Re: News report on Penhallow's lecture


"Matt Giwer" <jull43@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:45ba7de7$0$28167$4c368faf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Doug Weller wrote:
http://www.newportdailynews.com/articles/2007/01/26/news/news1.txt
He said there are about two dozen alignments that he has documented in
the
tower. He began publicizing this information in 1992.

"All these alignments show ingenuity in their design and skill in their
placement," he wrote in an article for the New England Antiquities
Research Association's publication called "The Newport Tower" that was
published last year.

"Such an undertaking requires a knowledge of 3-D astronomy and a
suitable
instrument to lay them out," he said. "We are dealing here with more
than
just horizon astronomy."

One has to be curious and ask what is 3D astronomy? I only see two
dimensions
RA and Dec without using parallax and other very modern methods to
estimate
absolute distance from us. Nor do I see what interest the third dimension
of
distance would be in this case.

Penhallow discussed the placement of three windows that result in
alignments involving the sun and the moon and called the placements
clever. Two of the windows have "significant splaying to facilitate
sights
through them," while the other window is splayed only slightly to
exclude
an alignment between it and one of the other two windows.

"These alignments allow you to keep the lunar months in phase with the
solar year resulting in a lunisolar calendar," he said. "To say that the
three openings are randomly placed is simply not logical."

I have heard a lot about "alignments" but what I never hear or see at the
same
time are actual diagrams of these alignments showing how they work in
practice.
in this case it is difficult to imagine how a structure can be big enough
be
much better than a Mk 1 eyeball.

Some of the explanations of the alignments get complex. For example,
from
one location in the park, using a stepladder, you could look through the
top of one window and the bottom of another window and see the full moon
rising on the horizon during the Lunar Major on June 11, 2006."

Which was the ancient method of certifying the ladder was of the minimum
height
as required by tribal law.

Someone I know found Pi, Phi and the circumference of the Earth encoded
in
his bathroom. :-)

Obviously those clever ancient plumbers chose oval sinks to be certain
their
wisdom would not be lost.

--

Contrary to you and Doug (as it seems) I understand perfectly well where he
is comming from and what he is saying. As for 3D astronomy it was used here
in Scandinavia long before 3D was a 'common word'. It was used to measure
angles between places on Earth and a star as well as measuring angles
between stars and a place on Earth - pure 3D-geometry. It was also used to
take the angle between a fix point and the horizon using the North Star and
the outher left upper star in the Plogh. This was used in the old days at
sea and then to give direction information. It was used on land for more
practical daily informative usages as well as for cermonial purpose. Thought
that all this was common knowledge. Are you saying you don't know?

Inger E


.

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