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The Golden Ratio


Alisdair.MacDonald

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"Why are the objects that contain the Golden Ratio so pleasing? Much reliable evidence has shown that objects that meet the requirements of the Golden Ratio are attractive and pleasing to the human eye. Throughout history, many experts have tried to find reasonable explanations for this question.

Two thousand years ago, ancient Greeks discovered the magic of this ratio from the Golden Rectangle. The Golden Rectangle is a rectangle that meets the Golden Ratio requirements and contains an infinite number of proportional Golden Rectangles within itself. The ancient Greeks were attracted by this special number and its unique characteristics."

http://library.thinkquest.org/trio/TTQ05063/phisecrets.htm

My question:

Is there evidence to suggest that we are hard wired to perceive aesthetic beauty in a certain way, or are these claims simply theories?

Can anyone find examples of the golden ratio actually happening in nature?

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The Fibonacci series can be found in many flower petal layouts and seed layouts like the sun flower and a pine cone. It also describes the spiral of some sea shells.

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The Fibonacci series can be found in many flower petal layouts and seed layouts like the sun flower and a pine cone. It also describes the spiral of some sea shells.

I am familiar with the Fibonacci series. I will have to check this out. Thanks!

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My question:

Is there evidence to suggest that we are hard wired to perceive aesthetic beauty in a certain way, or are these claims simply theories?

Interesting topic. Personally, I don´t believe this is an "either or" proposition. I think like the "nature or nurture" discussion, this is not a question of one or the other, but of both factors being there.

Clearly, there is evidence that we are hard-wired to enjoy some things (think voluptuous young females...)

And just as clearly, there is evidence that we can learn to enjoy some very weird things (think lutefisk or vegemite...)

The golden ratio might be so pleasing because it relates to the perfect human shape (e.g. the Da Vinci man). Just an idea.

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"Why are the objects that contain the Golden Ratio so pleasing? Much reliable evidence has shown that objects that meet the requirements of the Golden Ratio are attractive and pleasing to the human eye. Throughout history, many experts have tried to find reasonable explanations for this question.

Two thousand years ago, ancient Greeks discovered the magic of this ratio from the Golden Rectangle. The Golden Rectangle is a rectangle that meets the Golden Ratio requirements and contains an infinite number of proportional Golden Rectangles within itself. The ancient Greeks were attracted by this special number and its unique characteristics."

http://library.think.../phisecrets.htm

My question:

Is there evidence to suggest that we are hard wired to perceive aesthetic beauty in a certain way, or are these claims simply theories?

Now a US academic believes he has discovered the reason why it pleases the eye. According to Adrian Bejan, professor of mechanical engineering at Duke University, in Durham, North Carolina, the human eye is capable of interpreting an image featuring the golden ratio faster than any other.

Source

Can anyone find examples of the golden ratio actually happening in nature?

There's this webpage called "Google."

Here's what it says about this.

Harte

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Interesting link Harte...

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Not to mention humiliating.

H.

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Hello,

Since 2007, i have made pictures of an odd structure in central Greenland. This structure was, apparently, a golden mean rectangle. I have proposed since then that this rectangle was Plato´s rectangular and oblong plain:

I will now describe the plain, as it was fashioned by nature and by the labours of many generations of kings through long ages. It was for the most part rectangular and oblong, and where falling out of the straight line followed the circular ditch. The depth, and width, and length of this ditch were incredible, and gave the impression that a work of such extent, in addition to so many others, could never have been artificial. Nevertheless I must say what I was told. It was excavated to the depth of a hundred, feet, and its breadth was a stadium everywhere; it was carried round the whole of the plain, and was ten thousand stadia in length. It received the streams which came down from the mountains, and winding round the plain and meeting at the city, was there let off into the sea. Further inland, likewise, straight canals of a hundred feet in width were cut from it through the plain, and again let off into the ditch leading to the sea: these canals were at intervals of a hundred stadia, and by them they brought down the wood from the mountains to the city, and conveyed the fruits of the earth in ships, cutting transverse passages from one canal into another, and to the city. Twice in the year they gathered the fruits of the earth-in winter having the benefit of the rains of heaven, and in summer the water which the land supplied by introducing streams from the canals.

