Archaeologist May Have Found the First Protractor 78
If physicist Amelia Sparavigna is correct, in addition to frogs, lice, and locusts, Egyptian schoolchildren were also plagued with useless geometry instruments in their new notebooks at the beginning of every school year. A mysterious object was found in the architect Kha's tomb in 1906 and its function has remained the subject of debate ever since. Sparavigna is certain the object is actually the world's first protractor. From the article: "The key, she says, lies in the numbers encoded in the object's ornate decoration,(Pdf) which resembles a compass rose with 16 evenly spaced petals surrounded by a circular zigzag with 36 corners."
But... (Score:1)
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... all they have is a protractor.
Now really, this is definitely cause to worry. Everyone knows the overpowered force with the incredible super weapon will be defeated at the last second, usually with that same super weapon.
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Indeed. Tha'ts exactly what is said in all the movies and literature put out by the over-powering force.
Well, almost (Score:2)
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See my sig.
Yuk (Score:1)
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I've used a protractor before, when I was in elementary school. I cannot imagine a practical use for one today. Arithmetical calculation is far from a necessary task and does nothing to further human knowledge or ennoble the human spirit. It is a drudge task, for which we invented mechanical and, later, digital calculators beginning over a century ago. They are far faster and more accurate than the best human computers, to use the term in its old sense.
But I realize that anyone that disagrees with you is an
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This says more about the paucity of your imagination than it does about the utility of protractors. Do any sort of work where you (not a machine) have to produce a material object and you'll soon come across situations where you need them. Same if you only design or specify the objects.
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I've used a protractor before, when I was in elementary school. I cannot imagine a practical use for one today.
Well, I used one just a few days ago. The occasion was a piece of patio furniture, mostly made of wood, with a piece that was getting old and feeble. I had some pressure-treated boards in the shed, so I decided to just cut a replacement part. One of the tools I used was one of those gadgets that consists of a metal ruler with a rotatable protractor attached. I used it to copy the angles of the original piece, so it would fit correctly. It worked fine, and the patio chair has a bright new segment that
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Want to really confuse a cashier? If your total is (for example) $9.62 give them a ten and twelve cents. Stand back though, their brain may explode befo
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Sadist. (In a good sense.)
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I made a point of counting out change to people, and the younger ones would generally give me a 'What the hell are you doing?" look, while older customers would look pleased.
I'm no longer young, but I hate it when people count my change back. I can count the change in my hand a lot faster than you can count it into my hand. (I've usually counted it as they're pulling it out of the register anyway.)
Want to really confuse a cashier? If your total is (for example) $9.62 give them a ten and twelve cents.
I do this all the time. It is hilarious.
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JimFive
Earliest known...the earliest known protractor (Score:2)
Seriously.
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Yes, duh. Everything involving human knowledge is implicitly prefaced with "known". Stating it is unnecessary.
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I'm mostly referring to the headline stating it is the "first" but I would also argue that the "known" is not implicit.
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Yes I know, "First known", and yes it is implied. It's always implied. "Biggest meat-eating dinosaur", "earliest hominid", "most spectacular bosoms", "fastest man on earth" -- everything regarding these statements has an implicit "known" qualifier.
In cases where there is actually some reason to believe that there cannot possibly be something earlier, bigger, faster, etc -- i.e. cases where they are going beyond the implicit claim of "known" -- they will use some other qualifier. Like, "most massive star
Not useless (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not useless (Score:5, Funny)
That's quite a passionate and protracted argument. I think you covered all the angles.
Re:Not useless (Score:4, Funny)
I couldn't follow the arc of his somewhat obtuse argument, but the poster seems pretty rad and probably has a few advanced degrees.
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Posting to undo wrong mod (I picked a fine day to learn emacs - have lost all mousing ability already).
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I'd say you've paid him quite a complement, but to supplement your point, I'd say any difficulties are simply an acute problem, and not a sine of things to come.
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The original post was measured, but then you all went on a tangent. On a scalene of 1 to 10 I rate this thread just over 3.14.
Oh now... (Score:2)
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Clearly you've got the right angle on this.
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I think they were considered useless as in most math classes when students study Trig. they are taught to do the math and not measure it on a projector... (As values are not to scale) So in school it was a useless tool... However in real life where you do need to make things to scale they are quite useful... Even today. But if you were to use one in real life you are probably going to get something better then that $0.25 plastic protractor
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Thanks, Yeah I never could figure out why they sell them in the school supply aisle. Every trig problem I had to solve went to great efforts to say angles are not accurate. In fact I think they would intentionally make the angles inaccurate to catch people. All those classes I would sit there wondering why do they even sell this or show us how to use them.
I'd like to see a professional protractor.
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>I'd like to see a professional protractor.
It's steel and it goes in my toolbox.
There are those with vernier or electronic measurement so you can get resolution smaller than a degree. For measuring real-world things and for setting up machining and woodworking.
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BMO
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So you could almost use a protractor ownership to determine what kind of work a person does. I don't use a protractor, I deal with the ideal, with equations, with concepts. You on the other hand live in the real world and have to account for my screwups ;)
"In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is."
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>I'd like to see a professional protractor.
We have dial indicators for calibrating machine tools (aircraft tolerances). This kind of tool doesn't look like a school supply protractor but it measures the same thing. There are also tools that use a laser strobe to measure stuff like jitter on rotating machine parts.
In my VW toolbox I keep a homemade protractor. It's an aluminum one-legged arc that shows a few (experimentally derived) specific angles used for setting timing.
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On exam papers, in text books etc?
