The Irrational Mathematicians of Giza, Part 1

Changelog is at end of part 3.

The Giza plateau is one of the most studied places on Earth, while curiously some parts remain off-limits and unexplored. Various people have studied both the pyramids themselves, and the layout of the site, in great detail, which led to various different ideas about the site plan, which are summarised/detailed here:

1. The Orion alignment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion_correlation_theory
2. The Cygnus alignment: http://www.andrewcollins.com/page/articles/Cygnus_Orion_Giza.htm
3. A possible method of how it was planned: http://members.home.nl/peregrine/The%20Geometry%20of%20Giza.html
4. Another way of drawing the site: http://www.vejprty.com/gizaplan.htm
5. Another analysis: http://home.hiwaay.net/~jalison/Art3.html
6. Online book with analysis: https://www.greatpyramidexplanation.com/en/index.html
7. Edward Nightingale’s analysis: https://grahamhancock.com/nightingalee1/
8. Golden ratios on the site plan: https://www.goldennumber.net/great-pyramid-giza-complex-golden-ratio/
9. [placeholder for another site with lots of maths, can’t find at the moment.]

I’ve done some analysis of my own, kicked off by looking for phi circles/arcs, which I learned about when I watched a documentary about the Nebra disc…

Continue reading

Rethinking English, part 1

It is well known that English is a mess, mostly because of it’s diversified history, and the diverse people who have overrun England, coupled with the diverse peoples that the English have overrun. The mess creates problems for kids growing up English and trying to learn the language, as well as people coming from other language and writing backgrounds. There is just so much that is inconsistent and does not make sense. Some random examples:

  1. 1 cow, 2 cows, 1 bull, 2 bulls, 1 ox, 2 oxen
  2. 1 ram, 2 rams, 1 ewe, 2 ewes, 1 sheep, 2 sheep.
  3. 1 shark, 2 sharks, 1 fish, 2 fish.
  4. 1 rat, 2 rats, 1 mouse, 2 mice, 1 house, 2 houses.
  5. 1 elephant, 2 elephants, 1 hippopotamus, 2 hippopotami.
  6. same word, two meanings, e.g. stick, box, cleave.
  7. same word, different tense depending on pronunciation: read.
  8. same word, different meanings depending on pronunciation: minute. 
  9. concatenation vs. possession: it’s Jack’s.
  10. same letters, different pronunciations: I thought it was tough, though.
  11. silent letters: gnome, knife, herb. (but not as bad as French.)
  12. stationary / stationery, to / too / two, read / red, blue / blew, whine / wine, you / hew / yew / hue (etc…)

I could go on but you get the point. But before we even get to vocabulary and grammar, we need to deal with the alphabet. Continue reading