Talk:Christopher Knight (author)/Civilization One archive

Initial comment

This is only my second article, so expansion is welcomed and appreciated. Thank you - Anonymous Dissident

The quotations need to be properly referenced. Seems to have a POV as 'widly accepted by historians' seems to be a bit of a stretch, in peer review sources I have seen they have all dismissed the claims as pseudoscience with selective evidence praying on poor understanding of mathematics of most people. Not surprising in the least that the main writer comes from advertising and marketing background in consumer pyschology. This is probably why they don't submit work to peer review journals but perform to publish books and make money. Then again I haven't finished reading the book and haven't even started reading the publish refutations.--Dacium 11:12, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

So you are reading the book Dacium? Good for you. Perhapes some of your questions will be answered. note: In the introduction the book states that if you are poor with mathematics, to please get a calculator. Hardly preying on someones poor mathematics, quite the opposite.

Comments

I have a couple of comments:

• When they say that a circle has 366 degrees, what are they saying exactly? My understand that was that a degree was defined to be an equal slice of a circle such that 360 of them put together equals a full circle. That is, a 360 degrees equals a full circle by definition. Their site makes it clear that they are very aware of the origin of our 360 degree circle, so the article would do good to explain what they're talking about (I assume someone has the book?)
• Is this book notable because of what it is or who wrote it?
• The "quotation and comments" section seems a little one sided. Certainly someone didn't like the book?
• I'm having a hard time deciding if this is legitimate or pseudo science. It's skirting very close to the edge either way. The official website is likewise. If it is cemented in legitimate sources, it would be good to explain that in the article, and prefereably link them. As its written, it seems primarily an advertisement. --Numsgil 11:30, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

The whole book is complete pseudoscience and this might be an add. The book has absolutely no logical arguments nor emperical proofs of anything it states, its just all speculation. Alot of this article must be down right lie (such as being supported by historians!)--Dacium 11:33, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

• It appears this is already summed up at Megalithic yard.--Dacium 11:47, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Hi Dacium, I'm glad you have voiced your concerns about my article, and I have taken them very seriously. I think that you are confused about when I said that the book was widely accepted by historians. I meant the contrary. The book, infact, is not in line with the commonly accepted timeline. And I was wondering which section made the article look like an advertisement. If you could point that out, it would be great, and I would attend to the error by making it more neutral, or simply deleting it. I will also try to find someone who was critical of the book. Note that this book is notable because of its reneging on the aforementioned historical timeline almost altogether, not of who wrote it. (the co-author, Alan Butler, does not even have an article in WP!) Thank you very much for your contributions.

I think what they're saying is that the 360 degrees in a circle is an arbitrary figure, but the 365/366 days in a year is NOT arbitrary, and they're wondering if the closeness of these two figures is just a coincidence or perhaps some deliberate attempt to define a circle in terms of the calendar. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.146.46.247 (talk) 14:53, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

To be fair to the authors, virtually everything about human culture from that period is speculation as we have no written record from the period and virtually no physical record either. No theory about the period is ever likely to be proven correct scientifically, the best they can ever be is plausible but unproven. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.146.46.247 (talk) 14:55, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

100 nanometers = 1 Megalithic yard?

How does a very, very small measurement (100 nanometers) come to be known as a Megalithic yard, which is over 2.5 feet? there seems to be somethign wrong with the first bulleted item in the list of things that are "statements that are not in line". I can't figure out what it's supposed to say, though. Mrendo 13:09, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Mrendo, the problem has been fixed. It was supposed to say that they did use that they did use it, but the text inferred that the measurement was one of the same as the Megalithic Yard.

