Gold Plates: Theoretical Minimum Thickness

[Doug the Hutt]

What would be the minimum thickness per each page of the Golden Plates need to be to:

1. be bound together with metal rings

and

2. be able to turn the leaves without them ripping or tearing as they are turned. A book intended to be read should be made of material strong enough to withstand leafing through the pages -- should also be able to withstand dear Emma Smith rustling the side of them

and

3. be able to engrave upon them without poking through to the other side. This one is important because presumably the story would be written on two sides of the pages, and unless the pages were thick enough there would be deformities pushing through to the opposite side as Mormon & Moroni used rocks & meteroic iron to engrave them.

and

4. contain all the information written in "reformed Egyptian" that Joseph produced from it (not including the "sealed" portion)

The witnesses describe them in different ways. Were they the thickness of thick paper as David Whitmer said? How thick is thick paper ("thick" is unwarranted -- how is that defined?)? If they were as thick as common sheet tin would there be any big air pockets or would they compress/flatten out under their own 40-60lb weight?

http://en.wikipedia....i/Golden_plates

[thesometimesaint]

Doug the Hutt:

About the thickness of common tin.

[Mortal Man]

What would be the minimum thickness per each page of the Golden Plates need to be to:

More importantly, could 596 pages of handwritten English have fit onto ~19 plates?

[ELF1024]

More importantly, can 596 pages of English text fit on 19 plates?

It also depends upon the "word density" of the langauge in question.

One of the most common phrases in the Book of Mormon, "And It Came To Pass" is likely to have been used so often because it was just one character/figure/symbol in the original written form. If one symbol to five english words is the average, and I doubt it would be that high, then a 50,000 word book would only be 10,000 characters. If a more reasonable average of three per symbol were the rule, than it would be approx. 16,700 characters.

(additional)

I've always envisioned Mormon and Moroni as well as all the writers of the BoM to be careful men. I've always thought of them as writing down what they wanted to say on animal hide, parchment, or whatever, dozens of time until they got the symbols used down to the fewest number, while still maintaining the meaning and intended symbolism.

These men have to be very smart and very familiar with their written language to compress everything they had to say into the structure they wanted to write on the plates.

[Mark Beesley]

What would be the minimum thickness per each page of the Golden Plates need to be to:

1. be bound together with metal rings

and

2. be able to turn the leaves without them ripping or tearing as they are turned. A book intended to be read should be made of material strong enough to withstand leafing through the pages -- should also be able to withstand dear Emma Smith rustling the side of them

and

3. be able to engrave upon them without poking through to the other side. This one is important because presumably the story would be written on two sides of the pages, and unless the pages were thick enough there would be deformities pushing through to the opposite side as Mormon & Moroni used rocks & meteroic iron to engrave them.

and

4. contain all the information written in "reformed Egyptian" that Joseph produced from it (not including the "sealed" portion)

The witnesses describe them in different ways. Were they the thickness of thick paper as David Whitmer said? How thick is thick paper ("thick" is unwarranted -- how is that defined?)? If they were as thick as common sheet tin would there be any big air pockets or would they compress/flatten out under their own 40-60lb weight?

http://en.wikipedia....i/Golden_plates

Without knowing what the plates were made of, such idle speculation is rather pointless. As for your point No. 3, the plates were engraven, not imprinted. There is virtually NO poking through in engravings irrespective of thickness.

[Mark Beesley]

More importantly, could 596 pages of handwritten English have fit onto ~19 plates?

Apparently.

[Mola Ram Suda Ram]

More importantly, could 596 pages of handwritten English have fit onto ~19 plates?

I will quote Maklelan

That assertion is utterly ludicrous. It's an artist's depiction, and the artist isn't trying to replicate the thickness of the plates. They're trying to produce something sturdy and of aesthetic value. Of all the cockamamie theories to try to try to prove the Book of Mormon false, this ranks among the most ridiculous.

[LeSellers]

A book intended to be read should be made of material strong enough to withstand leafing through the pages -- should also be able to withstand dear Emma Smith rustling the side of them

So, where does the assumption that this book (or, rather, this copy of the book) was intended to be read come from?

Moroni and his father both knew that it would be read, at most a very few times (the last one being Joseph during the translation process.

Lehi

[Mortal Man]

I will quote Maklelan

Why are you quoting maklelan when he clearly had no clue that this is not an "artist's depiction", but rather the church's best reconstruction based on all available historical evidence?

