[HN Gopher] Alternative Egyptology and scientific archaeology we...
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Alternative Egyptology and scientific archaeology were born on the
Giza Plateau
Author : Tomte
Score : 21 points
Date : 2022-09-12 07:27 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (arstechnica.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (arstechnica.com)
| lukehollis wrote:
| I 3d scanned the Khufu Pyramid interior for the Giza Project this
| summer for education about Giza:
| https://giza.mused.org/en/guided/266/inside-the-great-pyrami...
|
| Partly because it's what our users most wanted to know about--but
| partly also because there's been so much miseducation about the
| site. At least everyone can explore for themselves now.
| bitcurious wrote:
| Neat! One of the more unexpected things to happen on my first
| day in Egypt was the guard inside the inner chamber telling me
| to climb into the tomb for a photo.
| lukehollis wrote:
| That's so funny! A study in the OG encryption.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| .. reaching for Her-Bak by Isha Schwaller de Lubicz ..
| irrational wrote:
| Very cool! I'm going to show this to my kids after school. One
| of the "steps" mentions that the cosmic ray detector found a
| void near the King's Chamber. Have they been able to find a way
| into that void (and how big is the void?)
| lukehollis wrote:
| Awesome! Would love to know how the interpretative text is or
| if there's other questions to include on the tour.
|
| I haven't heard that they've been able to enter the void yet,
| but there's more information about the project and findings
| here: http://www.scanpyramids.org/index-en.html
| gumby wrote:
| > He claimed that the old, so-called "imperial" standard was not
| only "more perfect" than the alternative--a highly dubious claim
| at best...
|
| What a slur. Division into twelfths (and sixtieths) was quite
| common in measurements and currencies around the world because of
| the convenient affordances of all the factors. Most also relied
| heavily on powers of two (most notably the US version of the
| "imperial" system) which are extremely convenient. The reliance
| on rational numbers makes computation in the head very easy.
|
| And the units are more "humane" for customary activity (a stair
| riser is 2/3 of a foot; a cup is a common quantum for food
| consumption, a mile is roughly a thousand paces etc). A mm or cc
| is way too small and a meter is kind of gigantic (yards are less
| common than feet). A litre works fine though.
|
| There's a lot to like about the si system, but division by ten
| was a disaster, and the lack of convenient units is a persistent
| bug.
| ewgoforth wrote:
| All in all I prefer the SI system, but the Imperial system has
| it's advantages. 5280 feet seems really arbitrary, but can
| halve it five times and still get an integer.
|
| It also divides evenly by 3.
|
| For comparison:
|
| 1/3 of a mile is 1760 feet. 1/2 of that is 880 feet 1/2 of that
| is 440 feet 1/2 of that is 220 feet 1/2 of that is 110 feet 1/2
| of that is 55 feet.
|
| 1/3 of a km is 333.333333 meters 1/2 of that is 166.666667
| meters 1/2 of that is 83.333333 meters 1/2 of that is 41.666667
| meters 1/2 of that is 20.833333 meters 1/2 of that is 10.416667
| meters
| pavlov wrote:
| The only reason to believe that a "cup" is more convenient than
| a deciliter, or a "mile" is more convenient than a kilometer,
| is that you grew up with those units.
|
| 16 cups in a gallon, 12 inches in a feet, 1760 yards in a mile.
| It's not humane that children should memorize these completely
| arbitrary scales and weird names.
| [deleted]
| partdavid wrote:
| For lots of measures you're correct, but that's not really
| true for all cases. Even in highly-metric France they use but
| cuielleres a soupe and so forth in addition to mL, because
| it's a more convenient measure. An egg matches with about a
| cup of flour for a batter--eggs don't exist in fractional
| powers of ten.
|
| I also think (again in common household uses like setting a
| thermostat or talking about the weather or a fever) a
| fractional degree celsius is false precision, since you can't
| feel it, and a whole degree celsius is too coarse, so
| something that ranges from 0-100 in the temperatures you're
| likely to encounter is better than a scale which ranges from
| 0-100 over (the equally arbitrary) liquid phase of water. Of
| course it's marginal, but it's not entirely true that (unlike
| the metric system) all these measures are totally arbitrary.
|
| There are advantages and disadvantages to these systems. If
| you have to convert inches to miles a lot--yeah, the metric
| system performs much better for that. But conversions of
| scale or dimension--while extremely common in science and
| engineering--are not likely in common usage, while fractional
| division is much more common. It's likely that you don't
| recognize the advantages of an alternate system merely
| because you're unfamiliar with it.
| gumby wrote:
| > The only reason to believe that a "cup" is more convenient
| than a deciliter, or a "mile" is more convenient than a
| kilometer, is that you grew up with those units.
|
| From this statement I doubt you know where I grew up.
| partdavid wrote:
| I've made these arguments before. The lack of wide, common
| adoption of the metric system is a common plank in
| U.S.-bashing.
|
| The metric system is convenient for calculations involving
| conversions of scale or dimension (e.g. "How long is my finger,
| in kilometers?" "What is the rough mass of a cubic meter of
| water?"). The standard units are more convenient for
| calculations involving division, as you point out.
|
| These are convenient in different arenas and it doesn't
| surprise me that these different arenas use different systems.
| For science and engineering uses, the metric system is a lot
| better, and it's in wide use. For the common human-scale uses
| you point out, the standard units are more convenient.
|
| People often pooh-pooh the matter of "convenient" units but the
| fact is that teaspoons and tablespoons are _still_ used for
| cooking, even in France itself. And these aren 't
| approximations but (as they are in the U.S.) strictly defined
| according to a standard.
|
| The metric system makes a great standard, which is why the U.S.
| fully adopted it and all weights and measures are defined in
| terms of the metric system. The metric system is taught in
| schools. There's just not a compelling reason to, for common
| and mundane uses, to switch to it; and some disadvantages.
|
| (I always wondered why decimeters weren't more popular with
| metric users, they seem convenient enough. But they do seem to
| get by fine with piles of centimeters.)
| asdff wrote:
| For common use the imperial system is the best, more human
| scale for all relevant measures.
|
| For scientific use, nothing beats the metric system of course.
| Having to go imperial would probably significantly increase the
| amount of migraines scientists have on a daily basis.
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