Could Noah's Ark hold all the animals?

[Eames]

Steak and Chips - are you declaring yourself here as a god botherer?

Or do you just have an 'interest' in the concept/story of Noah's Ark?

Personally, picking up on GartherRDR's contribution, I think Big Eck would have built a better Ark than Noah, and both would have built a better Ark than Houllier, were the whole thing not a load of bunkum.

Ahhh but you are both wrong....

MON guided his ark to 3 consecutive top 6 voyages... far more than Eck and his crappy ginger bluenose ark, and Houiller's suspicious French one.

And just think of the Ark we COULD have had, with a crew of Downing,Barry, Milner and Young.....

EDIT - forgot the other gem, Randy is ruining this once proud and noble boat...... blah blah blah you know the rest.

[Eames]

No.

I'd question the validity of your species figures in the OP. I think there's significantly more species than that.

I'm sure I've read there's over 10 million species of insect alone.

Also, the task of rounding up the species is a ridiculous thought in itself.

And, can you imagine the pure carnage on a ship with one of every species on it? It would be like one huge fight to the death.

My money's on the ladybird.

Although, on a very general note..... Did a crazy man build a **** off big boat and shove some animals on it when the weather looked bad?

Probably.

[GarethRDR]

Yeah, but MON's ark voyages came at a hefty cost, and ultimately did not lead us to the promised land; his material sourcing policy was limited and pricey and has ultimately hampered further development of an ark that was truly fit for purpose, not to mention his alienation of the back-up naval engineering crew.

Personally, I still haven't forgiven him for turning the ship around half-way through it's voyage to Siberia.

[Eames]

Personally, I still haven't forgiven him for turning the ship around half-way through it's voyage to Siberia.

[GarethRDR]

Did a crazy man build a **** off big boat and shove some animals on it when the weather looked bad?

Probably.

Actually, there's a whacko that lives near Eastrop park (we call him Preki, 'cos he looks like that dude that played for Portsmouth) who keeps bringing these boxes of what we think are gerbils down to the lake, putting them in this big-ass Lego boat he has and floating 'em around for 30 minutes at a time.

So, definitely yeah.

[regular_john]

*Facepalm* So...much...stupid...in...one...thread...ready...to...pop

[Risso]

We are still discovering species of animal in remote rainforests and other areas these days, but some bearded 400 year old managed to get all the world's species into one boat? I have to say it doesn't sound very plausible. And while we're on the subject of religion, is there anywhere I can complain to about Jehovah's Witnesses. We're being absolutely plagued by them, and seem to be getting the door knocked and/or literature shoved through the door every single day.

[mjmooney]

How long were they at sea? Forty days, was it? (CBA to "research" this).

So I'm assuming these animals would all need feeding, no?

Now work out the average food consumption of these various creatures and how much larder space would be required.

Come back when you have the answer, I'm going to the staff room for a smoke.

[Eames]

We are still discovering species of animal in remote rainforests and other areas these days, but some bearded 400 year old managed to get all the world's species into one boat? I have to say it doesn't sound very plausible. And while we're on the subject of religion, is there anywhere I can complain to about Jehovah's Witnesses. We're being absolutely plagued by them, and seem to be getting the door knocked and/or literature shoved through the door every single day.

Do what my brother did, answer the door holding random cuts of meat (the bloodier the better) politely decline to speak, telling them you are a satanist and that you need to get back to the half butchered goat in the kitchen. (if you have the stomach, actually bite into one of the random bits of meat)

The have never been back.

[mjmooney]

I have some atheist leaflets to hand out to them.

[Pelle]

this reminds me of a film I saw just a couple of weeks ago. Well, the film was about Noah with Jon Voight as the boat builder himself. James Coburn and F. Murray Abrahams were also in the film. Decent line up. But the film was of course crap. But having seen that one and then your post that said it took 120 years to build the boat I feel sorry for his sons and their wives. They were at least 20 when they started to build it, which mean they had to wait for 140 years before they were allowed to shag. Poor bastards. I hope they had Viagra.

[Eames]

this reminds me of a film I saw just a couple of weeks ago. Well, the film was about Noah with Jon Voight as the boat builder himself. James Coburn and F. Murray Abrahams were also in the film. Decent line up. But the film was of course crap. But having seen that one and then your post that said it took 120 years to build the boat I feel sorry for his sons and their wives. They were at least 20 when they started to build it, which mean they had to wait for 140 years before they were allowed to shag. Poor bastards. I hope they had Viagra.