[CV75]

What would be the minimum thickness per each page of the Golden Plates need to be to:

1. be bound together with metal rings

and

2. be able to turn the leaves without them ripping or tearing as they are turned. A book intended to be read should be made of material strong enough to withstand leafing through the pages -- should also be able to withstand dear Emma Smith rustling the side of them

and

3. be able to engrave upon them without poking through to the other side. This one is important because presumably the story would be written on two sides of the pages, and unless the pages were thick enough there would be deformities pushing through to the opposite side as Mormon & Moroni used rocks & meteroic iron to engrave them.

and

4. contain all the information written in "reformed Egyptian" that Joseph produced from it (not including the "sealed" portion)

The witnesses describe them in different ways. Were they the thickness of thick paper as David Whitmer said? How thick is thick paper ("thick" is unwarranted -- how is that defined?)? If they were as thick as common sheet tin would there be any big air pockets or would they compress/flatten out under their own 40-60lb weight?

http://en.wikipedia....i/Golden_plates

To narrow down the vagueness of the answers, a few aspects of the questions should be deleted or modified:

1. Reinforcements or magnetism could accommodate the use of metal rings. 2. The book was only intended to be translated, likely one-time through; while the plates may have been hefted, the method of turning the pages may have not have been accomplished manually. 3. Maybe only one side was etched/engraved after all; the technology for producing the plates is unknown and may have accommodated extremely thin pages--it did contribute to the frustration with the awkwardness of their hands--it could have been chemical, shorthand, micro-engraved, coded symbols referencing other texts, a "sheet" could have opened up into multiple thinner sheets, etc. 4. Assumption / hearsay on the weight.

The minimum thickness could have been just about anything, as the maximum thickness.

[krose]

I've always envisioned Mormon and Moroni as well as all the writers of the BoM to be careful men. I've always thought of them as writing down what they wanted to say on animal hide, parchment, or whatever, dozens of time until they got the symbols used down to the fewest number, while still maintaining the meaning and intended symbolism.

These men have to be very smart and very familiar with their written language to compress everything they had to say into the structure they wanted to write on the plates.

Is there anything about the English version of the Book of Mormon that leads you to believe that its source document would have been carefully optimized to avoid unnecessary verbiage?

It also depends upon the "word density" of the langauge in question.

One of the most common phrases in the Book of Mormon, "And It Came To Pass" is likely to have been used so often because it was just one character/figure/symbol in the original written form. If one symbol to five english words is the average, and I doubt it would be that high, then a 50,000 word book would only be 10,000 characters. If a more reasonable average of three per symbol were the rule, than it would be approx. 16,700 characters.

You must envision a language with a huge number of symbols, where a single symbol would represent a multiword phrase in other known languages. Chinese has well over 50,000 characters, of which an educated person knows around 8,000. But even though the symbols are complicated, each character corresponds to a single concept or meaning. In fact, as I thumb through my Mandarin-English dictionary, I see that almost every English word is represented by two or more characters. In a hypothetical symbolic language where each symbol represents a phrase, many times more would be required. Such a written language would be extremely unwieldy and impractical.

Let's take one phrase (underlined below) from the very first sentence in the book:

I, Nephi, having been born of goodly parents, therefore I was taught somewhat in all the learning of my father; and having seen many afflictions in the course of my days, nevertheless, having been highly favored of the Lord in all my days; yea, having had a great knowledge of the goodness and the mysteries of God, therefore I make a record of my proceedings in my days.

How many symbols do you think might represent this 12-word phrase? Perhaps 4 (/ therefore / I was taught / in all the learning / of my father /) to get the 3:1 ratio of compaction?

I suppose it is conceivable that one symbol might represent I was taught (the first-person, singular, past-tense, passive-voice meaning of teach). But to accomplish that feat, the language must have a different character for every different conjugation of teach:

- I teach

- I taught

- I would teach

- I might teach

- I am teaching

- I was teaching

- I will teach

- I will be taught

- I will have been taught

- I have taught

- I have been teaching

- I am taught

- I am being taught

- I was taught

- I have been taught

- I had been taught

- I was being taught

- I would have taught

- I might have taught

- I would have been taught

- I might have been taught

- I might have been teaching

- I would have been teaching

(and possibly more that don't come to mind right now - the "having been" construction is obviously well used)

I'll stop with these that come to mind right now. In addition to the infinitive, to teach, so far that's 23 different symbols required for just the first-person conjugations of the word. Now multiply that by a minimum of three to cover simple (not gender-specific) second-person and third-person conjugations, and then double that for the plurals of each. We now would require a minimum of 140 distinct symbols for each verb. And that number assumes that there are no levels of formality/familiarity, as well as no difference in conjugation depending on the sex of the subject, both of which are common in other languages.

That's a lot of symbols, but verb conjugations are probably the best candidates for multiple word representation. If you then wish to envision single symbols that represent all the different adjectival phrases, adverbial phrases and prepositional phrases, the scenario gets even more complicated. For example, of my father, of your father, of her father, for my father, from his father, about my father, regarding their fathers, and on and on. It seems to be a very high price to pay in complexity just for the purpose of minimizing writing space.

