Re: Pyramidiocy (was Re: Strange Maths)

Paul J. Gans (gans@scholar.chem.nyu.edu)
27 Jul 1995 00:33:46 GMT

Ted Holden (medved@access5.digex.net) wrote:

[stuff by other folks deleted]

: 100-ton blocks were being used for the pyramids. That's 200,000 lbs.
: Assuming any one slave might could pull 50 lbs of that across sand,
: that's 4000 guys, minimum, and with the inefficiencies of ropes and
: everything else figured in, probably 6000 - 8000. That can't be done.
: For starters, you couldn't get that many guys to pull in a reasonable
: manner or organize such an effort at all. Any sort of saplings you tried
: to put under such a block as rollers would be sawdust after the first 5".
: Then there's the problem of pulling such a block across sand in the
: desert; it'd be exactly like trying to pull a filing cabinet across a
: carpet. Unless you could figure a way to have the ropes lift and pull at
: the same time (200,000 geese instead of the 6000 guys...), you'd just
: pull the nose of the block down into the sand and the process would stop.
: And don't forget the problem of having 6000 guys pull in a straight line
: on the higher levels of the pyramid; there'd be no room for it. Further,
: trying to set up a pole and pull around the pole would lose too much force
: from the pull, even assuming you could set up such a pole and have it
: stay there which, in all likelihood, is not a good assumption.

: The only two assumptions which help anything are 1. that the Etyptians
: had advanced machinery at an early age, for which we've no evidence, or
: 2. That they did not experience gravity as we do. Believe it or not,
: there is evidence for that possibility.

Ok guys. Now you've gone and done it. You've all been warned
about gratuitous cross-posting. As a result you have now
brought the famous Ted Holden, the Tedster himself, down on
you.

Ted is an habitue' of, among others, talk.origins, alt.fan.splifford,
and alt.catastrophy. Ted's Velikovskianism is strengthened by his
almost total immunity to any argument, no matter how logical. On
the other hand, he's outdone Velikovsky himself by being devoted
to the idea that the "felt effect" of gravity just HAD to be
different back then. Exactly when then was is never clear. He's
used this idea to explain how dinosaurs can stand up, since he's
convinced that they were too heavy to do it on *this* earth.

One of his favorite explanations for the reduced "felt effect" of
gravity is the Saturn Hypothesis, which claims that Saturn hung
motionless over the Earth's north pole for years, near enough to
cover a reasonable fraction of the sky. This in turn gave rise
to all of those myths you read about in Velikovsky.

So now you have to deal with the Tedster himself. With any
luck he'll just go away. If he doesn't, look out.

You had been warned, you know...

----- Paul J. Gans [gans@scholar.chem.nyu.edu]

PS: If you want to see the Tedster at his best, try one of the
groups listed above. Most sites don't carry alt.catastrophy, which
Ted, I think, puts down to a conspiracy of evolutionists. Most
*do* carry talk.origins, however.

PJG