Great Circle

October 1, 2009 11:45 AM

A NEW LOOK AT AN OLD DESIGN
THE PREHISTORIC ALIGNMENT OF WORLD WONDERS
posted by yegga (34 comments total)

via Michæl.Paukner's photostream via Great Visualizers
posted by yegga at 11:49 AM on October 1

I can't wait for someone to come along and explain why this isn't significant, but until then it's fascinating to think about.
posted by mai at 11:52 AM on October 1

Well, it's interesting, for sure, but I don't see how that makes it significant.
posted by rocket88 at 11:57 AM on October 1

I think that they forgot to account for the sliding ratio for when mars is in the 3rd house. Other than that, interesting correlations.
posted by LD Feral at 12:01 PM on October 1

EARTH HAS 4 CORNER
SIMULTANEOUS 4-DAY
TIME CUBE
IN ONLY 24 HOUR ROTATION.
4 CORNER DAYS, CUBES 4 QUAD EARTH- No 1 Day God.
posted by splice at 12:03 PM on October 1 [3 favorites]

Considering all the other great circle alignments, there are probably enough Great Sites to make any basic pattern you wish.

Fun project: map all the "great sites" of the world on Google Earth (or a physical globe), and play connect the dots.
posted by filthy light thief at 12:04 PM on October 1

It's called apophenia, kids. Look it up.
posted by signalnine at 12:07 PM on October 1 [3 favorites]

A map of the 689 cultural World Heritage Sites. Let's see you draw a straight line through that.
posted by The White Hat at 12:08 PM on October 1

I can't wait for someone to come along and explain why this isn't significant, but until then it's fascinating to think about.

There are enough "important" archaeological sites that you can cherry-pick your data. Notice (for example) that Stonehenge is left off. Also notice that time period or intended use of the site isn't mentioned at all. The pyramid builders were working in a much more technologically advanced period than the Easter Islanders (as impressive as their stonework was). The Pyramids were a necropolis. Persepolis was built by the administration of an empire for Zoroastrian festivals. Ur was an urban center. Neat, but I'm not sure what this is supposed to tell us.
posted by oinopaponton at 12:14 PM on October 1

Let's see you draw a straight line through that.

Don't. It spells "algozay" if you know what I mean.
posted by everichon at 12:14 PM on October 1 [1 favorite]

Yeah, seems like the mathematical equivalent of swinging dead cats around.
posted by Burhanistan at 12:15 PM on October 1

Yeah, well, the Equator lies on a Great Circle. BOTH the North Pole AND the South Pole lie on another Great Circle.

Sorry, did I just BLOW YOUR MIND??
posted by lekvar at 12:27 PM on October 1 [3 favorites]

I should have known he was looking for the placement of Atlantis along the sacred geometry. It explains why he left out a bunch of other distance equations I'm used to seeing from this line of thought.

Look, I can insert one end of a piece of yarn through a slip knot, and place it over a globe, and create a ring at any angle or width and find all sorts of interesting things right along or near the same line - and there are always triangles for when rings don't work. When you factor in the fact that most of the ancient civilizations we have a good amount of knowledge about existed in the middle 60% of the globe, and a lot of them specifically between the Tropics, the chances that interesting places will fall upon a specific ring rise. Why Easter Island and not Delphi or Stonehenge or any number of the Mexican pyramids or "sacred mountains" in China or North America or places where great spiritual leaders did something (all of which show up on other rings identifying sacred geometric sites that I've seen)? Because they're on the ring this guy picked out and the others aren't.

Once they take the locations of places on a ring whose coordinates must be meaningful in a way we don't understand with our basic knowledge of longitude and latitude, they then proced to draw lines between the selected special places (mixing surface distance and trans-orb distance) and taking measurements - which they sometimes then multiply by Pi or the Golden Mean or some sacred number or formula so that they can then get numbers they can compare and be amazed by. If you accept the idea that there is a sort of over-riding spiritual impetus that pushes all of the people of the world to build things in places for reasons they can't comprehend to fit some underlying synchronized spirituality that isn't obvious, then this kind of sacred geometry allows the enlightened among us to predict where other great places that are lost to us or yet to be built are.
posted by julen at 12:27 PM on October 1

Lines of Force. Sacrilicious!
posted by krilli at 12:29 PM on October 1

I will not be bound by your Euclidean geometries.
posted by Astro Zombie at 12:30 PM on October 1 [3 favorites]

When I get imaginary, the world is a Reinmann surface.
posted by GuyZero at 12:36 PM on October 1

Notice (for example) that Stonehenge is left off.

