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Saint Michael Sword: Are the cathedrals really on a straight line?

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Re: Saint Michael Sword: Are the cathedrals really on a straight line?

#221

Post by pbmonster »

sokoloff wrote: post #217
santiagobasulto wrote: post #214

I live very close to the one in Italy (close to Turin). It's SO impressive. The early cathedral was built around the year ~800AD. And it was not "built" in the sense that they placed bricks one over the other. Instead, what they did was "cut" the stone of the mountain to shape it as a cathedral. The steps of the stairs are just cut and shaped stone, the walls are just stone. It can be summer and 90degrees in Turin, a…

> It can be summer and 90degrees in Turin, and inside the cathedral is 30 degrees and so chill. Which temperature scale are you using here?

Shitty life-hacks: you can ballpark converting from Celsius to Fahrenheit by multiplying by 2!

Re: Saint Michael Sword: Are the cathedrals really on a straight line?

#222

Post by SebastianoF »

Hello! Being the author of the blog post commented here, I'm glad it became food for thoughts.

Here a few of the salient points:

> They are not cathedrals!

True! As I learned after writing the blog post, a Cathedral is not simply a large church. As written in several comments there has to be a bishop.

> Fallacy of using other projection than the Mercator one.

It was known that they are "visually" aligned on the Mercator projection. The question is: does it mean that they are aligned on the surface of the earth? That question was the crucial one underpinned the post.

> Birthday paradox and Texas sharpshooter fallacy.

These are two really interesting take on the problem that I did not considered or knew about. Certainly worth exploring in a next blog post.

Also I have to inform you that the blog is temporarily suspended. This decision is after an unfortunate billing policy from the provider netlify. It has nothing to do with the comments received here. On the contrary the comments received here had encouraged me to write more (and to document myself better beforehand).

I hope to be able to bring it up back soon with a different provider, that would not add extra costs with no capping for going "viral" and exceeding the allowed free bandwidth.

Re: Saint Michael Sword: Are the cathedrals really on a straight line?

#223

Post by throw_pm23 »

pbmonster wrote: post #221
sokoloff wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It can be summer and 90degrees in Turin, and inside the cathedral is 30 degrees and so chill. Which temperature scale are you using here?

Shitty life-hacks: you can ballpark converting from Celsius to Fahrenheit by multiplying by 2!

This life-hack is significantly improved if you change it to:

C->F: multiply by 2, then add 30

F->C: subtract 30, then divide by 2.

Re: Saint Michael Sword: Are the cathedrals really on a straight line?

#224

Post by throw_pm23 »

sokoloff wrote: post #217
santiagobasulto wrote: post #214

I live very close to the one in Italy (close to Turin). It's SO impressive. The early cathedral was built around the year ~800AD. And it was not "built" in the sense that they placed bricks one over the other. Instead, what they did was "cut" the stone of the mountain to shape it as a cathedral. The steps of the stairs are just cut and shaped stone, the walls are just stone. It can be summer and 90degrees in Turin, a…

> It can be summer and 90degrees in Turin, and inside the cathedral is 30 degrees and so chill. Which temperature scale are you using here?

I suppose Celsius and 90 is a poetic exaggeration for 35+, while 30 being realistic for inside a stone-building mid-summer in Italy.

Alternatively, Fahrenheit, and 90 is realistic for outdoors mid-summer in Italy and 30 is a poetic exaggeration for ~80 inside a stone-building. If meant literally, the holy water would freeze inside the cathedral. Besides, nobody uses Fahrenheit in Europe, but poetic exaggeration is common.

Re: Saint Michael Sword: Are the cathedrals really on a straight line?

#225

Post by nabla9 »

jameshart wrote: post #146
nabla9 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>.. are aligned. Only on Mercator projection that is younger than many of the sites on the line. Oder of things: 1. There were bunch of monasteries (not cathedrals), not aligned on any direct line. 2. Mercator invented a projection. 3. Someone looked at map using Mercator a projection and invented story about ley lines.

The Mercator projection has the property that lines on it are of constant bearing. You don’t need a map projection to follow a line of constant bearing - you just need to head towards the point where the same star rises every night (mostly. Over a short enough number of nights, it works, anyway).

Nobody could have discovered that these points are in the line of constant bearing without maps.

(hiking in straight line and jumping into boat at the point where land ends is not how people travel)

Re: Saint Michael Sword: Are the cathedrals really on a straight line?

#226

Post by thruway516 »

throw_pm23 wrote: post #223
pbmonster wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shitty life-hacks: you can ballpark converting from Celsius to Fahrenheit by multiplying by 2!

This life-hack is significantly improved if you change it to: C->F: multiply by 2, then add 30 F->C: subtract 30, then divide by 2.

Ill say. If I follow GPs life-hack for 30C I get 60F, which is significantly different from 86F. Some life-hack.

Re: Saint Michael Sword: Are the cathedrals really on a straight line?

#227

Post by tjoff »

throw_pm23 wrote: post #224
sokoloff wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It can be summer and 90degrees in Turin, and inside the cathedral is 30 degrees and so chill. Which temperature scale are you using here?

I suppose Celsius and 90 is a poetic exaggeration for 35+, while 30 being realistic for inside a stone-building mid-summer in Italy. Alternatively, Fahrenheit, and 90 is realistic for outdoors mid-summer in Italy and 30 is a poetic exaggeration for ~80 inside a stone-building. If meant literally, the holy water would freeze inside the cathedral. Besides, nobody uses Fahrenheit in Europe, but poetic exaggeration is co…

I've never heard of anyone proclaim 30 deg c as being "so chill". Also much hotter than what I would expect a cathedral to be.

But then again, I am sensitive to heat.

Re: Saint Michael Sword: Are the cathedrals really on a straight line?

#228

Post by SebastianoF »

SebastianoF wrote: post #222

Hello! Being the author of the blog post commented here, I'm glad it became food for thoughts. Here a few of the salient points: > They are not cathedrals! True! As I learned after writing the blog post, a Cathedral is not simply a large church. As written in several comments there has to be a bishop. > Fallacy of using other projection than the Mercator one. It was known that they are "visually" aligned on the Merca…

Blog is up and running again there:

https://sebastianof.github.io/GeoDsBlog/posts/gds-2024-04-20...

Sorry for the temporary disruption.

Re: Saint Michael Sword: Are the cathedrals really on a straight line?

#229

Post by lambdaone »

pclmulqdq wrote: post #175
mensetmanusman wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

10^-8 compared to -16?

I don't think it's that low. The number of coincidences will rise exponentially with the number of churches. You also have to account for the fact that there are something like 1000 prominent Catholic saints, and 10's of usable map projections, etc.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alignments_of_random_points for a thorough treatment of this topic, with citations to the published literature.

Re: Saint Michael Sword: Are the cathedrals really on a straight line?

#230

Post by dEnigma »

thruway516 wrote: post #226
throw_pm23 wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This life-hack is significantly improved if you change it to: C->F: multiply by 2, then add 30 F->C: subtract 30, then divide by 2.

Ill say. If I follow GPs life-hack for 30C I get 60F, which is significantly different from 86F. Some life-hack.

That's why they called it a "shitty" life hack.
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