But the early people accoring to the bible were like 800 years old so they were relative whippersnappers at 140 years

[Pelle]

Hm, good point. I wonder what they ate.

[mjmooney]

Hm, good point. I wonder what they ate.

[Pelle]

Somehow that almost turned my stomach. :?

[mjmooney]

May as well ask if all the angels in heaven can dance on a pinhead.

Quantum Gravity Treatment of the Angel Density Problem

by Anders Sandberg

SANS/NADA, Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden

Abstract

We derive upper bounds for the density of angels dancing on the point of a pin. It is dependent on the assumed mass of the angels, with a maximum number of 8.6766*10exp49 angels at the critical angel mass (3.8807*10exp-34 kg).

Ancient Question, Modern Physics

"How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?" has been a major theological question since the Middle Ages.[5]

According to Thomas Aquinas, it is impossible for two distinct causes to each be the immediate cause of one and the same thing. An angel is a good example of such a cause. Thus two angels cannot occupy the same space.[2] This can be seen as an early statement of the Pauli exclusion principle. (The Pauli exclusion principle is a pillar of modern physics. It was first stated in the twentieth century, by Pauli.)

However, this does not place any upper bound on the density of angels in a small area, because the size r of angels remains undefined and could possibly be arbitrarily small. There have also been theological criticisms of any assumption of angels as complete causes.

Stating the Question Correctly

The basic issue is the maximal density of active angels in a small volume. It should be noted that the original formulation of the problem did not refer to the head of a pin (R�1 mm) but to the point of the pin. Therefore, the point, not the head, of the pin is the region that will be studied in this paper.

One of the first reported attempts at a quantum gravity treatment of the angel density problem that also included the correct end of the pin was made by Dr. Phil Schewe. He suggested that due to quantum gravity space is likely not infinitely divisible beyond the Planck length scale of 10exp-35 meters. Hence, assuming the point of the pin to be one Ångström across (the size of a scanning tunnelling microscope tip) this would produce a maximal number of angels on the order of 1050 since they would not have more places to fill.[1]

While this approach does produce an upper bound on the possible density of angels, it is based on the Thomist assumption of non-overlap.

Since angels can be presumed to obey quantum rules when packed at quantum gravity densities, the uncertainty relation will cause their wave functions to overlap significantly even if there is a strong degeneracy pressure. If the non-overlap assumption is relaxed, this approach cannot derive an upper bound.

Quantum Gravitational Treatment

A stricter bound based on information physics can be derived that is not based on overlap assumptions, but merely the localisation of angelic information.

Assuming that each angel contains at least one bit of information (fallen / not fallen), and that the point of the pin is a sphere of diameter of an Ångström (R=10exp-10 m) and has a total mass of M=9.5*10exp-29 kilograms (equivalent to that of one iron atom), we can use the Bekenstein bound[3] on information to calculate an upper bound on the angel density. In a system of diameter D and mass M, less than kDM distinguishable bits can exist, where k=2.57686*10exp43 bits/meter kg.[7] This gives us a bound of just 2.448*10exp5 angels, far below the Schewe bound.

Note that this does not take the mass of angels into account. A finite angel mass-energy would increase the possible information density significantly. If each angel has a mass m, then the Bekenstein bound gives us N1/kD �3.8807*10exp-34 kg this produces an unbounded maximal angel density as each angel contributes enough mass-energy to allow the information of an extra angel to move in, and so on.

However, if angels have mass, then the point of the pin will collapse into a black hole if c2R/2G< Nm (here I ignore the mass of the iron atom at the tip).4 For angels of human weight (80 kg), we get a limit of 4.2089*10exp14 angels. The maximal mass of any angel amenable to dance on the pin is 3.3671*10exp16 kg; at this point there is only room for a single angel.

The picture that emerges is that, for low angel masses, the number is bounded by the Bekenstein bound, and increases hyperbolically as mcrit is approached. However, the black hole bound decreases and the two bounds cross at mmax=1/(4GkM/cexp2+kD), very slightly below mcrit. This corresponds to the maximal angel density of Nmax=8.6766*10exp49 angels (see figure).

