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Numbers are pesky things

Numbers are pesky things

Last updated on: December 3, 2024 at 10:56 pm by Dan Peterson

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Numbers are pesky things 2024-12-03T22:56:41-07:00 Dan Peterson

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A pre-fire view of the Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris from the Pont de la Tournelle, which is to say from the east southeast. The Quai de la Tournelle is visible on the left.
(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)

Unfortunately, today’s blog entry needs to be largely devoted to the proverbial notion that a lie can travel half-way around the world before the truth can even get its boots on. (Appropriately enough, the saying is commonly but, it seems, falsely attributed to Mark Twain.). My boots are now laced up, so it’s time to go:

The imminent re-opening of Paris’s landmark Notre Dame Cathedral is very much in the news, and perhaps especially so (in the United States) now that once-and-future President Donald J. Trump has been invited to attend the ceremonies.

Coincidentally, I noticed just last night that the Associated Press is still peddling its false claim that the Lone Mountain Nevada Temple, which is slated to be built on the outskirts of Las Vegas, has garnered considerable opposition because it will be larger than Notre Dame. The Arizona Daily Star of Tucson is just one of the many venues where, at least as recently as yesterday, that demonstrably untrue statement is being uncritically spread: “Biden pardons his son Hunter ; M ormon church faces pushback | Hot off the Wire podcast.” Accordingly, I judge it appropriate to repost something that I originally put up here back in October:

[Y]ou might also find this article from the Associated Press and its accompanying video to be of interest: “Mormon faith pushes ahead with global temple building boom despite cool reception in Las Vegas”

It’s important to note, however, that the Associated Press report by Ken Ritter and Hannah Schoenbaum is misleading in at least one really important way: In both its text and its video, AP falsely asserts that, if actually built, the Lone Mountain Nevada Temple will be larger than the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris. No wonder people in the neighborhood are outraged!

Evidently, though, and simplistically, Ritter and Schoenbaum seem to have based their claim only on square footage: The Lone Mountain Nevada Temple is predicted, according to plans, to enclose 70,194 square feet of floor space, whereas Notre Dame has a floor area of only about 64,000 square feet.

When we compare other figures, though, the proposed second temple for Las Vegas turns out to be substantially smaller than is Paris’s cathedral. For instance, the Lone Mountain Nevada Temple will be 196 feet tall at its highest point, whereas the two towers of Notre Dame’s façade are both 226 feet tall and its central spire reaches 315 feet.

A night view of the Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris before the devastating 2019 fire (Wikimedia Commons public domain photograph)

Much more significantly, though, Notre Dame Cathedral has essentially only one floor, the ground floor, whereas I would guess from the architect’s rendering of it that the Lone Mountain Nevada Temple will include minimally four whole or partial floors.

I don’t have figures for the length and breadth of the Lone Mountain Nevada Temple, but it’s easy enough to make a rough and ready estimate of them:

Let’s assume, very conservatively, that the new temple will have 3.5 floors — a ground-level floor for the recommend desk and offices and dressing rooms and a chapel and the like, second and third floors for sealings and other ordinances, and a half-floor underground for the baptistry. (This is a reasonable estimate for the number of floors, based on the architect’s rendering of the exterior.) We divide the total square footage at Lone Mountain by seven and subtract one-seventh from the total because the baptistry will likely be largely if not wholly subterranean and, accordingly, will not affect the outer perimeter dimensions of the building.

That yields about 62,000 square feet, in total, for the three main floors, for an average of not quite 21,000 square feet per floor. (In every case, I’m rounding the numbers up so as to be as generous as possible to objections.). However, as the architect’s rendering illustrates, the ground floor will be the largest temple floor. Let’s be generous again and make it fully twice as large as the two floors above it, which would make it approximately 31,000 square feet — a figure that is very probably grossly inflated.

If the temple, at its base, is perfectly square — which it may be — the length of each of its first-floor walls would be the square root of 31,000 feet, which comes out, even under the extremely generous figures that I’ve used here, to just slightly more than 176 feet. Thus, in actual fact, Notre Dame is not only considerably taller than the temple that is proposed for northwest Las Vegas — the main structure of the cathedral, minus towers and spire, is 211 feet high, which is taller than Lone Mountain’s tower and far taller than the single-story first-floor area of the temple — but its footprint is substantially larger than that of the Lone Mountain Nevada Temple:

Notre Dame is 420 feet long and 157 feet wide, for a total perimeter of approximately 1154 feet, compared to Lone Mountain’s 704 feet. Wildly exaggerated as it almost certainly is, my estimated square footage for the first floor at Lone Mountain — 31,ooo — is less than half of Notre Dame’s 64,000. And the volume enclosed within the main space of Notre Dame (roughly 13,504,000 cubic feet, a figure that I derive from multiplying the height of that main space by the square footage of its floor) is approximately eighteen times the volume of space that I estimate will be enclosed within the Lone Mountain Nevada Temple (very roundly, 750,000 cubic feet).