<a href="http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/critias.html">http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/critias.html

In Euclidean plane geometry, a rectangle is any quadrilateral with four right angles. It can also be defined as an equiangular quadrilateral, since equiangular means that all of its angles are equal (360°/4 = 90°). It can also be defined as a parallelogram containing a right angle. A rectangle with four sides of equal length is a square. The term oblong is occasionally used to refer to a non-square rectangle.[1][2][3] A rectangle with vertices ABCD would be denoted as 10px-Rectanglen.PNG ABCD.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rectangle

There was, some years ago, a great controversy on the internet regarding this subject (object).The image below has vanished from Google earth, according to specialists. Nevertheless, there is still an "invisible" golden mean rectangle in the center of Greenland (see links with dates).

atlantis%2520mountain5.jpg

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-qlNdrj_5bD8/RwfDcfdjQrI/AAAAAAAAAOE/dZgOExZV5WY/s800/z.png

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-tWyroCPqdcA/To5HQ53jR6I/AAAAAAAAHGM/wN6kdQ6ViT4/s720/Atlantis%2520%25289%2529.jpg

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-YcXdbU6e0bo/To48QGYQyKI/AAAAAAAAHP0/eUUWf9pxkPM/s800/AAAAB.jpg

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-_IeijkUello/To5CSdpPP9I/AAAAAAAAHF4/t4_qOTXmYHk/s800/Atlantis%2520A2.jpg

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-ZEqNjLFIabQ/To5CYJQyitI/AAAAAAAAHGE/9llK78HmMxk/s800/The%2520Plain.jpg

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-jLYETYCOgDc/To5CT0pFTWI/AAAAAAAAHF8/qJS_ncw52Qc/s800/Atlantis%2520A3.jpg

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-3R64pmeao34/Tc-ofLMj_KI/AAAAAAAAFmk/u4ZtVJvK83A/s800/ASFT.jpg

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-yDFGj59Q4hU/Tc79fuCsTyI/AAAAAAAAFj0/kp41XVvIlZU/s800/Atlantis%2520%25283%2529.jpg

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-BI964vHI8n0/Tc8J0vWvbrI/AAAAAAAAFkU/yYZSgsrghqs/s800/Atlantis%2520%2528NOOP%2529.jpg

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-0psgPm9kaec/Tc792JED8sI/AAAAAAAAFmE/SI5y1qgPsOE/s720/Atlantis%2520%25289%2529.jpg

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-FHvqKw0s_O4/TcWVa-m2JkI/AAAAAAAAFig/yKSprNGFywY/s800/A2.jpg

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-vWFxf5iilZ4/Sq5vQdXbqKI/AAAAAAAACVo/rxCXXE6IEAg/s435/smail_fig04a.gif

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-3aWeUh6yyRA/Sq5ldSbtPaI/AAAAAAAACVI/a9PvrFaupcI/s435/smail_fig04a.gif

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-4AF6AlEoUmU/Sq6IY9--EGI/AAAAAAAACWk/s69sNYqNvzI/s800/The%2520Island%25202.jpeg

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-4AF6AlEoUmU/Sq6IY9--EGI/AAAAAAAACWk/s69sNYqNvzI/s800/The%2520Island%25202.jpeg

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-AS1cmLA0FIc/Sq5sU85lMPI/AAAAAAAACVk/TTWvPW2FxTg/s640/oijoijoij.jpg

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-qP4b7Gbados/TFgD1-UwcgI/AAAAAAAAEGk/kucz4tDreR0/s800/Atlantis%2520A4.jpg

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-gfHkxYl-rBo/TFgD1anvvHI/AAAAAAAAEG4/tzA4emQf-qs/s800/Atlantis%2520A1.jpg

