...according to Pythagoras. we've had fun here talking about the significance of the number 42, and the number 37, and so forth. but that's all jocular small potatoes; witness:

"Professor Hans-Henrik Stolum, an earth scientist at Cambridge University has calculated the ratio between the actual length of rivers from source to mouth and their direct length as the crow flies. Although the ratio varies from river to river, the average value is slightly greater than 3, that is to say that the actual length is roughly three times greater than the direct distance. In fact the ratio is approximately 3.14, which is close to the value of the number pi... The ratio of pi is most commonly found for rivers flowing across very gently sloping planes, such as those found in Brazil or the Siberian tundra."

from _Fermat's Enigma_, by Simon Singh

(there's an explanation for this, unfortunately)

-joe (perfect numbers) friday

> there's an explanation for this, unfortunately

And I gather you are not referring to 'The Supreme Being' as manifested through unspeakably complex ratio found countless times in all measures of intelligent vibration and in all the dimensions and levels of the universe, laid down throughout all infinitely wafer thin slices and gigantic cosmic chunks of fluctuating matter depending on your perspective?

you are correct, by, I am not.

()

For the record: The Danube is 1776 miles long. This is the only river length I know because the number is so easy to remember, given American history. Too bad it's not the length of the Mississippi or the Columbia...

In reply to:

---

from _Fermat's Enigma_, by Simon Singh
(there's an explanation for this, unfortunately)

---

What is the explanation, and why is it unfortunate?

> explanation

xn + yn = zn (y'all'll have to imagine the superscript)
This equation does not have any non-zero integer solutions for n>2

Am I warm?

>xn + yn = zn (y'all'll have to imagine the superscript)
> This equation does not have any non-zero integer solutions for n>2

the proving of Fermat's Last Theorem is the storyline of Fermat's Enigma (not to be confused with our Aenigma), but the pi'ed river is incidental to the story of Pythagoras and Fermat.

I'll explain later today...

()

OK tsuwm, hurry, hurry, hurry, you don't give a man time to think. No matter, I'll give my answer now...

(1) measuring the length of a river is like measuring a shoreline if you continue to decrease the size of your measuring increments you can easily increase the length of the shoreline by a factor of three.
Naw, that would be cheating.

(2)Semantics. For example, Where does the Mississippi river begin, in Tennessee or Minnesota or Texas or Pennsylvania?
Carefully select your rivers and their starting points and you can prove that the world is square. Naw, that would be cheating.

(3)And you are not asking about the mechanics of stream flow, so- you are saying that the meanders are breached by a mathematical relationship with a circle acting as an upward control mechanism by leaving an oxbow lake. Yes, that's what you and that guy are saying, and I guess, in a funny sort of way, you two are right.

>so- you are saying that the meanders are breached by a mathematical relationship with a circle acting as an upward control mechanism by leaving an oxbow lake.

that's a fairly crude (and crudely fair) way of putting it -- read the book have you?

()

> oxbow lake

S'called a billabong mate.

> you are saying that the meanders are breached by a mathematical relationship with a circle acting as an upward control mechanism by leaving an oxbow lake.

That's the one. Now who wants to talk about Pythagoras and the Nile delta too.