Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Internet Trend: Lunar Cycle Secret (sic)

From A7 today:

The Talmud states that the lunar cycle spans ‘29.5 days and 793 fractions of an hour’. In Talmudic terms, the hour is divided into 1080 parts.

793/1080 = 0.734259 hours.

0.734259/24 = 0.03059 days.

29.5 days + 0.03059 days = 29.53059 days for the moon to travel around Earth.

NASA Research concluded that the lunar cycle is 29.530588 days, two 1/1000ths of a second short of the Talmudic figure. More advanced research in Berlin came to a figure of 29.530589 days, only one thousandth of a second short of the Talmudic figure.

The Sinai tradition of the span of the lunar cycle is thus corroborated by figures reached via advanced satellites and atomic clocks.

Errors:

0.734259/24 = 0.0305941 days. The difference with 0.0305900 is fatal for the message.

0.000001 day is 0.0864 seconds, far from "one thousandth of a second." Times five gives that the "old" number, 0.0305941 days, is some half a second off.

Finally, the impression that "science", from Nasa to Berlin, has halved the discrepancy is, eh, ridiculous, at best.