Incidentally, in the Mandarin BoM, the 12-word English phrase includes 17 characters (?? ? ?? ? ?? ?? ? ? ?? ???), with a total of 143 strokes (if I counted correctly).

[ELF1024]

Is there anything about the English version of the Book of Mormon that leads you to believe that its source document would have been carefully optimized to avoid unnecessary verbiage?

I have no proof of the idea. I have faith that it was done. However, it is not something I can prove.

I could be totally incorrect.

One of the reasons I came to that conclusion that that the book of Mormon has a limited vocabulary of only 2,225 English words.

Incidentally, in the Mandarin BoM, the 12-word English phrase includes 17 characters (?? ? ?? ? ?? ?? ? ? ?? ???), with a total of 143 strokes (if I counted correctly).

The writers of the Book of Mormon weren't doing translation, they were doing writing in their own native tongue. I would hope that there is a better way to say something that has the same meaning in Mandarin that isn't a direct transalation but gives the same basic meaning in a different manner using fewer characters.

[Mola Ram Suda Ram]

Why are you quoting maklelan when he clearly had no clue that this is not an "artist's depiction", but rather the church's best reconstruction based on all available historical evidence?

We have already been over this. No reason to drag it up again now is there.

What some people see as a missile contrail others see as an airplane contrail. Apparently you think it is an airplane contrail??

[Mark Beesley]

Is there anything about the English version of the Book of Mormon that leads you to believe that its source document would have been carefully optimized to avoid unnecessary verbiage?

You must envision a language with a huge number of symbols, where a single symbol would represent a multiword phrase in other known languages. Chinese has well over 50,000 characters, of which an educated person knows around 8,000. But even though the symbols are complicated, each character corresponds to a single concept or meaning. In fact, as I thumb through my Mandarin-English dictionary, I see that almost every English word is represented by two or more characters. In a hypothetical symbolic language where each symbol represents a phrase, many times more would be required. Such a written language would be extremely unwieldy and impractical.

Let's take one phrase (underlined below) from the very first sentence in the book:

I, Nephi, having been born of goodly parents, therefore I was taught somewhat in all the learning of my father; and having seen many afflictions in the course of my days, nevertheless, having been highly favored of the Lord in all my days; yea, having had a great knowledge of the goodness and the mysteries of God, therefore I make a record of my proceedings in my days.

How many symbols do you think might represent this 12-word phrase? Perhaps 4 (/ therefore / I was taught / in all the learning / of my father /) to get the 3:1 ratio of compaction?

I suppose it is conceivable that one symbol might represent I was taught (the first-person, singular, past-tense, passive-voice meaning of teach). But to accomplish that feat, the language must have a different character for every different conjugation of teach:

- I teach

- I taught

- I would teach

- I might teach

- I am teaching

- I was teaching

- I will teach

- I will be taught

- I will have been taught

- I have taught

- I have been teaching

- I am taught

- I am being taught

- I was taught

- I have been taught

- I had been taught

- I was being taught

- I would have taught

- I might have taught

- I would have been taught

- I might have been taught

- I might have been teaching

- I would have been teaching

(and possibly more that don't come to mind right now - the "having been" construction is obviously well used)

I'll stop with these that come to mind right now. In addition to the infinitive, to teach, so far that's 23 different symbols required for just the first-person conjugations of the word. Now multiply that by a minimum of three to cover simple (not gender-specific) second-person and third-person conjugations, and then double that for the plurals of each. We now would require a minimum of 140 distinct symbols for each verb. And that number assumes that there are no levels of formality/familiarity, as well as no difference in conjugation depending on the sex of the subject, both of which are common in other languages.

That's a lot of symbols, but verb conjugations are probably the best candidates for multiple word representation. If you then wish to envision single symbols that represent all the different adjectival phrases, adverbial phrases and prepositional phrases, the scenario gets even more complicated. For example, of my father, of your father, of her father, for my father, from his father, about my father, regarding their fathers, and on and on. It seems to be a very high price to pay in complexity just for the purpose of minimizing writing space.

Incidentally, in the Mandarin BoM, the 12-word English phrase includes 17 characters (?? ? ?? ? ?? ?? ? ? ?? ???), with a total of 143 strokes (if I counted correctly).

Your analysis fails because it erroneously equates a Mandarin symbol with a word in determining language density, where the proper analysis would equate each symbol with a letter. Thus, the 17 character Mandarin phrase requires 52 English symbols (letters) for its rendition. Wanna count how many strokes are required to manually write each of those English symbols?

