HPB-SB-3-19: Difference between revisions

  | title = The sun's distance and the pyramids

  | untitled =  

  | source details = v. 64, No. 439, July, 1875, pp. 44-5

  | publication date = 1875-07

{{Style S-Small capitals|Some}} of the results of the observations made by astronomers during the recent transit of Venus have already appeared, and they are peculiarly interesting, because of a certain archeological relation. M. Puiseux has communicated to the Academy of Sciences in France the conclusions based upon late observations of the transit at the Island of St. Paul and at Pekin. The solar parallax was given at 8".879, the remarkable feature of which is its exact correspondence with certain dimensions found in the great pyramid in Egypt, and which for a long time has been thought by astronomers and antiquaries to have been founded upon an extensive knowledge of astronomy possessed by the people who built that pyramid. Heretofore, among moderns, the solar distance has been estimated at two and three per cent. more than the recent investigations show it to be, and, of consequence, the dimensions in the pyramid did not closely accord. Now, the correction of the error in our calculation of the sun’s distance shows an almost perfect agreement. The conclusion from this goes to prove the height to which astronomical science had been carried at the period when the pyramids were constructed, whether four thousand years ago—which the Usher chronology asserts,—or from ten to twelve thousand years ago, as is believed to be more nearly in accordance with historical fact. Old readers of the {{Style S-Small capitals|Phrenological}} may recall an article on the “Pyramids of Egypt,” in which allusion was made to the learning of ancient Egyptians in the departments of engineering and astronomy; but it is not out of place to append the following interesting statements, which we find in the ''Scientific American'':

{{Style P-Quote|“Several features in the Egyptian pyramids, especially the large one (that of Cheops), have long been a matter of surprise to scientific visitors; for instance, of having the sides of the square base exactly in the direction of the cardinal points of the compass — north, south, east, and west; of having the long tunnel leading from the side at the mouth obliquely down to the center of the pyramid, inclined under an angle exactly corresponding with the latitude under which the pyramid is placed, so that when looking from this center outward through this long hallway or tunnel, the polar star is always seen. This induced investigators to find more peculiarities having relation to astronomical data, and it was found that the pyramid abounded in these; for instance, the distance and size of the interior chambers, gangways, etc. At every step most curious relations were found, which certainly could not have been the result of accident.

“The solar parallax means the angle under which the earth’s radius is seen from the sun. As we know the correct dimensions of our earth, it becomes a simple geometrical, or, rather, trigonometrical, question to find the distance: it is simply the problem to find the height of a very long triangle, of which the small base and opposite angle at the top are given. This angle at the top is the parallax-is, and if it be 8 seconds and 879 thousands, we have only to find the Sine of this angle, which will be to the Radius as the radius of the earth is to the distance of the sun. For very small angles the Sine is equal to the arc, and we have only to divide 8".879 (or, for simplicity sake, 8".88) into <nowiki>360 × 60 × 60 = 380 × 3,600=36² × 1,000 = 1,296 × 1,000 = 1,296,-{{Style S-Lost|…000}}</nowiki>, the number of seconds contained in the whole circumference, and the quotient 145,946 shows the fraction of the circumference corresponding to the Sine of the arc of 8".88, and this is equal to <nowiki>2 × 3,1415926 ÷ 145946 = 0,00004305145;</nowiki> accepting now the radius of the earth in round numbers as 8.950 miles, we have the proportion that the Sine of the earth's parallax is to the Radius as the radius of the earth is to its distance from the sun, or Sine <nowiki>8".88 : R = 3,950</nowiki> : solar distance, or <nowiki>0.00004305145 : 1 = 3,950</nowiki> to solar distance, we have therefore only to divide 3,95 by the decimal fraction 0.00004305145, which is equivalent to 3,950,000,000.000 ÷ 4305145 which gives 92,000,000 miles very nearly.}}