Message #264092

[Hermocrates]

Unearthing Plato's Atlantis, one bite at a time; a recipe for deception

Today's ingredient; The circular ditch's length, 10,000 stadia.

What was Plato really meaning by giving us the descriptions and dimensions?

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.

Obviously, in geometry, the perimeter of a plain rectangle that is 3,000 in length and 2,000 in width is equal to 2X3000 plus 2X2000, which gives us 10,000. It is logical. But is it logical for Plato to be giving us a circular ditch that without bends, without turns, without horseshoes winds, and all of it one stadia wide and 100 feet deep everywhere and 10,000 stadia long? Try to wrap an ellipse, a geometrical figure of ten thousand stadia perimeter around a 10,000 stadia regular rectangle of 3,000 X 2000 stadia, with a perimeter of 10,000 stadia and a diagonal of 3,605 stadia, let alone one that is a plain with an oblong rectangular shape......Can you?

Perimeter of an Ellipse.
As anyone with knowledge of geometry should know, the perimeter of an ellipse is very difficult to calculate to an exact figure! One can only approximate. However, the approximation is nearly there, and is close enough for our purpose without needing to go to infinity, where we cannot go, yet! As first we need to find Atlantis.

There are many formulas, but here is one that we can use to get a more accurate approximation; so say the math gurus.
P= 3.14159267 times [3(a+b)-Square root of (3a+b)(a+3b]. Where P is Perimeter/Circumference, a is 2,000, and b is 3,000. The plain containing the royal city of Atlantis is stated to be 3,000 X 2,000 stadia by all translations. At least some consistency there.

Do the math, and hardly, will anyone find such a beast, unless it's a river of hope, and one that you can be baptized in. Not however for clearing and washing away sins, but only for baptizing idiots!

Plato had a sign on the entrance of his academy in Athens; "Let no one ignorant of geometry enter this place." How ridiculous for anyone to think that the founder and head of this academy would be, himself,  ignorant of geometry.  If you do, then it is the academy of idiots that you need to attend, and not Plato's. And those kind of idiots do not need to be looking for Plato's Atlantis, but rather, they need to seek out things like; Madam Blavatsky's Atlantis, the abominable snowman, big foot, Peter Pan and Neverland, etc.

When logic and proportion have fallen slowly dead, go to Wonderland, and ask Alice, and whether you ask her when she is short or tall, it does not matter. Or just go and feed your head with the right nutrients; Plato/Socrates.