To coincide with the release of the Hollywood retelling of Noah’s Ark starring Russell Crowe, a team of researchers from the University of Leicester have determined that an Ark of biblical proportions would have floated with enough space for plenty of animals.

In the book of Genesis, chapter 6:13-22, Noah is commanded to build an ark built of gopher wood, with dimensions 300x50x30 cubits, which the Bible states is sufficiently large to fit Noah’s family and at least two of every species of animal for the duration of the flood.

Scientist Benjamin Jordan said:

“Using the dimensions of the ark and the density of the water, we were able to calculate its buoyancy force, which, according to Archimedes’ principle, is equal to the weight of the volume of fluid the object displaces. This meant we were then able to estimate the total mass the ark could support before the gravitational weight would overcome the buoyancy force, causing the ark to sink, which we calculated as 50.54x106kg.”

The team concluded that the Ark could “support the weight of 2.15 million sheep without sinking and that should be enough to support all of the species that were around at the time” according to researcher Oliver Youle.

Surprised that the biblical dimensions and directions could have produced a ship capable of the task, student Thomas Morris said:

“You don’t think of the Bible necessarily as a scientifically accurate source of information, so I guess we were quite surprised when we discovered it would work. We’re not proving that it’s true, but the concept would definitely work.”

The study was published in the Journal of Physics Special Topics.