[WalterBright]

I recall TV shows saying that the Egyptian pyramids could not have been constructed with Egyptian technology, so it must have been space aliens. The same for the closely fitting stones in Inca buildings.

It doesn't take advanced technology to do either of those things.

My favorite one was pi is there in the relationship between the pyramid base length and its height, and the Egyptians had no notion of pi. Again, space aliens! But if the Egyptians used a wheel 1 cubit in diameter to mark out the base, and the height was in cubits, then there's pi.

(What's a cubit?)

[prime17569]

This reminds me of this video by engineerguy that discusses the use of heuristics in engineering: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ivqWN4L3zU

[umlautae]

Not sure if irony but cubit means a unit of length from an elbow to the end of the fingers. (BTW maybe that’s why people think giants were 100 cubits tall, when in fact the text said they were a group hundred hands strong)

[WalterBright]

It's a joke from a famous comedy routine where God tells Noah what the dimensions of the arc should be in cubits. At the end, Noah asks "what's a cubit?"

[mrangle]

Both can be true that it took more advanced tech than they are credited and it wasn't aliens.

[WalterBright]

The simplest explanation is the most likely.