As a well- brought- up child, I would no sooner leave a full stop off the end of a sentence than leave the lab without cleaning the test tubes. But yes, I have a spot on my chin which I all-too-frequently take the top off when I shave.

There are of course two such positions, at which the radius of the circle of the intersecting plane is one third of the radius of the sphere: approximately 17 degrees 16 minutes above and below the equator.

Such a calculation could have been used to construct a basin of the kind Solomon made for the "sea" of Temple at Jerusalem. Since the height is given as 5 Q-bits, the same as its radius, the "sea" must have used the cut- off below the equator, and have been raised off the ground by its supporting oxen, about 1.48 Q-bits up. Alternatively, they could have sunk it into the ground, but then the oxen would have been merely decorative.

But I really rather doubt if they did make any such calculation, and that they were merely a bit behind other neighbouring civilisations in their approximation for pi. They probably had little practical use for a better one.

That's an odd bit about it being 5 cubits high, though: assuming a cubit about my measurement of 45cm (and wasn't Solomon a big chap or am I thinking of some other bloke?), the "sea" would have been 2.25m up, or about seven foot six, and no one could actually see into it without someone giving them a leg up. Most undignified.

What's a "knop" by the way?