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-lHcgriHxP-w/TFgD1yNpmyI/AAAAAAAAEGc/8K_G1LfoveA/s800/Atlantis%2520A2.jpg

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-P9HWGd8ez2E/TaXx4CewgmI/AAAAAAAAFeM/SvQxSHi2IRU/s800/Atlantis.jpg

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-hGUXGYe7KAM/S_Gr0iVd4PI/AAAAAAAAHWg/9GNeeMcUQeQ/s800/Zkircher_topography1.jpeg

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-UE68jNOIhbQ/TDzgTdTD1dI/AAAAAAAAD_Q/xaV4pwQUBcU/s800/atlantis%2520mountain5.jpg

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-2npvj6VCNXs/Rwa-440OJHI/AAAAAAAAAHg/7EKaP1O4Tzc/s800/The%2520Plain%25204.jpeg

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600px-SimilarGoldenRectangles.svg.png

A golden rectangle is one whose side lengths are in the

golden ratio, 0ef2fdac446668fbfcf2639206d0d446.png, which is a804c8dd3d8ccb75bdd930a1e254da27.png (the Greek letter phi), where 3538eb9c84efdcbd130c4c953781cfdb.png is approximately 1.618.

I forgot to mention that Plato´s rectangle plain´s side lengths are also in the golden ratio, that is 1.618... which makes it a golden mean rectangle!

Width across its Centre 2000 Stadia

Length along the Sea 3000 Stadia

(data taken from Ulf Richter´s work http://www.black-sea...com/richter.pdf)

3000 / 2000 ----------- ratio = 1.5

Edited by Mario Dantas
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600px-SimilarGoldenRectangles.svg.png

A golden rectangle is one whose side lengths are in the

golden ratio, 0ef2fdac446668fbfcf2639206d0d446.png, which is a804c8dd3d8ccb75bdd930a1e254da27.png (the Greek letter phi), where 3538eb9c84efdcbd130c4c953781cfdb.png is approximately 1.618.

I forgot to mention that Plato´s rectangle plain´s side lengths are also in the golden ratio, that is 1.618... which makes it a golden mean rectangle!

Width across its Centre 2000 Stadia

Length along the Sea 3000 Stadia

(data taken from Ulf Richter´s work http://www.black-sea...com/richter.pdf)

3000 / 2000 ----------- ratio = 1.5

Doesn't your previous quote say the plain was 10 000 stadia in length?

I cant make any sense of the sat. photo.

Edited by vitruvian12
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Hi vitruvian12,

I don´t know what happened while i was editing my first post, everything just went upside down...

Here is the quote of Plato´s Critias:

I will now describe the plain, as it was fashioned by nature and by the labours of many generations of kings through long ages. It was for line followed the circular ditch. The depth, and width, and length of this ditch were incredible, and gave the impression that a work of such extent, in addition to so many others, could never have been artificial. Nevertheless feet, and its breadth was a stadium everywhere; it was carried round the whole of the plain, and was ten thousand stadia in length. It received the streams which came down from the mountains, and winding round the plain likewise, straight canals of a hundred feet in width were cut from it through the plain, and again let off into the ditch leading to the sea: these canals were at intervals of a hundred stadia, and by them they brought down the in ships, cutting transverse passages from one canal into another, and to the city. Twice in the year they gathered the fruits of the earth-in winter having the benefit of the rains of heaven, and in summer the water which the land supplied by introducing streams from the canals.

http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/critias.html

He says that the ditch was 10.000 stadia in length, not the plain:

and where falling out of the straight line followed the circular ditch. The depth, and width, and length of this in addition to so many others, could never have been artificial. Nevertheless I must say what I was told. It was excavated to the depth of a hundred, feet, and its breadth was a stadium everywhere; it was carried round the whole of the plain, and was ten thousand stadia in length.

Regarding the satellite image on Google Earth, it is supposed to be a rectangular shape. Although i have given up to show any similarity with a rectangle, it is there still:

AAAAB.jpg

WQE.jpg

Atlantis%2520A3.jpg

Sorry for the typos...

