The Pyramid Inch

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Isaac Newton had a secret. When he wasn’t inventing calculus or speculating about the way the world worked, he turned his mathematical genius to Biblical issues. He tried to calculate the ’sacred cubit’, the measurement used in the Old Testament. Standing on the shoulders of giants, scientists through to the present day will postulate that the best evidence for the sacred cubit is right here in my backyard: The Great Pyramids of Giza.

Using the data compiled by previous expeditions (including Napoleon’s), John Taylor announced that the measurements of the Great Pyramids used a unit 1/1000 times larger than the standard British inch, or 1/25 of the fabled sacred cubit. The argument states that the total length of the four sides of the pyramid would be 36524 (100 times the number of days in a year) if measured in “pyramid inches”. Further coincidences using using this system paralleled astronomical and geographical phenomena, and if one superimposed a symbolic Biblical time-line on the interior, all of Judeo-Christian history was represented inside the largest pyramid.

This led British scientists to say that their measurement system was of divine origin, used by the Jews following God’s instructions. Pretty funny for a bunch of 19th century Anti-Semites. Equally unbelievable is that this was used as a principle argument in England AND America as evidence against adopting the French metric system. Charles Piazzi Smythe’s tome The Great Pyramid was held aloft in state legislatures across the USA (as this was a state decision) to support the holy inch.

Of course this is BS. The Hebrews didn’t build the Pyramids, and even if they did, the measurements didn’t even use the correct size of the Pyramids. They were off by several feet. And when using the system originally coined by Smythe, the projected Apocalypse was in 1884. As that still hasn’t worked, they keep changing the measurements. Good luck, boys.

Anyway, I went to Giza and Sakkara this past weekend to see the Pyramids and the Sphinx for myself. They’re there, and quite awesome in their presence. Frankly, though, they were smaller than my imagination and the Discovery Channel led me to believe. None-the-less, I had to marvel at their dogged tenacity. You try hanging around for over 4,000 years and see how great you look.

I rode a camel. Not much to say about that other than that it was fantastic and think it should be a primary mode of transportation. Good-bye, global warming!

Sakkara was much more impressive than Giza, in my opinion. Perhaps because it pre-dates those famous monoliths. It’s the burial ground for King Djoser designed by Imhotep; that’s about 2667 BCE.  I heard they’re going to close the site next year due to its rapid deterioration. Maybe they wouldn’t deteriorate so quickly if vigilance was actually a part of the tourism police’s job description.

Anyway, life continues, classes pick up, and activities start to conflict. I’m going scuba diving on the Red Sea this weekend, after I take my certification class this week. I’m also doing the Folklore Dance Club and teaching Sudanese and Iraqi refugees English one day per week. These activities might have to duke it out for priority, all while I balance my school work (test tomorrow in Arabic) and try and shake this bug I seem to have picked up.

Anyway, don’t you feel better about why America is not on the metric system? I sure do. Thanks a lot, Newton.

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