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There is a difference between venting and ventilation. The ark was vented by a window, not ventilated. To ventilate the ark you would have to have an intake of fresh air and an outlet for noxious fumes and a fan (or some other means) to drive the air. Down 3 decks, a 20 inch window would have no effect. Add to that the buildup of methane from the belching and flatulence of the animals. Both the fumes from the tar and the methane are heavier than air and thus would have needed a positive ventilation system to prevent the lower decks from becoming lethal. Thus, the 8 people would have been required to man the air pumps as well as the water pumps many hours a day, in addition to feeding the animals and mucking out all of the feces and urine and carrying it up a deck or two to dump it out that little window. But that's not what Genesis says. It says, "A window shalt thou make to the ark, and in a cubit shalt thou finish it above." So there was a window on the top deck. So what? Please stop with the extra-Biblical inventions. No we aren't. We are assuming that the ark exceeded 300 ft., to over 500 ft. in fact. It actually has nothing to do with the length of each plank but the structural strength of wood. Never, ever are adjacent, or even near, hull planks terminated on the same structural rib. Thus, the length of individual planks is negated. Nice try, but wishing doesn't make it so. Really? Neither were we told anything about resinous wood, or a vent all around the ark. You just make it up as you go, don't you? Of course, no one but you mentioned the length of the timbers. It is the length of the ship that matters. Please pay attention. Not significantly. The length of the ark exceeded the structural strength of wood by more than 1.5 times.I sometimes wish that I could be a creationist so that I could make thing up as I went along. "The Bible is the literal truth unless we feel the need to invent arguments."

how its that an extra-biblical invention ???you made the claim that there was no ventilation, i showed you otherwise. And genesis does not say 'window' it says 'tsohar' This is a hebrew word that means opening for illumination.Gen 6:16 "You will make a tso′har [roof; or, window] for the ark, and you will complete it to the extent of a cubit upward, and the entrance of the ark you will put in its side; you will make it with a lower [story], a second [story] and a third [story].This 'window' was an openening for light and air to come in. houses are built with air vents that are not propelled by a fan. If they are of no value, why continue to build houses with air vents? but i though you said that the structural limit stops at 300 ft. If thats the case, then several shorter lengths would not reach their structural limit. There is nothing to say that Noah used peices of over 300 ft. They could have been shorter pieces that were somehow connected together. the structual strength is determined by the ratio as RAZD has shown in his above post. have you read the account or are you going off anti creation propaganda?

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Genesis 6:13 "Make for yourself an ark out of wood of a resinous tree. You will make compartments in the ark, and you must cover it inside and outside with tar. 15And this is how you will make it: three hundred cubits the length of the ark, fifty cubits its width, and thirty cubits its height. 16You will make a tso′har [roof; or, window] for the ark, and you will complete it to the extent of a cubit upward, and the entrance of the ark you will put in its side; you will make it with a lower [story], a second [story] and a third [story].

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the length is one thing, but the width is what increases its ratio and in the case of the ark, it was 1-10. You need to calculate the width into it. Edited by Adminnemooseus, : Fix "quote" type quote box.

If I could er... row in here for a minute.What would happen if the ark, instead of being made along traditional lines, was of woven construction (inspired perhaps by the smaller scale Moses-basket ). Let's suppose the wood used was lightweight and strong too (balsa wood for instance). In this case you tend towards circumventing the OP's structural strength/leaking problemsStructual strength: because the ark is uber flexible. Leaking: because the structure is open and relies on the buoyant nature of the wood itself and not the airspace contained within the hull for floatation.The open nature of the structure would tend towards solving your waste disposal/ventilation issues too. Passively rather than actively - indicating God's design to err towards the labour saving/eco-friendly.Edited by iano, : No reason given.Edited by iano, : No reason given.

Nobody is saying that each piece of wood is 300 ft long. That is ludicrous to even consider. Could you at least attempt to read the posts, so you actually know what people are saying.It is the joining together of the(as you say) "shorter pieces" that is the problem. The structural limit is not of an individual piece of wood, it is of a structure that long made of lots of pieces of wood.Why don't you just admit what you think? It was magic. Godidit. Skip the science forums and stick to the faith forums. Because all your arguments go back to godidit.Edited by Theodoric, : No reason given.

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Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

Hi Peg, Curiously horizontal decks don't contribute to vertical stiffness. We don't really know the internal structure of either vessel, so a real comparison cannot be made. A single vent is not ventilation. Heavy gas sinks (CO₂, methane, etc) are heavier that oxygen and fill a space from the bottom up. The air needs to be moved to be ventilation, usually with a dedicated in and out flow path. Message 20
Curiously the buoyancy of the wood is irrelevant to the buoyancy of the vessel, which is why we can build boats of steel and concrete.Resins can make wood denser and more brittle. There is a wood called "ironwood" because it sinks. It is full of resins. Unfortunately it doesn't work that way, or wooden vessels would still be using this simple system. When a seam works the tar seal is broken if the tar is stiff, and if the tar is flexible then the water pressure at the bottom forces it out of the seam. You're welcome.Enjoy.