Regards,

Mario Dantas

Edited by Mario Dantas
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I see that now 1.5 = 1.618...

Close enough?

Hardly.

1.5, after all, is rational. Phi is irrational.

I guess that doesn't matter to some people though.

Harte

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Since 2007, i have made pictures of an odd structure in central Greenland. This structure was, apparently, a golden mean rectangle. I have proposed since then that this rectangle was Plato´s rectangular and oblong plain:

I still can't believe you've spent 6 years working on a google maps compilation error artifact. There is no evidence Greenland has moved noticably in the last 100,000 years.

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What's interesting is how much historical design uses the golden ratio and formal geometric shape, yet modern day design is now far more organic. Partly because of computer programs, 'innovative style', partly due to land planning parcels of land not being geometric and partly because of client requirements (creating a unique building, safety factors, tennacy utilization etc). A few times as an architect/urban planner I have used all sorts of mathematics, ratios and geometric shapes in modern design typology (ie not copying classical architecture styles)...but my staff and clients don't care about it haha!!

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I see that now 1.5 = 1.618...

Close enough?

Hardly.

1.5, after all, is rational. Phi is irrational.

I guess that doesn't matter to some people though.

Harte

You are correct they aren't the same figures, although i hope you agree that they are very close, approximately a difference of a tenth...

Maybe one could consider rounding that number?

Rounding is often done on purpose to obtain a value that is easier to write and handle than the original. It may be done also to indicate the accuracy of a computed number; for example, a quantity that was computed as 123,456 but is known to be accurate only to within a few hundred units is better stated as "about 123,500."

On the other hand, rounding introduces some round-off error in the result. Rounding is almost unavoidable in many computations — especially when dividing two numbers in integeror fixed-point arithmetic; when computing mathematical functions such as square roots, logarithms, and sines; or when using a floating point representation with a fixed number of significant digits. In a sequence of calculations, these rounding errors generally accumulate, and in certain ill-conditioned cases they may make the result meaningless.

Accurate rounding of transcendental mathematical functions is difficult because the number of extra digits that need to be calculated to resolve whether to round up or down cannot be known in advance. This problem is known as "the table-maker's dilemma".

Rounding has many similarities to the quantization that occurs when physical quantities must be encoded by numbers or digital signals.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rounding

The dimensions of the plain (157 Km x 104 Km) proposed by Ulf Richter, (and i advise you to read his work on Plato´s Atlantic metrics): Plato´s Atlantis was in a River Delta http://www.black-sea...com/richter.pdf, are the same as the rectangle i have shown you. Maybe it is a coincidence, maybe not.

100 km is already larger than the length of the island where i live (the largest island in Cape Verde), and to consider a man made plain even larger, is unbelievable to me. Meaning that the sheer size of the Plato´s monster plain and the golden mean rectangle are different by a tenth of the unit, and that is very aproximate?

Regards,

Mario Dantas

Edited by Mario Dantas
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I still can't believe you've spent 6 years working on a google maps compilation error artifact. There is no evidence Greenland has moved noticably in the last 100,000 years.

If you call this a map compilation error artifact:

Atlantis%2520Iberia.jpg

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100 km is already larger than the length of the island where i live (the largest island in Cape Verde), and to consider a man made plain even larger, is unbelievable to me. Meaning that the sheer size of the Plato´s monster plain and the golden mean rectangle are different by a tenth of the unit, and that is very aproximate?

Regards,

Mario Dantas

I feel much the same way about people who insist that Atlantis was srsly, totes a real place and not at a ficitonal, political metaphor.

--Jaylemurph

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I feel much the same way about people who insist that Atlantis was srsly, totes a real place and not at a ficitonal, political metaphor.

--Jaylemurph

Hello,

Personally, on the contrary, i try to have no problem in accepting people either insisting or giving up, all at once, the Atlantis theme. People are entitled to have their own opinions, you know? Perhaps Atlantis is not real or perhaps it is... can you prove that Atlantis was not real? Can you or anybody prove that Atlantis was a metaphor, as you put it? Why an intelligent person would ridicule another for peanuts? But you are a free person, do as you please.

