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tokai

> 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.

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For 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.

Sounds like the real challenge is to circle the world without getting too close to anything named after some Michael

Those two things do depend on each other, don't they? Like Ying and Yang?

There 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.

If 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?

They are all dedicated to the same saint, St. Michael.

Which 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_E...

Only ~30 are cathedrals, still more than a selection of 7.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathedral_of_Saint_Michael

Right, but none of the 7 are cathedrals.

That'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.

In that case he should plot which of them match the geodesic line curve

If one finds all of those lines one might find something.

Also compare star maps.

Agreed. I wonder if they could find better candidates.

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