5 ms·
> Certainly 7 cathedrals are too many to be a coincidence With the number of cathedrals in Europe I don't really think this is supported.
by tokai 2y ago
> Certainly 7 cathedrals are too many to be a coincidence
With the number of cathedrals in Europe I don't really think this is supported.
- chippy 2y agoThey are all dedicated to the same saint, St. Michael.
- Broken_Hippo 2y agoWhich isn't really all that special. In England alone, there are 816 churches named after St Michael. He's pretty popular. It'd be a lot more spectacular if they were all named after someone much more obscure. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dedications_in_the_Church_of_England#Most_common_dedications https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dedications_in_the_Church_of_E...
- willis936 2y agoOnly ~30 are cathedrals, still more than a selection of 7. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathedral_of_Saint_Michael https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathedral_of_Saint_Michael
- SamBam 2y agoRight, but none of the 7 are cathedrals.
- chippy 2y agoThat's right. I would actually expect there to be a few more than 7! And if we extend the search to all placenames dedicated to St Michael quite a bit more! It's not pure coincidence but it is a kind of observation error as highlighted in other comment. Increasing and decreasing the variables and measurements effects the odds. Basically you can get a line between many things on earth, but 1) the dimensions of that line cannot be chosen if you also want to choose the things that define it or 2) the dimensions can be chosen but the things that make it up cannot.
- mytailorisrich 2y agoThere are not all cathedrals, actually. They are seven sacred sites dedicated to St Michael (of which there are many all over Europe). If they really were cathedrals, a coincidence would have been extraordinary.
- masswerk 2y agoIf they were cathedrals, this may raise the question why those towns were perfectly aligned, in the first place. Traditionally, it had been mostly exposed locations that were dedicated to St Michael, e.g., locations that had been alleged entrances to the underworld in antiquity. 6 out 7 of these locations are in costal areas, with corresponding erosion features. So this shouldn't be of much surprise, as the line crosses several costal regions – of which there are plenty. (In other words, the line crosses 6 costal areas with a St Micheal nearby and 6 without. The second fact may be as remarkable as the first one.) Edit: Challenge, can we identify a "St Michael's Serpent", approximating a sine wave?
- HankB99 2y agoAgreed. I wonder if they could find better candidates.
- getoj 2y agoFor what it's worth (not much), the line can be extended with similar error bars to include: - St Michael's Church in Bengaluru, India - Gereja Katolik Santo Mikael in Surabaya, Indonesia - St Michael's Catholic Church in Kilcoy, Australia - St Michael's Church in Auckland, New Zealand Perhaps the real data challenge here is to find the straight line with the most St Michael'ses globally.