Maximum number of angels for a given mass. The allowed region is bounded from above by the line c2R/2G=Nm (gravitational collapse) and the curve N=kD(M+Nm) (information density) which has an asymptote for mcrit, and from below by N=0. The maximal number of angels occurs at the intersection of the gravitational bound and the asymptote at mcrit

Dance Dynamics

If the angels dance very quickly and in the same direction, then the angular momentum could lead to a situation like the extremal Kerr metric, where no event horizon forms (this could also be achieved by charging the angels).[4] Hence the number of dancing angels that can crowd together is likely much higher than the number of stationary angels.

However, at these speeds the friction caused by their interaction with the pin is likely to vaporise it or at least break it apart. Even for a modest speed of 1 m/s the total kinetic energy of Nmax angels of mass mcrit would be 1.682*10exp16 J. In the case of charged angels at relativistic densities, pair-creation in their vicinity would likely cause the charge to dissipate over time,6 and charge transfer to the pin would also likely induce electromechanical forces beyond any material tolerances.

The uncertainty relation also imposes a limitation on the dance. Since the uncertainty in position of the angels by assumption is less than the size of the point �x�R we find that the uncertainty in momentum must be �p�hbar/R, and this leads to a velocity uncertainty �v>hbar/Rm. If m= mcrit we get �v>> 8.6766*10exp59 m/s (>> c), which shows that:

(1) the angels must dance with speeds near the velocity of light in order to obey quantum mechanics;

(2) a full relativistic treatment is necessary; and

(3) that the precision of the dance must break down due to quantum effects.

This can be used to rule out certain types of dance due to their high precision requirements.

Discussion

We have derived quantum gravity bounds on the number of angels that can dance on the tip of a needle as a function of the mass of the angels. The maximal number of angels -- 8.6766*10exp49 -- is achieved near the critical mass mcrit>1/kD �3.8807*10-34 kg, corresponding to the transition from the information-limited to the mass-limited regime. It is interesting to note that this is of the same order of magnitude as the Schewe bound.

Angel physics has until now mainly employed theological methods, but as this paper shows, modern information physics, quantum gravity and relativity theory provide powerful tools for exploring the dynamics and statics of angels.

These bounds are only upper bounds, and do not take into account the effects of a finite number of available angels, degeneracy pressures if angels obey the Pauli exclusion principle as suggested by Aquinas, or the theo-psychology of the angels themselves. The exact dance dynamics also clearly play a major role. A full relativistic treatment of the dance appears as a promising avenue for further tightening of the bounds.

Link

[tonyh29]

I suspect that the Noah's flood legend has some basis in historical fact but was most likely a catastrophic regional flood

Black sea would be the likely candidate as it used to be an isolated freshwater lake surrounded by farmland.

Bob Ballard (of Titanic fame) has just discovered evidence of villages underneath it dating to around 10,000 yrs ago

[steaknchips]

How long were they at sea? Forty days, was it? (CBA to "research" this).

So I'm assuming these animals would all need feeding, no?

Now work out the average food consumption of these various creatures and how much larder space would be required.

Come back when you have the answer, I'm going to the staff room for a smoke.

Simple answer to this one; Some species of animals, like Rabbits, mice etc breed at a astronomic rate.Also as I have listed above, only 56% of the ark was used for storing the species, the rest of space could easily have been used to store food.

[steaknchips]

there are numerous sedimentary deposits world-wide which suggest a universal flood.

name one please

There are countless fossil deposits world-wide (fossilization occurs when organisms are buried rapidly within sediment.). Every major culture has a flood legend.

Fossilisation take's 10,000 years minimum, name me one of these countless deposits please I'd be greatly interested

Fossilization requires rapid burial and removal from oxygen. 95% of all fossils are marine invertebrates.

Fossils of marine creatures are found all over the world in different altitudes and climates.

Sedimentary rocks cover 75% - 80% of the Earth's land area and include chalk, limestone, dolomite, sandstone and shale.

Limestone is made up largely of calcite, the primary source of which is commonly marine organisms. Unless buried rapidly these organisms would degrade.

Fossils of marine creatures including brachiopods, ammonites, belemnites, foraminifera and radiolarians have been found in limestone beds around the world.