I think it's a mistake. The Official website (listed in the External Links section) states that the Megalithic yard is 82.96656 cm ±0.061 cm Blaise 14:19, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Blaise, are you positive? the blurb on the back of the book states that these people used a measurement equal to 1 ten thousandth of a millimetre, so I don't know. It's obvious this article is quickly coming controversial with many people, but I wonder how many of these people have actually read the book? Anonymous Dissident

After some searching, I think what they meant was that they were using a unit of measure that was accurate to withing 1 ten thousandth of a millimetre. --Numsgil 04:33, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Indo-European

It's true that the Rig Veda was composed in (an ancestor of) Sanskrit, and that Sanskrit and Greek are Indo-European languages, but how is this relevant? — Hindi appears to be misused for Hindu throughout. —Tamfang 17:22, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't know who put that there in the see also, or why, but I won't remove it. Maybe they will explain? Anonymous Dissident

Controversy

Obviously, the article is becoming very quickly very controversial, but it is also becoming something of a talk page. People seem to be putting in information that is not relevent to the article, which, I remind everyone, is on the actual book, and it would be appreciated if some of these dramatic changes were first discussed at least a little on this talk page. Thankyou. Anonymous Dissident

Read The Book

Many people are claiming this book to be simply ficticious, and perhapes it is, but before you dismiss this book as a lie, perhapes it would be a good idea to actually read the book, and maybe even its sequel. The site, obviously, is no where near as long or as well described as the actual text in question. When you have read the book, then perhapes you will have a better understanding and/or trust in thebook and therefore, the article, or perhapes the opposite, but that's not the point. I advise that everyone here who are raising these questions read the actual book, for a WP article can never, obviously, be as expansive as the book or text it concerns. Anonymous Dissident

• The whole book is silly nonsense, nothing more than that. Let's be reasonable. Nonsense is nonsense, there is no other word for it. -- Ekjon Lok 01:36, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
• nonsense or not, the book exists, so why shouldn't it be granted the rights to an article?

Is it notable nonsense? —Tamfang 03:32, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

nonsense

The whole thing reads like nonsense, I will very likely nominate the whole thing for deletion, in the spirit of WP:Undue Weight, after some time. -- Ekjon Lok 01:34, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Rewrite

I have attempted to take the information in the book into the form an wikipedia entry using the NPOV. I hope to include more numbers and formulas given in the book soon. everything written is a summary of the book and contains no original research. This theory contains a testable hypothesis (the Venus pendulum).--Gurdjieff (talk) 23:35, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Remember that wikipedia is about verifiability, not truth and should be neutral - that means the page should not promote the book as truth, correct or factual. It is a hypothesis and probably pseudohistory/archeology given its basis on the megalithic yard. WP:FRINGE applies. I can't find any reviews, so based on WP:BK I'm not even sure if this page should exist. Also, the official site has disappeared. I'll try to include an archive copy. WLU (talk) 18:37, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

I think there is a real problem here. With no reviews, and of course no OR, we have a WP:REDFLAG article I think? I'm not very happy with Gurdjieff's work so far. Doug Weller (talk) 18:45, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, meant to thank you. Notability so far not established, can that be done? If not, AfD? Doug Weller (talk) 18:48, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

I've trolled the internet a bit, and find surprisingly little about the megalithic yard. Interest in Civ1 seems pretty dead actually, surprising considering it's only 4 years old. One option is to throw it into AFD and see what the "keep" camp turns up as sources. WP:BK is pretty harsh in what can have a page and what can be culled. Another option would be redirecting the page to Knight and including it as its own section. The page is pretty stubby so it's probably doable. It's possible that there is a massive swelling of attention I've manged to miss, so waiting hurts no-one and may allow improvement/expansion of the page. WLU (talk) 19:28, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Thank you to whomever did the rewrite of my rewrite it really has the clarity and tone I was trying to find. I certainly hope I didn't promote the book as truth since I explicitly stated it is a hypothesis. I think the explanation of the Venus pendulum and more detailed information about the units should be added as a section to the article on pseudoscience meterology. Otherwise the question of How? goes unanswered (how are the pint and pound related? how does the venus pendulum work? how is the minoan foot related?).--Gurdjieff (talk) 23:38, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

I'd say that's premature given the page still risks deletion or redirection. Also, if no-one but Knight has presented, researched, promoted and wrote about the topic, it's not really appropriate to add it to the metrology page as it's not really a notable theory, even for a fringe piece.