Thus, for the Associated Press to announce that the Lone Mountain Nevada Temple will be larger than the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris is grossly misleading — as anybody who has ever seen Notre Dame would immediately realize by simply glancing at the architect’s rendering of the proposed temple. In fact, the assertion seems downright prejudicial, if not inflammatory and sensationalizing. I don’t want to accuse Ritter and Schoenbaum of any deliberate wrongdoing, so I’ll simply say that their claim is plainly false and quite irresponsible. And, since the sheer size of the building is one of the main points raised against it by its opponents, to have messed up on this particular issue is especially unfortunate.

On “Sesame Street,” they call him “The Count.” Why? Because he loves to count things. And he can be a real help to young children who are struggling to learn basic numbers and arithmetic. (Wikimedia Commons public domain image)

From time to time here, I call attention to the remarkably consistent publication record of Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship since its launch in early August 2012. (As of last week, in addition to its blog entries and reprints and books and movies and radio broadcasts and conferences and the like, Interpreter has published at least one journal article on each of the past 645 consecutive Fridays.)

This isn’t the most important of factoids, the most significant of achievements, but it’s no small thing — and it’s a pretty easy way to have a little fun at the expense of the often grimly hostile folks who make it their daily obsession to denigrate Interpreter (and me) and who, as part of that obsession, have been confidently promising Interpreter’s demise since within mere days of its founding.

Recently, one of their number accused me of lying about *Interpreter’*s monotonously consistent publishing record. This intrepid scholar counted up the Fridays that have so far elapsed in 2024 (which came to 48) and counted the articles that have appeared in Interpreter for 2024 (which were reportedly 45). News flash! Comparing 48 to 45 yields a discrepancy of three! Which proves that I’m lying. (How can you tell that I’m lying? It’s simple: My heart is beating. And, as long as I have a pulse and as long as the Peterson Obsession Board exists, I’ll be lying.)

But The Great Discrepancy is a mystery that is easily explained. Unfortunately, though, there must be an actual desire to understand, coupled with a basic ability to count.

You need only go to the website of the journal and, once there, click on “All Journal Articles.” You will find there a list of all Interpreter volumes, including the year in which the volume was published. You will notice that three volumes are shown for 2024 — volumes 60, 61, and 62. If you count all of the articles in them, you will come up with a total not of 45 articles but of 48.

As it happens, we published the first article in Volume 60 on 5 January 2024. But that was purely coincidental. Volume 63 is already appearing, but it is dated to 2025. Why is it dated to 2025? Because that is the year in which it will be completed and in which it will be published as a complete whole.

Interpreter has published, and will have published, at least one journal article each and every Friday during the year 2024. The final article to be published for 2024 will appear on 27 December. It will be the fifteenth article in Interpreter‘s volume 63. It will represent a total of 63 articles, published over the 52 weeks of 2024. We published one article each Friday, with the exception of 26 January, 9 February, 19 April,, 26 July, 2 August, 16 August, 27 September, 1 November, 8 November, 15 November, and 22 November, on each of which we published not just one but two articles. Here, for the inspection of anybody who might be interested, is the complicated math: (41 x 1) + (11 x 2) = 63.

Sigh. It requires real patience to be a teacher.

Henry Ossawa Tanner, “The Annunciation” (1898)
(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)

On a more pleasant note — although I suppose that this piece, like all Christmas music, could be considered for inclusion in the Christopher Hitchens Memorial “How Religion Poisons Everything” File™ — this video of the male vocal ensemble Chanticleer performing what I, at least, consider to be one of the most achingly, exquisitely beautiful pieces of music ever composed, Franz Biebl’s 1964 setting of “Ave Maria”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVyCJlPiHFg

V. Angelus Domini nuntiavit Mariæ.
R. Et concepit de Spiritu Sancto.

Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum. Benedicta tu in mulieribus, et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Iesus.

V. Maria dixit: Ecce Ancilla Domini.
R. Fiat mihi secundum Verbum tuum.

Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum. Benedicta tu in mulieribus, et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Iesus.

Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc et in hora mortis nostræ. Amen.

My translation:

The angel of the Lord appeared unto Mary, And she conceived of the Holy Spirit.

Hail, Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.

Mary said, “Behold the handmaiden of the Lord.

Let it be unto me according to thy word.”

Hail, Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

There is terrible evil, hatred, and ugliness in the world, and not merely in Gaza and Ukraine. But there is also great goodness and beauty. To me, this piece offers a glimpse and a reminder of that.

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