Massive chalk deposits are found in the White Cliffs of Dover, White Rocks of Ireland and in France.

Fossils of trilobites are on top of Mt. Everest though they are supposed to have been extinct 250 mya. The Himalayas have one of the greatest rates of erosion in the world and it is estimated that two to four miles of rock have been eroded every million years.

There are ammonite fossils at the 12,000 feet level on Mt. Everest.

There are fossils and marine sediments on mountain ranges all over the world including the Himalayas, Alps, Andes, Ural, Altai, Appalachian and Rocky Mountains.

Coal is full of carbon 14 which has a half life of 5,730 years.

Bituminous coal reveals traces of wood, bark, leaves, spores and seed coats.

Fossils of marine creatures such as brachiopods, fish, and molluscs, have been found in coal.

Fossils of Spirorbis tubeworms have been found fastened to the outside edges of mussels in the coal measures of Nova Scotia. Their presence is strong evidence that much of the coal is allochthonous; originally transported from a different location.

Coal balls are very well preserved masses of vegetation found in coal seams and often minute details of plants including cellular structure can be observed with a microscope. Such preservation indicates rapid formation.

Fossils found in the sediments above coal layers containing dolomite coal balls were found to be of marine origin.

Fossilized coprolites similar to those from mites, collembola and millipedes have been found in coal balls indicating rapid burial and removal from oxygen.

Carbonized impressions of plants or their parts are common in coal measures.

Marine roof shale sometimes occur above coal seams and contain goniatites, an extinct ammonite and layers of limestone are interbedded in some coal seams.

Fossils, animal tracks and raindrop impact craters have been found in shale indicating that they was formed quickly under enormous pressure.

The Burgess shale formation in the Canadian Rockies contains many fossils of soft bodied organisms including sponges, various worm-like phyla (annelids and priapulids), brachiopods, echinoderms, chordates, and mollusks as well as algae. One of the algae is morania confluens which easily disintegrates over time.

In an anaerobic environment marine invertebrates normally curl up when they die but those found in the Burgess Shale do not exhibit this.

Many of the soft bodied fossils in the Burgess Shale left carbon films showing marine creatures were fossilized rapidly.

In Chengjiang China consisting of shale and loaded with fossils of soft bodied organisms. The fossils at Chengjiang show excellent preservation.

Brachiopods and priapulid worms are buried in life positions at Chengjiang and the cause of death of animals there was asphyxia.

Some polystrate trees found within coal-bearing strata show evidence of regeneration after being partially buried by sediments.

In 2005 a fossilized forest covering forty square miles was found in an Illinois coal mine. Scientists believe there was an earthquake with a flood which buried the forest. Among the species of plants were fossilized remains of mangrove-like plants. On an evolutionary time scale mangroves appear in the late Cretaceous period more than 200 million years after the Carboniferous period.

In 2008 a team from the Department of Earth Sciences at University of Bristol found five more fossilized forests in Illinois. They are believed to have grown a few million years apart but they are stacked one on top of the other. Scientists believe the "ancient land experienced repeated periods of subsidence and flooding which buried the forests in a vertical sequence."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7604721.stm

Many plants left an impression in the coal bed showing they were buried quickly and were put under extreme pressure.

There are also fossil forests in Yellowstone Park, New Zealand, Ellesmere Island and Axel Heiberg Island in the Canadian Arctic.

Polystrate fossils are also found in the Joggins cliffs in Nova Scotia. They also contain fossils of spirorbis and naidites, a bivalve mollusk and a fossil trackway from a horseshoe crab.

One of the layers of compressed, fossil sea bed at the Joggins Cliff contains small leaves, fish scales and sea shells. Fish scales would degrade quickly in aerobic environment.

Given the right conditions wood can be be petrified rapidly by silicification, even at normal temperatures and pressures.

40 fossilized bees nests were found within giant petrified, or mummified, logs at the Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona. Until recently bee fossils, believed to be the oldest, were dated to about 70 million years. A bee fossilized in amber in a mine in Myanmar is believed to be about 100 mya.

The fossil tree trunks are dated from 207 to 220 million years ago. The fossilized bees and tree trunks would have to withstand erosion and the shock-wave and ensuing tidal wave caused by the Chicxulub asteroid. It is believed to have had a force of hundreds of millions of atomic bombs like the one dropped on Hiroshima.