It is a shameful thing for a person as enlightened as yourself to act as prejudice. I couldn't care less ABOUT how you feel about people, Jaylemurph!

" And now look again, and see what will naturally follow if the prisoners are released and disabused of their error. At first, when any of them is liberated and compelled suddenly to stand up and turn his neck round and walk and look towards the light, he will suffer sharp pains; the glare will distress him, and he will be unable to see the realities of which in his former state he had seen the shadows; and then conceive some one saying to him, that what he saw before was an illusion, but that now, when he is approaching nearer to being and his eye is turned towards more real existence, he has a clearer vision, -what will be his reply? And you may further imagine that his instructor is pointing to the objects as they pass and requiring him to name them, -will he not be perplexed? Will he not fancy that the shadows which he formerly saw are truer than the objects which are now shown to him?"

http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/allegory.html

Regards,

Mario Dantas

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Hi vitruvian12,

I don´t know what happened while i was editing my first post, everything just went upside down...

Here is the quote of Plato´s Critias:

http://classics.mit....to/critias.html

He says that the ditch was 10.000 stadia in length, not the plain:

Regarding the satellite image on Google Earth, it is supposed to be a rectangular shape. Although i have given up to show any similarity with a rectangle, it is there still:

AAAAB.jpg

WQE.jpg

Atlantis%2520A3.jpg

Sorry for the typos...

Regards,

Mario Dantas

Plato also gives measurements of the island the mountain is on, the alternating rings of water and land surrounding the island. the length of the canal connecting the outermost ring of water to the sea and the distance the island is from the plain.

The plain and island are 50 stadia apart (5.6 miles)

Island - 5 stadia

inner water ring - 1 stadia

Land ring - 2 stadia

water ring - 2 stadia

Land ring - 3 stadia

Outer Water ring - 3 stadia

Canal connecting outer water ring to sea - 50 stadia

From the middle of the island to the sea - 63.5 stadia (7.2 miles)

Now both the island with the mountain and the plain were in the center of the island of Atlantis. Since the island with the mountain was 7.2 miles from the sea and that same island was only 5.6 miles from the plain then the edge of the plain can be no more than 13 miles from the sea. If your supposed find is greater than that then it is not the plain of Atlantis.

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cross%2520section%2520Canal%2520one%2520trireme.pngtrirreme%25202.jpeg

trirreme.jpeg

Quaetum,

There is a little problem with your assertions. Plato’s dimensioning system of Atlantis was simply too large to be true (in the opinion of Ulf Richter and mine too and many others). Of course this is all but a possibility, since we do not even know if Atlantis was real, in the first place. But, in the eventuality of it being true, there are many inconsistencies regarding the actual dimensions given by Plato.

I consider myself to have a “direct” approach on Atlantis, meaning that every detail in Plato “Critias” is taken as is, e.g. the existence of a huge island, surrounded by mountains, in front of Gibraltar, in the Atlantic having a huge central plain, a mountain near the plain, three rings around the city, a racecourse, etc. Nevertheless, the features i propose are only identical to Plato’s description, if everything is downsized, as proposed by Dr. Ulf Richter in “Plato’s Atlantis was in a River Delta”.

He says the following:

“If the plain of Atlantis had a size of 555 x 370 km, it would not be possible to recognize from its centre that it is encircled by mountain chains, due to their great distance.”