[Macabus]

If a language were being used to compare compression for text on the plates of Mormon, I would suggest Hebrew be used. Hebrew is more compressed than English in most circumstances, and in Mormon 9:33, we can infer that reformed Egyptian was even more compressed than Hebrew. Moroni stated, "And if our plates had been sufficiently large we should have written in Hebrew; but the Hebrew hath been altered by us also."  From this information, we could deduce that reformed Egyptian was a very condensed language in relation to English based on the premise that generally Hebrew is more condensed than English and reformed Egyptian is likely to be more condensed than Hebrew.

[ELF1024]

therefore I was taught somewhat in all the learning of my father;

?? ? ?? ? ?? ?? ? ? ?? ???

Hmm... still less space than the english...

[Anijen]

Why are you quoting maklelan when he clearly had no clue that this is not an "artist's depiction", but rather the church's best reconstruction based on all available historical evidence?

That is what a good artist will do, use the best availably historical evidence and then reconstruct out of paint clay or stone etc?

hence an artist's depiction.

[krose]

Your analysis fails because it erroneously equates a Mandarin symbol with a word in determining language density, where the proper analysis would equate each symbol with a letter. Thus, the 17 character Mandarin phrase requires 52 English symbols (letters) for its rendition.

Perhaps it would be better to look instead at how Japanese uses those same Chinese characters. I'm much more comfortable with that anyway.

The Japanese word for love is written as ?, which can also be written using one of their simpler scripts, either ?? or ?? (ai in roman letters). Similarly, heart is ? in kanji (Chinese borrowed), or ??? in the hiragana script, and ??? in the katakana (romanized as kokoro). The kanji characters represent words, not letters, and are pronounced differently depending on the context. The two kana scripts can be thought of as letters, with no inherent meanings, just sounds.

This sentence: ?????????? (there is love in [my] heart) contains seven words. Three of them are single kanji characters, the others are spelled out using the hiragana 'letters.' Words that require multiple kanji characters, such as ?? (explanation, romanized as setsumei), are actually compound words. The kanji provide word meanings; spelling them out with kana provides the pronunciation.

Wanna count how many strokes are required to manually write each of those English symbols?

Already have. Using the same rule used for counting kanji strokes (the stroke ends when the brush is lifted), the stroke count for the 12-word phrase is 74. If a stricter rule is used (four strokes for w, two each for g, h, etc.), the number would be about 130.

------------

But the point of using Chinese as an example is that it's a language with a large number of characters, which would be dwarfed by the number of individual symbols that would be required in a scenario where each symbol would represent multiple words.

[krose]

Hmm... still less space than the english...

Ha! Only because of font size.

[Mark Beesley]

Ha! Only because of font size.

Not!!!

Here are the same phrases using this website's Ariel Size 4:

therefore I was taught somewhat in all the learning of my father

?? ? ?? ? ?? ?? ? ? ?? ???

[krose]

Not!!!

Here are the same phrases using this website's Ariel Size 4:

therefore I was taught somewhat in all the learning of my father

?? ? ?? ? ?? ?? ? ? ?? ???

Surely you realize that the Ariel character set does not include these characters.

At any rate, it's not comparable size that's important here, but readability. For the individual characters to be equally as readable (distinguish the individual strokes) Roman characters can be much smaller, because of their simpler structure.

[krose]

We still seem to be avoiding the point that the idea of using one symbol to represent several words would inflate the required symbol set to an unmanageable level, probably beyond the ability of the human brain to store them for practical writing and reading purposes.

It would help the case to identify a written language that can be demonstrated to have ever done that. The example of the alleged "came to pass" glyph doesn't help much, because even if that's what it really means, that phrase is really little more than "and so" or "and then." Many more examples would be needed to show a condensed writing system.

[thesometimesaint]

R U redi?

[krose]

If a language were being used to compare compression for text on the plates of Mormon, I would suggest Hebrew be used. Hebrew is more compressed than English in most circumstances, and in Mormon 9:33, we can infer that reformed Egyptian was even more compressed than Hebrew. Moroni stated, "And if our plates had been sufficiently large we should have written in Hebrew; but the Hebrew hath been altered by us also."  From this information, we could deduce that reformed Egyptian was a very condensed language in relation to English based on the premise that generally Hebrew is more condensed than English and reformed Egyptian is likely to be more condensed than Hebrew.

From what little I know of ancient Hebrew, I believe the reason it is more compressed is because it did not include written vowels, not that each character told volumes. As for "reformed Egyptian," it's anyone's guess what that might be.

[cdowis]

It would help the case to identify a written language that can be demonstrated to have ever done that. The example of the alleged "came to pass" glyph doesn't help much, because even if that's what it really means, that phrase is really little more than "and so" or "and then." Many more examples would be needed to show a condensed writing system.

Krose,

Punctuation is a relatively recent invention. There was no punctuation marks on the BOM manuscript -- the printer put them into the printed text.

The glyph is being used to denote the end of sentence or paragraph.