Vast fossil graveyards have been discovered, often with animals that normally wouldn't have been together when they died.

A fossil graveyard was discovered in Tampa, Florida that has fossilized camels, horses, mammoths, bears, wolves, large cats, sharks' teeth, turtle shells, the bones of fresh and salt water fish and a bird with an estimated 30-foot wingspan.

Fossils in an Alaskan fossil graveyard include "..two types of bears, dire wolf, wolf, fox, badger, wolverine, saber-tooth cat, jaguar, lynx, wooly mammoth, mastodon, two horses, camel, saiga antelope, four bison, caribou, moose, stag-moose, elk, two sheep, musk-ox and yak types, ground sloth, and several rodents."

(R.F. Flint, Glacial and Pleistocene Geology, 1957, p. 471)

Other fossil graveyards include the Ashley Beds of South Carolina, the Cumberland Bone Cave in Maryland, the La Brea Tar Pits in California, the Herring fossil layers in California, the hippopotamus beds in Sicily, Agate Springs in Nebraska, love bone bed in Florida, insect fossils of Elmo Kansas, Mazon Creek formation in Illinois, the Arlington Archosaur Site in Texas, the Green River formation and Florissant Fossil Beds in Colorado, the Montceau-les-Mines in France, Scotland's Old Red Sandstone, the Zeuglodon Valley in Egypt and Ukhaa Tolgod in the Gobi desert, Mongolia.

In the Australian outback there's an area of fossilized jellyfish (trace fossils) in a sandstone bed covering more than 400 square miles.

Thousands of fossilized impressions of jellyfish were discovered in a quarry in Mosinee, Wisconsin. They were in sandstone beds that were stacked horizontally in seven layers of rock about 12 feet high.

Nautiloids found in the Grand Canyon were mollusks and are believe to have lived in the Paleozoic era between 542 million years and 251 million years ago. The fossils are in a bed of Redwall Limestone that begins at the Grand Canyon and covers an area of approximatley 5,700 square miles.

In 2001 a Cuban paleontologist found more than 500 giant oyster fossils in the Andes mountains; about 4000 feet above sea level. When an oyster dies the central muscle relaxes and the shell opens. These oysters were in the closed position which may have resulted from being rapidly buried in silt.

Flat-topped seamounts or submarine volcanoes (guyots) discovered in the 1940’s show evidence of wave action.

Marine fossils of various kinds have been found all over the United States indicating that the areas were under water and something caused the creatures to be buried rapidly in an anaerobic environment.

Massive flooding by the Glacial Lake Missoula cut canyons and covered cliffs reshaping the landscape and reaching to the Pacific.

A fossilized whale was discovered in Lompoc California in 1976. The whale wasn’t standing on its tale as first reported but at a 40 degree angle and was buried rapidly in diatomic earth.

More than 500 fossilized baleen whales have been found in western Peru over 20 kilometers from the Pacific Ocean in an area called the Pisco formation. Researchers believe the whales were killed by toxic blooms of diatoms then buried by the accumulation of diatom frustules on the seafloor.

Fossils of whales and other marine creatures have been found in sediments in the Andes mountains. The fossilized jawbone of a whale was discovered in the Himalayan foothills.

The skeleton of a whale was found in Tuscany about six miles from the Mediterranean along with fossils of shells, fish and shark teeth. The fossil of a beluga whale was discovered in Norfolk, New York. There have been whale fossils discovered in Cornwall, Ontario, the Jacquet River in New Brunswick and in Montreal. In 1849 railroad workers uncovered the fossil of a beluga whale in Vermont which is the inspiration for a sculpture called "Reverence" in Burlington. The fossil was found 150 feet above sea level along with fossilized clams, mussels and plants.

Lake Titicaca is the highest navigable lake on earth at more than 12,000 feet above sea level. It is located in Peru and Bolivia and covers about 3,200 square miles, the northern tip being about 1,000 miles south of the equator. Divers found a 200 meter long, 50 meter wide temple at the bottom of Lake Titicaca after following a submerged road. They also found a terrace for crops and an 800 meter long containing wall. There are ancient submerged structures in Yonaguni, Japan and sunken cities in India, China and Peru. What appears to be a sunken city off the coast of Cuba is being studied by scientists.

[GarethRDR]