I will transcribe from Ulf Richter’s own work, the chapter which deals with the dimensioning problem in Atlantis:

9. “KHET” INSTEAD OF STADE

We have, indeed, an example that a famous Greek author gave wrong information by transforming Egyptian length units into Greek "stades". This was Herodotus, the "father of history" , who gave all distances in Egypt (in stades) much longer as they are in reality, while he reported all the distances in Greece correctly. The usual explanation for this error is that he has mixed up the Egyptian units of measurement, obviously taken from an Egyptian itinerary, before he transformed them into stades. A similar error could have taken place while the Egyptian priest narrated the Atlantis story to Solon. It is self-evident that the priest gave all the distances in Egyptian units of measurement, as they were written in the ancient texts, and Solon wrote them down as he heard them for later transformation into Greek stades. When he returned to Greece he had no opportunity for this calculation or forgot it. His heirs (Dropides, Critias the Elder and Critias the Younger) found in Solon´s notes only the figures without the units of measurement

and obviously thought it must be stades (especially since in their time, due to the busy trade with the Greeks, even the Egyptian people were using Greek stades in addition to their own units), and Critias passed this (erroneous) information on to Plato.

I feel that this is a very probable error in the long chain of tradition between the Saitic priest and Plato. Which unit of measurement was commonly used by the ancient Egyptians? It was the "Royal Cubit" or "Meh" (0,524 m) and for longer distances the "Khet" = 100 "Royal Cubits" (1 khet = 52,4 meters = 172 feet) /7/ When we take this "khet" for what Plato called "stade", we get much more probable dimensions for Atlantis than those mentioned before. (See table 2, column 3):

a) The size of the level plain is 105 x 157 km (16475 sq.km, a little smaller than the Peloponesos-peninsula in Greece).

b ) The diameter of the central city of Atlantis is 6,7 km (The city of Rome in the late times of the Roman empire (Aurelian wall) had a diameter of 6 km and about one million inhabitants).

c) The racecourse for horses is 52 m wide and 3 kilometers long, like one of the larger modern racecourses.

d) The canal round the plain is 524 km long, 52 m wide and 8,7 m deep. (The forerunner of the Suez canal, built by pharaoh Necho and king Dareios of Persia about 500 BC, was 180 km long, 45 m wide and had a depth of 5.5 m; see table 1)

table%25201.png

e) The bridges over the circular canals are 8,7 m wide, comparable with the breadth of medieval bridges. f) The temple of Poseidon has a size of

26 x 52 m, a very reasonable size compared with the famous Poseidon temple in Paestum/Italy (24 x 60 m).

But couldn´t it be the case that with the introduction of the “Khet”-dimensions some measures were too small to be credible? Was it possible that on the canal from the sea to the harbour with a width of 26,2 m two triremes could meet? A Greek trireme from classical times was 37 m long, had an overall beam of 5,5 m and a height of about 4 m /8/. The oars had a length of 4,2 m, but due to their oblique position relative to the surface of the sea, and one third of their length being inside the ship, the horizontal space needed for using one oar is only 2,7 m .

Was the central island at 262 m diameter big enough to contain all the reported buildings: temple of Poseidon and Cleito, Royal Palace (Crit.116C), separate baths for the kings, for private citizens and for horses, the guard-house for the most trustworthy spearmen (Crit.117C) and the sacred grove of Poseidon (Crit.117B) ?

The Acropolis in Athens (120 x 280 m) has an area of about 30000 sq.m compared with 54000 sq.m for the central island of Atlantis. We can conclude that it makes sense to take Egyptian “Khets” instead of Greek “Stades” for getting a better interpretation of the dimensions of Atlantis in Plato's “Critias”.

http://www.black-sea-atlantis.com/richter.pdf

My findings are completely within the logic of smaller scale Atlantis, as i stated in the beginning. Alas, i could not possibly measure all details since many are small and difficult to capture with Google earth.

Regards,

Mario Dantas

Edited by Mario Dantas
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I seriously don't understand ..what the heck does a hypothetical crawling of an island have to do with the golden ratio??

smell a hijack!

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cross%2520section%2520Canal%2520one%2520trireme.pngtrirreme%25202.jpeg

trirreme.jpeg

Quaetum,

There is a little problem with your assertions. Plato’s dimensioning system of Atlantis was simply too large to be true (in the opinion of Ulf Richter and mine too and many others). Of course this is all but a possibility, since we do not even know if Atlantis was real, in the first place. But, in the eventuality of it being true, there are many inconsistencies regarding the actual dimensions given by Plato.

