation between the 3 days of darkness referred to in the Bible and the eruption of the Greek Island of Santorini.

I have a history degree. I'm not claiming all history is wrong. I'm saying to consider it reliable, in the same sense you might consider something derived from what we consider "the scientific method," is complete and utter bulls***.

 

History is the observations and interpretations of human beings, written down, sometimes drawn, or passed down via oral tradition. Obviously, this is very prone to subjective bias, not to even mention moral, political, and numerous other external forces.

[Balta1701]

There are three pyramids supposedly built in this timeframe. The Great Pyramid had approximately 2.5 million stones alone.

 

I think that is why your math is not adding up.

The guy you cited also gave 30 years, which increases the time again.

 

If nothing else...at least don't cite a page which says that 2.5 million stones in 30 years would have required placement every 90 seconds. The page you cited literally cannot do simple math. His exact setup gives 378 seconds per stone, not 90.

[iamshack]

The guy you cited also gave 30 years, which increases the time again.

 

If nothing else...at least don't cite a page which says that 2.5 million stones in 30 years would have required placement every 90 seconds. The page you cited literally cannot do simple math. His exact setup gives 378 seconds per stone, not 90.

The point remains the same. I apologize for the incorrect math. Go back to placing your 20 ton stones every 5 minutes every day for 20 years.

[Balta1701]

One other thing worth remembering is that within Egypt itself, we can actually see them learn to build on their way to the structures at the Giza plateau. There are the older step pyramids. There is also at least 1 complete failure of a pyramid, the collapsed pyramid.

There is also the "Bent pyramid" which may reflect a pyramid which became unstable mid-construction causing the construction angle to change.

 

This was literally an industry refined over a period of centuries before construction began at Giza.

[southsider2k5]

There's nothing that indicates that the Egyptians couldn't have or didn't build the pyramids.

 

There is also nothing that saids they couldn't have had just an expert of an understanding of math/astronomy.

[southsider2k5]

One other thing worth remembering is that within Egypt itself, we can actually see them learn to build on their way to the structures at the Giza plateau. There are the older step pyramids. There is also at least 1 complete failure of a pyramid, the collapsed pyramid.

There is also the "Bent pyramid" which may reflect a pyramid which became unstable mid-construction causing the construction angle to change.

 

This was literally an industry refined over a period of centuries before construction began at Giza.

 

The challengers school of thought is that those are later generations failing at replicating what had already been done.

[StrangeSox]

There is also nothing that saids they couldn't have had just an expert of an understanding of math/astronomy.

 

Sure, but for some bizarre reason they only recorded this information in the dimensions of their pyramids, never wrote them down anywhere else and never used them in any other way? It's not exactly a very plausible scenario, especially when it's just another form of numerology.

[Balta1701]

The challengers school of thought is that those are later generations failing at replicating what had already been done.

But let's note...they succeeded, quite dramatically in many cases. The Step Pyramid, although its not the size of Giza, is a large temple complex that was clearly constructed during the lifetime of one leader. Many of the large temples like the ones Egypt had to move out of the way of Lake Nasser were clearly Egyptian designs.

 

If someone wants to argue that the Egyptians could never have built a pyramid...they did. If someone wants to argue that its really hard to build them that quickly...true, it is really hard...but all we're asking now is whether the techniques from the first ones could scale up. Yes, placing a block every 5 minutes is hard, but so is placing a block every 2 hours or whatever was required for the smaller structures. If the things can be built at smaller scales, then scaling up just requires manpower and practice.

[StrangeSox]

I'm a good bit in to 1493, and I have to say, it's not nearly as engaging as 1491.

[Middle Buffalo]

According to many of the History Channel specials I've seen, Lee owned slaves, but he was torn at the onset of the war on which side to fight. I can't recall the reason that he might have wanted to fight on the North (perhaps it was his history at West Point?), but there was something.

Maybe it was the uniforms?

[Milkman delivers]

Maybe it was the uniforms?

 

It was certainly more fashionable than the drab uniforms of the South.

[Balta1701]

It was certainly more fashionable than the drab uniforms of the South.

One of the things my teacher told me was that even though they tried originally to produce uniforms for each side, the uniforms didn't last very long, and usually a unit anywhere near the front would be wearing some mixture of everything, including the other side's uniforms, pretty quick.