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So....the Ark just porously floated atop the water? All 3-500ft of it? With thousands of animals inside?Or was half underwater, but still lightweight enough to float so the other half was not underwater?If Noah, some 4000 years ago, was able to build a ship of this magnitude, why did he NOT pass along the knowledge? Why can we not continue to build wooden ships like the Ark? Why are we stuck at the ~300ft mark when he easily surpassed that.......withOUT technology at his side?I'll tell you why: god helped him. Gave him the strength of 600 men. (probably gave him 600 men too in the likes of slaves, which were immediately thrown overboard so as to maintain the "chosen" people's race). So there is NO good literal explanation for this.

Thanks pandion, This is how it works out on the spreadsheet (this is done a little more rigourously than the previous calculation, and is more accurate as a ballpark estimate for comparisons. Note that done properly each would be modeled as a shell rather than a block, however we have no information on the skin thickness of either vessel.

	L	B	D
Ark	515	86	52
L/	1	6	10
BD^3	(vertical)	-	12092288
DB^3	(horizontal)	33074912	-
Wyoming	350	50	40
L/	1	7	8.75
BD^3	(vertical)	-	3200000
DB^3	(horizontal)	5000000	-
Ark/Wyoming
BD^3	(vertical)	-	3.78
DB^3	(horizontal)	6.61	-
(L/L)^3	3.19	208%	119%

The ark is still 20% stiffer in the worst (vertical loading) condition. Agreed, the problem is making sure you have enough area in the dowels to transfer the loads.EnjoyEdited by RAZD, : transposed numbers

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So....the Ark just porously floated atop the water? All 3-500ft of it?

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Assuming it's made from a material less dense than water (ie: most woods) then of course it doesn't matter how big it is - it'll float

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With thousands of animals inside?

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Why not? Empty, a woven balsa vessel would barely 'dent' the surface of the water. As you load up it'd sink lower and lower into the water. A point would come when it sinks low enough to submerge the lowest stored animals (because the water level rises inside the ark). At which point you've reach max capacity.You could improve things by weaving a more open structure above the waterline (to reduce weight) and increase density of weave below the waterline to increase buoyancy (and so increase animal storage capacity).

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Or was half underwater, but still lightweight enough to float so the other half was not underwater?

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As per your typical ship. The point is to address the structural considerations of the OP

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If Noah, some 4000 years ago, was able to build a ship of this magnitude, why did he NOT pass along the knowledge? Why can we not continue to build wooden ships like the Ark? Why are we stuck at the ~300ft mark when he easily surpassed that.......withOUT technology at his side?

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It would have been God-designed and Noah-built. Perhaps God likes us to discover things for ourselves. It's more fun for us that way.

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I'll tell you why: god helped him. Gave him the strength of 600 men. (probably gave him 600 men too in the likes of slaves, which were immediately thrown overboard so as to maintain the "chosen" people

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Maybe he had lots of time instead of lots of man power. A woven structure strikes me as something you can just plug away on without any great need for large engineering works.Edited by iano, : No reason given.Edited by iano, : No reason given.

Nitpicky correction:methane is lighter than air, at 55% of air's density.Though it would still get pretty noxious on that bottom deck.

Really? SO how many animals in total are you supposing were aboard this Ark? Given that a good portion of the ship would be submerged due to your hypothesis, very little room would be left for the rest of the animals. Unless of course, you suppose very few animals were aboard to begin with. In which case, how are there so many now? This is a science forum. Stick to verifiable facts please.Edited by hooah212002, : tryin to fix double quoteEdited by hooah212002, : No reason given.Edited by hooah212002, : still getting quotes properEdited by Adminnemooseus, : Removed the "crackbrain" in front of the "hypothesis". Don't do things like that.

The OP's objection has to do with a vessel this size taking to water and that's what I'm addressing.It is sufficient, I think, to note that a vessel this size, whose unladen form barely dents the surface of the water, could hold a significant number of (unspecified) animals. Indeed, were the designed-to-be-submerged volume fitted out with balsa wood then buoyancy would be further increased - increasing load carrying capacity still further Like this you mean?