I consider myself to have a “direct” approach on Atlantis, meaning that every detail in Plato “Critias” is taken as is, e.g. the existence of a huge island, surrounded by mountains, in front of Gibraltar, in the Atlantic having a huge central plain, a mountain near the plain, three rings around the city, a racecourse, etc. Nevertheless, the features i propose are only identical to Plato’s description, if everything is downsized, as proposed by Dr. Ulf Richter in “Plato’s Atlantis was in a River Delta”.

He says the following:

“If the plain of Atlantis had a size of 555 x 370 km, it would not be possible to recognize from its centre that it is encircled by mountain chains, due to their great distance.”

I will transcribe from Ulf Richter’s own work, the chapter which deals with the dimensioning problem in Atlantis:

http://www.black-sea-atlantis.com/richter.pdf

My findings are completely within the logic of smaller scale Atlantis, as i stated in the beginning. Alas, i could not possibly measure all details since many are small and difficult to capture with Google earth.

Regards,

Mario Dantas

It still comes down to whether the Google artifact you feel is the plain is less than 13 miles from the sea. If not then that artifact can not be the plain.

Also since Green land is larger than Plato's Atlantis, saying that Plato's measurements were too large would reduce the size of the island further and even more show that Greenland never could have been Atlantis.

If you call this a map compilation error artifact:

Atlantis%2520Iberia.jpg

It's called your view of Atlantis which doesn't fit with known evidence.

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Hello,

Personally, on the contrary, i try to have no problem in accepting people either insisting or giving up, all at once, the Atlantis theme. People are entitled to have their own opinions, you know? Perhaps Atlantis is not real or perhaps it is... can you prove that Atlantis was not real? Can you or anybody prove that Atlantis was a metaphor, as you put it? Why an intelligent person would ridicule another for peanuts? But you are a free person, do as you please.

It is a shameful thing for a person as enlightened as yourself to act as prejudice. I couldn't care less ABOUT how you feel about people, Jaylemurph!

" And now look again, and see what will naturally follow if the prisoners are released and disabused of their error. At first, when any of them is liberated and compelled suddenly to stand up and turn his neck round and walk and look towards the light, he will suffer sharp pains; the glare will distress him, and he will be unable to see the realities of which in his former state he had seen the shadows; and then conceive some one saying to him, that what he saw before was an illusion, but that now, when he is approaching nearer to being and his eye is turned towards more real existence, he has a clearer vision, -what will be his reply? And you may further imagine that his instructor is pointing to the objects as they pass and requiring him to name them, -will he not be perplexed? Will he not fancy that the shadows which he formerly saw are truer than the objects which are now shown to him?"

http://www.historygu...t/allegory.html

Regards,

Mario Dantas

I have maintained an active prejudice against laziness (defined as a lack of rigorous thinking) and misinformation masquerading as real history for some time. I will continue to do so for some time, I hope.

(Not that I'm accusing you of deliberately passing misinformation, though.)

But yes, I can prove Atlantis was metaphor. Very simply. It's done via a simple process called "actualyl reading the the Republic" -- also known as the first place to actually menion Altantis. However, few people advocating a real Atlantis have done so as it would require reading an otherwise dry philosophical text. Atlantis is clearly set up as an antithesis to Plato's ideal Republic. You can choose to ignore that historical and literary context, and continue looking for a real place called Atlantis, and then make detours for Oz, Middle Earth, Barsoom and Narnia, since all those places have exactly as much call to be regarded as a real place.

I cannot, however, prove Atlantis is not real. I cannot prove anything is not real, or is not anything else. It's not how logic works at a basic level. And if you can't apply basic logic to a question, then I feel like you may not be suited to the sort of literary and historical critcism necessary to justify your claims about a real Atlantis. Especially inasmuch as suggesting Atlantis was a real place means overturning the work many, many scholars who can and do submit to rigorous thinking and strict logical thought.

--Jaylemurph

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