Re: Colson on Christianity and science

A real gallon is 4.54 litres. In some places they shortsell you and give
only about 3.8 litres (they cant even spell - they mis-spell as liters) .

I think George should learn more about weights and measures

Michael
----- Original Message -----
From: "George Murphy" <gmurphy@raex.com>
To: "Robert Schneider" <rjschn39@bellsouth.net>
Cc: "Michael Roberts" <michael.andrea.r@ukonline.co.uk>; "ASA"
<asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, December 09, 2003 12:39 AM
Subject: Re: Colson on Christianity and science

> Robert Schneider wrote:
> >
> > Oh, dear!
> >
> > The dialogue from Chiari's play (below) perpetuates a falsehood that
should
> > have been laid to rest long before 1979. Every educated person (almost
all
> > of them churchmen) in the Middle Ages knew the earth was a sphere. If
you
> > went to university, you learned it from Aristotle (at the University of
> > Paris, two-thirds of the Arts curriculum was science-based, i.e., mainly
> > Aristotle's works on natural philosopy). The dialogue would have been
more
> > accurate and more interesting if the Prior and Columbus had argued over
the
> > wisdom of sailing west to find the East. If my increasingly feeble
memory
> > is correct, Columbus was led to his decision by a calculation that put
the
> > earth's circumference a few thousand miles less than it actually is. He
got
> > this figure from the book by the 14th century natural philosopher Nicole
> > Oresme. His _Le livre de ciel et du monde_ was a reworking of the
latin
> > version of a treatise by the 9th century Muslim astronomer Alfarabi, who
had
> > published the wrong figure.
>
> If I remember correctly, the error here was due to confusion of units.
> Eratosthenes had determined the earth's circumference ~ 250 BC. &
expressed it in stadia
> - but then one needs to know which stadium he used as a unit. Kind of
like "What's a
> cubit?" or an imperial & a real gallon. (That's to see if Michael is
reading
> carefully.)
> Shalom,
> George
>
>
>
> George L. Murphy
> gmurphy@raex.com
> http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
>
>
>
>
Received on Tue Dec 9 04:37:58 2003