Look at any properly made engineering drawing. Somewhere there should be an injunction "DO NOT SCALE", meaning "Do not measure anything on this paper and correct for scale ; if you think you need a measurement, and it is not written in the drawing, consult your supervisor."
That applies to CAD-generated drawings as much as hand-drawn ones. The problem isn't in the drawing itself ; it's i
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What's all that? I'm going to design video games for a living!
*is ostensibly a grown man*
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I love when people don't get jokes, and then start insulting the joker. Makes them look really special.
Degrees beats grads and radians (Score:2)
I read the fine pdf. Appears to be a degree system of measurement. Eat that, grad and radian fans...
How she has ruled out a flower with 18-fold symmetry, or just random decorative stuff, is not described. I'd like to see a table of intervals vs measured degrees, I wonder how accurately it measures up.
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I read the fine pdf.
I read the image captions. Although it looks like english, it lacks a few important details, and even with those it would be gibberish. I refer to the caption that talks about the 16-fold symmetry (which it does not have) and the "18 corner" line, which they eventually admit actually has 36 corners.
With that kind of writing, I didn't bother reading the body of the text.
I'll save the point that the object lacks any reasonable means of use as a protractor for a different day. Oh, why not now. If there is a
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This object could have just been the case for such a tool. (Which, in itself could be a neat find, but I doubt the object in the picture was the actual tool. The markings on the straight edge do not get further apart as you get to the edges and this is something you'd notice if it was used in the way described. (ie: With a plumb.)
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TFA states that the object is a case, but for a balance, not a protractor. You can see the joint along the length of the body, but the hinges aren't illustrated. I'd guess leather, but not necessarily. And not important to the question at hand.
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Could you please translte you post into Italian. Your English is imperfect and confusing, and may actually be gibberish, and it would be so much more convenient for me if you wrote in Italian. Or Russian. Or French.
The article is obviously written by someone working in a non-native tongue, English. So before you criticize, ask yourself if you could do any better.
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I've heard that electrons can only spin in one of two directions. That means that they count in binary. Eat that, trinary, octal, decimal and hex fans ...
Same argument ; same relevance. They're different tools for different jobs.
Gradians (grads) were introduced to make artillery calculations simpler in the days when the calculations were done years before the gun was built and put into tables for use at the gun emplacement.
Rad
Multi-Tool (Score:4, Interesting)
I would considered it multi-tool.
You could use it a balance scale, a straight edge, a measuring unit, a protractor... Probably more. It would seem like a good tool for a Foreman to carry around and make sure the workers are getting things right or they need to be beaten more, heck by the look of it it could work as a nice club too.
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Considering the WIDE variety of protractors and "squares" throughout history which perform more than one function, your explanation makes perfect sense. So does robust construction since job sites are rough on gear.
Carpenters, ironworkers, and other tradesmen are still fond of the tools of their trade. No surprise one would be buried with them.
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The object is clearly made for accurate projectile shooting in the class room.
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Perhaps more of a cestus instead of a club.
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The Egyptians who built the pyramids were white (or at least, the people who DESIGNED them were white)
White? Really? Can you please explain why Scandinavians were living in Egypt?
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The only useful thing Edison actually invented was the lightbulb. Most everything else was invented by his staff and patented under the Edison company. His rejection of AC in the face of its clear benefits and his insistence on 'magnetic ore mining' as the future way to dig for gold shows he didn't have much creative talent.
He killed thousands of dogs and cats, including horses and an elephant. Read the book "The Electric Chair: An Unnatural American History". Here's a link to an electronic version from G
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The Egyptians who built the pyramids were white (or at least, the people who DESIGNED them were white)
White? Really? Can you please explain why Scandinavians were living in Egypt?
There for protracted tanning?
You can only see what it is ... (Score:2)
when you look at it from the Right Angle ...
Ducks!
Still unsolved (Score:3)
How do we know that this isn't the world's second protractor?
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The numbers on the top are obviously patent numbers. Since there are no serial numbers it's also, obviously, a prototype. No other device such as this could ever have been made.
Bah! (Score:2)
Hidden within the article is that this is an empty case that might have held something. Looking at the outer shape, it could just as easily have been a cannon. If they wanted to be helpful, they shou'd have shown pictures of the opened case. There is also no scale for this object, but it appears fairly large. Why would an empty box be put into a tomb? It could be hollow as a way to make it lighter, instead of making it a box. It could have been a childs see-saw. I'd look for wear patterns on this, ubkess it
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Looks to me like it's sitting on a sheet of quarter-inch plexiglass, so it's maybe 18 inches, ie. a bit over a cubit. I'd guess that the tool itself was exactly one cubit in length, making it multipurpose.
And I don't know what the mystery is, when it's stated that the case was with a bunch of related tools and is of such an obvious shape for the tool. When I was in high school lo those several decades ago, we still used protractors of this exact same type in Geometry class; if I look in enough boxes, I prob
Bad speed reading, again (Score:4, Insightful)
I thought the archaeologist found Phssthpok [wikipedia.org], a Pak Protector. That would have been news.
Did they also find... (Score:3)
The worlds first pocket protector too? I'm also missing a "Dukes of Hazzard" lunchbox and Thermos so if the archaeologists see it, let me know.
Egyptian schoolchildren (Score:2)
If this is such a mystery, why don't they just go to Egypt and ask these schoolchildren? They know Egypt is a country right? "Egyptian schoolchildren" from which era?
First Protractor... (Score:1)
That's no protractor.... (Score:1)
That's a toddler's see-saw...it's just leaning that way because that kid had no friends.