That's because it's in line with the northeastern U.S. seaboard. Those crazy druids, they built Stonehenge on the wrong Great Circle!
posted by scrutiny at 12:43 PM on October 1

Paging Erich von Däniken.
posted by ...possums at 12:46 PM on October 1

This is the type of thing that has a 99.9% chance of being BS, but its the type of thing I would like to be true just to make the world a little more interesting.
posted by TheCoyote23 at 12:50 PM on October 1 [1 favorite]

You can all laugh until a 25ft tentacle-faced Sirian Demigod appears above your cities and says "Where the fuck is my racetrack?".
posted by panboi at 12:51 PM on October 1 [4 favorites]

Well, the fact that a direct flight from DF to London takes you right over DC is neat. I learned that today.
posted by Stonestock Relentless at 12:52 PM on October 1

Man, the Wonders of the World* make a circle? Amazing!!

*For a subset of World Wonders that does not include:
Stonehenge
The Great Wall
The Forbidden City
Great Zimbabwe
Anything Built by the Greeks and Romans
posted by absalom at 12:54 PM on October 1 [3 favorites]

Wow, I thought I'd never see the day when time cube speak wouldn't garner any favourites... I am now a sad panda.
posted by splice at 1:02 PM on October 1

Let's see you draw a straight line through that.

Don't. It spells "algozay" if you know what I mean.

Actually it spells "ya go alz." I don't know what this means.
posted by From Bklyn at 1:14 PM on October 1

Wow, I thought I'd never see the day when time cube speak wouldn't garner any favourites... I am now a sad panda.

I blame Lacking Subtlety's comment yesterday, deflating the excitement from that baseball prediction. Since then, everything that was once outlandish and magical has lost it's sheen.
posted by filthy light thief at 1:21 PM on October 1

Aligning any two of these sites on the horizon ring will align all of these sites on the ring. 3-D world atlas software programs will also draw this great circle around the earth.

Wait you guys, it's been staring us in the face this whole time! Let's just plot those sites on the ring, rotate by 33 degrees and line up the names of the sites alphabetically... it's a code, hidden in the sacred geometry of all of these ancient sites! BESURETO... Be sure to... DRINK.. YOUR OVALTINE? Ovaltine? A crummy commercial? Son of a bitch!
posted by signalnine at 1:31 PM on October 1 [1 favorite]

Can you say "confirmation bias"? Sure you can.
posted by Mental Wimp at 1:50 PM on October 1

*For a subset of World Wonders that does not include:
Stonehenge
The Great Wall
The Forbidden City
Great Zimbabwe
Anything Built by the Greeks and Romans


Oh my god, I think you have something here..

.. this proves the Forbidden City and Stonehenge weren't that great! I knew it!
posted by rainy at 3:04 PM on October 1

This is the type of thing that has a 99.9% chance of being BS, but its the type of thing I would like to be true just to make the world a little more interesting.

Comments like this make me feel like the world is a TV program that I've watched and loved for years and that I'm only now just introducing to someone else, desperate for them to like it, looking at them during the funny bits to see if they're laughing, and trying to explain the context of every little feature.

It isn't interesting enough already?
posted by doublehappy at 3:32 PM on October 1 [2 favorites]

Just wait until he finds out that all of those points are located on an oblate spheroid!
posted by klangklangston at 5:14 PM on October 1 [2 favorites]

what's the side of the circle for cool people?
posted by qvantamon at 5:31 PM on October 1

Ah, favorite-begging. And looks like it worked.
posted by Joseph Gurl at 5:48 PM on October 1

pentagonal synodic series
posted by hortense at 11:37 PM on October 1

The tags are broken, the one with the bat excrement is missing.
posted by Laotic at 11:23 AM on October 2