Also, I tried to include a description of how the units are actually derived. I don't consider myself stupid, but I was unable to do so based on what was there. If it's included then we'll have to try to be more clear about it. But really, given it's only one book that fails WP:BK, I don't know how much emphasis it should be give as it is undue weight, even for a fringe topic. The book doesn't seem to have much attention even from the 'speculative archeology' crowd. WLU (talk) 01:06, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Megalithic Yard Pendulums

Knight and Butler are probably wrong about the nature of a possible megalithic pendulum, if only because using a 366 degree circle and Venus as a clock, is far from the easiest way to construct a pendulum that accounts for the length of the Megalithic Yard, nor does it give quite the right answer once one slogs thru the math.

However a megalithic pendulum that does give the right answer, on the button, is quite easy to construct -- if you know your physics.

A couple of rules. Don't make the mistake that Petrie and Lehmann-Haupt made by using pendulum periods calculated in mean SOLAR seconds. The solar second, which is the 86,400th part of a solar day, varies quite a bit over the year and makes the calibration of pendulums difficult. The mean solar second was not a practical unit until after the invention of mechanical clocks. The ancients used both solar and SIDEREAL time, but would have used sidereal time to calibrate any pendulum because the sidereal day is both easy to measure (stars are point sources of light unlike the sun) and was the most stable constant available to the ancient world.

It is quite easy to construct and calibrate sidereal pendulums, even with rudimentary, if large, instrumentation. The megalithic yard doesn't give us easy numbers to work with but the megalithic cubit -- of which five make Thom's megalithic rod and two make up a megalithic yard -- does give us nice numbers. And 4 megalithic cubits, the double megalithic yard, also gives us nice numbers. At relevant latitudes a pendulum with a frequency of 66,666.66 cycles per SIDEREAL day has the length of one megalithic cubit. A frequency of 33,333.33 cycles per SIDEREAL day gives the length of 2 megalithic yards.

The 86,400 division of the sidereal day is not the only way to slice up a day. (The English foot has a frequency of 77,760 cycles per sidereal day at European latitudes. The modern Jewish heleq slices the day into 25,920 pieces.) The megalithic cubit and double yard are most easily calibrated by dividing the sidereal day into 100,000 parts. All we need is a few antique astronomical instruments from the French revolution that measure the sky in grads rather than degrees. If the pendulum swings one full cycle as a star traverses across a slit of length 6 thousandths of a grad the pendulum will have the dimensions of one megalithic cubit. If it only makes a full cycle as the star passes across a 12 thousands of a grad slit it will have the length of two megalithic yards. Having to sight on Venus is irrelevant -- any star, on any night, at any time of the year will do fine.

If the pendulum is located at the sacred 3/7 latitude, 270/7 degrees, and is at sea level, and has negligible swing angle, the megalithic cubit will be of length 414.687mm or 16.326 inches. The double yard will be of length 1658.7mm or 65.305 inches. When the British statistician D.G. Kendall reanalyzed Thom's data he confirmed a double megalithic yard of 166cm.

Suppose I put my pendulum at the Ring of Brodgar in Orkney, Scotland, latitude 59.002 deg, at an elevation of 5 meters and with a modest swing angle of 2 degrees, the double yard would be of length 166.153cm, the cubit of length 41.538cm, the yard of length 83.076cm or 2.72559ft. Note that 125 of these yards is 340.699 feet. Thom measured the Brodgar Ring at 340.701ft.

Lets go farther south into another realm. Using D.G. Kendall's statistical methods, I calculated that the markings on the Nippur bar belonged to a rule of 64 fingers which were meant to be of a length close to 17.268mm. Now 16 of these are the megalithic foot and 24 of them are the megalithic cubit and 48 of them are the megalithic yard and 96 of them are the double megalithic yard which would swing as a pendulum -- in Nippur -- at 33,333 cycles per sidereal day.

All this is simple and reproducible pendulum physics. If you want to confirm my numbers my java pendulum simulation is at donaldkingsbury.com, or better yet, you could build your own pendulums and count their rate of cycling per sidereal day.

70.48.79.215 (talk) 06:29, 27 March 2009 (UTC)Donbury

Deletion

The whole page should be immediately deleted according to Dougweller's logic or I am a freakin idiot. --Little sawyer (talk) 19:22, 31 March 2009 (UTC)