The Great Pyramid and the Speed of Light

Let's great straight into it. Figure 1 shows the latitude and longitude of the Great Pyramid:

Figure 1

Now let's look at the speed of light in metres per second (see Figure 2):

Figure 2

Figure 3

So there you have it. A remarkable coincidence? Well, predictably Snopes thinks so (see Figure 3). Well, you don't have to look very hard for it. Those six digits in both measurements leap out at you. Could there be more to it? Well, a great deal has been written about the dimensions and location of the Great Pyramid. Today, my email threw up a short paper on ResearchGate from a Robin Spivey with the title:

The Great Pyramid's conspicuous speed 

of light latitude is no accident

Before we go into that, it's necessary to look (as Robin Spivey) does at the dimensions of the Great Pyramid and how those famous constants, \( \pi \) and \( \phi \), are encoded in it. Figure 4 sheds some light on this:

Figure 4

To explain what's going on in Figure 4, we need to start with: $$ \sqrt{\phi} \approx \cfrac{14}{11}  \text{ and }  \pi \approx \cfrac{22}{7}$$These two approximations allow a connection to made between \( \phi \) and \( \pi \), namely that: $$ \sqrt{\phi} \approx \cfrac{4}{\pi} $$Spivey makes the comment that the 14:11 ratio is almost optimal in the sense of providing two approximations of comparable quality for \( \phi \) and \( \pi \).

There is also the approximation: $$ \phi \approx \sqrt{\cfrac{5 \times \pi}{6}} $$Armed with this approximation, it can be said that: $$ \pi - \phi^2 \approx \cfrac{\pi}{6} \approx \cfrac{\phi^2}{5} \approx 0.52356$$This number is very close to the length of the cubit in metres. Furthermore when the number, interpreted as an angle is radians, is converted to degrees, the result is 29.9977018228306 which takes us full circle so to speak.

There's obviously more food for thought here and maybe I'll add to this post in the future. Figure 5 shows some calculations carried out in SageMathCell for these various approximations. Just double-click on the image to enlarge it:

Figure 5