Your description exceeds what the Bible says. Therefore, your description is extra-Biblical. You, as a creationist, get to make it up as you go and then claim the Bible as the authority for your fantasies. Do you actually know the difference between light and ventilation? It seems not. Further, you tell me that it isn't a window but an opening for illumination, followed by a translation that calls it a window. Either it is or it isn't a window. Exactly what do you think a window is? And somewhere in you confusion about the window/opening for illumination you come up with ventilation. Make it up as you go and claim the Bible says that. Great! On the top floor someone might stick their head out this window and get some fresh air - but not down two decks. The problem has been explained to you several times but you seem to be having trouble understanding the most simple principles. The hydrocarbon fumes (from tar - ever smelled it) and the CO₂, are heavier than air. There would also be constant accumulation of methane from the animal waste. Those gases would have accumulated in the bottom of the ark unless there were an active ventilation system. It is the reason that hard rock mines have huge fans on ventilation shafts - to pump good air down to the miners and drive out the methane. Perhaps you were unaware of this, but houses are not built to float. The vents in houses are to allow rising hot air to escape from attics. You probably never noticed that there are vents under the eaves as well as vents at the top of the roof. The rising hot air goes out at the top and pulls cooler air in from the eaves. Their purpose is not to introduce breathable air into the house. It amazes me how you just don't grasp some very simple concepts when they are explained to you. No one mentioned individual timbers that were 300 ft. long. Are you actually aware of how long that is? Imagine a football field with a single board laying on it that goes from goal line to goal line. Not gonna happen! Do you think that the wooden ships that we have been talking about were planked with strakes that ran the entire length of the ship? What you are being told (and what you are ignoring) is that 300 ft. is the structural limit of shipbuilding of all wood construction. Then show us the calculations that show that the ark, at over 500 ft. would not have leaked. Do you actually understand the calculations that RAZD provided? Yes, I have read it, in three different languages, as well as in several different translations in English. The real question is whether or not you have read it. Since you keep making up so much about the story that just isn't there, it would seem not. The "resinous tree" part is from a non-standard translation. No one knows what "gopher" wood was so it is a bit disingenuous to claim that "resinous tree" has some meaning. By the way, your quote begins at Gen 6:14 - not Gen 6:13. No I don't. You do. Show us the calculations that make the ark seaworthy. I guess you didn't understand what RADZ said. Increasing the width would decrease the snaking. But you don't say anything about hogging/sagging. Besides, RADZ was talking about box beams and their strength. We are not claiming that the hull broke, only that it leaked badly because of the inability to keep it rigid enough. Tar/pitch isn't a very good caulk for large, wooden ships - it leaks.But on the other hand, no one ever claimed that mythology had to be possible.Edited by pandion, : methane

Hello Peg, I won;t comment on the other stuff, since the rest seem to be doing a good job, but this I couldn't let slip: Now, don't tell me you can't keep your biblical figures apart.

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I hunt for the truth

Ok, but to determine where you are coming from, we need to determine how many animals YOU think were aboard the ark. If you think only 5 were aboard, well then, this vessel can be as shoddy as you like. However, if there are a number similar to the number we see today, you have alot more explaining to do. Such as, in the event of a storm (assuming it did NOT storm the entire time, which it had to have), are more animals not drowning due to the storm swells? There goes the whole entire bottom deck. Possibly the second, depending on how far below the surface this woven ship is."A significant number" doesn't tell me anything. Significant to whom? Significant in relation to what? The cosmos? An ant hill?Your "source" says 7 of each or 2 of each, depending where you look. Given how many animals there are today, your hypothesis is extremely flawed. You have yet to come up with an explanation for the number of different animals we see today. It is called sarcasm. I figured it was obvious enough for most to discern that.I think I may go for a canoe ride in a wicker basket after work today.edit: Am I straying too far off topic here?Edited by hooah212002, : Am I straying off topic?

Just having a second look at this - and correct me if I've calculated wrongly.The ark dimensons in metres are approx L=156, B=26, D=15. We're assuming construction from a balsa wood weave - in which the submerged volume of the vessle is filled mainly with wood to increase buoyancy. If we assume that the loaded up vessel is 50% submerged then the load carrying calculation would go like this:Volume of submerged section = 156 x 26 x 7.5m = 30420m3Assuming the above sumberged volume is 30% water and 70% wood (because the structure is woven and not solid) we have a submerged volume of wood = 30420 x 70% = 21294m3The weight of that wood would be a function of the density of balsa wood (170kg/m3) which works out at 3619 metrc tonnes.The buoyancy generated by this amount of submerged wood is the same as it's weight minus x it's relative weight (ie: the same as it's total buoyancy minus the buoyancy required to stop itself from sinking). Thus(3619 - (.17 x 3619) = 3004 metric tonnes.The load carrying capacity of this glorified (literally) raft is 3004 metric tonnes divided up into structure above water, animals, food however Noah saw fitSeems that there'd be room for a fair few animals to me..