Thursday, October 10, 2024

Introduction To This Blog System

                                                                                                         

Image used by permission

This is my main blog and all new postings are made here. Postings may be later combined into a compound posting on this blog. Many of the postings concern my observations in various branches of science, but there are also many on technology, religion, economics and, general world issues.

Blogs are organized to be read from top to bottom like a book. There is a list of the postings on each blog to the right of the blog, but you have to click on the months shown. Please use this listing to verify that you have seen all of the postings on the blog. The usual pace of this blog is 1-3 new postings per week.
 
I would really like to thank everyone who reads any of these blogs for your interest.
 
SCIENCE WRITING
 
Most of the postings on this blog are visits to various places around the world, and articles about such topics as history and religion. But much of the writing is about science. I do not write about what is already known but only if I can write something new, or at least a new way of looking at things. If the title of a posting has an asterisk* after it, that means that the posting has already been moved to it's permanent position and will later be deleted from here.
 
If you would like a quick background in the science and mathematics that everyone should really know in the 21st Century, the posting "Scientific Literacy" provides this in about a hundred paragraphs. Similarly, "The Way Things Work" provides a quick background in everyday technology.
 
I am a Christian and I want to show that belief in God is not unscientific at all. I was interested in science long before I was interested in religion, and have never had any trouble believing that God created everything.
 
There are five major scientific theories, each arranged in the form of a textbook. The first four of the following five are on this blog.
 
"The Theory Of Stationary Space" is my cosmological theory of how so much revolves around time being explained by us being in four-dimensional space, with the dimension that we cannot access being perceived as time. This is my version of string theory, with matter actually being strings in four dimensions rather than particles in three dimensions. Everything is ultimately based on negative and positive electric charges, with energy being able to overcome the laws of attraction and repulsion of electric charges. No one has ever explained exactly what time is, and a myriad of explanations of other things fall right into place around it.
 
"The Flow Of Information Through The Universe" is about how so much can be explained by seeing how there is a limited amount of information, and it must be the same information that constructs the highest levels as the lowest levels. A ready example is how the orbits of planets around the sun is based on the orbitals of electrons around the nucleus, in the atoms of which the sun and planets are composed. This concept is extremely useful because, understanding this, we can study things that we cannot directly see by analyzing things that we can see because all must be built on the same information.
 
"The Theory Of Complexity" is about what information actually is, how energy and information is really the same thing, and how we see the universe as we do because of our perspective of being at a higher level of information than our inanimate surroundings.
 
"The Lowest Information Point" is about how, since information and energy is really the same thing and the universe always seeks the lowest energy state, it also always seeks the "Lowest Information Point". So much is explained by how the universe prefers equalities to inequalities and related ratios where the numerator of one ratio is also the denominator of the other. This explains so much from why dust particles are as big as they to why the planets and stars are the scale that they are.
 
"The Story Of Planet Earth", on the geology blog, is about how virtually every major feature of the earth's surface, both on land and seafloor, can be explained by lines of magma emergence from below that were affected by the landing of three Continental Asteroids. Many people believe that land originated from a past "super-continent", but there is no explanation of where it came from.
 
There are a few of what we could call "minor" theories, where there is not as much written as with the major theories. On this blog, there is "How Biology And Human Life Fits Into Cosmology". On the meteorology and biology blog, there is my theory of the nature of water, "Water Made Really Simple".
 
There are compound postings about science which are groupings of writing about a certain topic.
 
Scientific compound postings include, "Computer Science", "Atomic Science", "Measurement", "A Celebration Of The Inverse Square Law", "Our Solar System", "Mind-Bending Cosmology", "The Configuration Of The Solar System Made Really Simple", "In Appreciation Of Electrons", "The Science Of Human Society " and "Orbital And Escape Velocities And Impacts from Space".
 
Compound postings about history and the world include "The House Of Holy Wisdom, Where The Modern World Began", "Niagara Stories", "Economics", "How History Repeats Itself", "The Meaning Of Freedom", "The Western Hemisphere", "Our Language" and, "America And The Modern World Explained By Way Of Paris".
 
There are two compound postings about prophecies and the Bible. There is "The Aztec Prophecy" than, for prophecies that are directly made in the Bible there is "New Insight Into Bible Prophecy".
 
"Investigations" is the compound posting that is a collection of any posting about an investigation.
 
The rest of the postings are individual postings. For more detailed information about this blog, see the posting "About This Blog". For general topics of conversation, see "Thoughts And Observations", on the world and economics blog.  

Other Blogs And Books

                                                          

Lights at night 

Here is a quick look at my other blogs before you start this one.

On this blog, you can see a list of all postings by clicking on the year or month to the right. But on the topical blogs, that is not the case. If you click on a year or month on those blogs, it will display the postings themselves, but the list on the right will still only show those postings that were added most recently.

To access a list of all postings on those blogs, it is necessary to click on the arrow in front of the year or month in question.

http://www.markmeekeconomics.blogspot.com/ is about economics, history and, general human issues.

http://www.markmeekprogress.blogspot.com/ concerns progress in technology and ideas.

http://www.markmeekearth.blogspot.com/ is my geology and global natural history blog for topics other than glaciers. My natural history blogs concerning the impact of glaciers is http://www.markmeekworld.blogspot.com/ .

http://www.markmeekniagara.blogspot.com/ is about new discoveries concerning natural history in the general area of Niagara Falls.

http://www.markmeeklife.blogspot.com/ is my observations concerning meteorology and biology.

http://www.markmeekphysics.blogspot.com/ is my blog about physics and astronomy.

http://www.markmeekcosmology.blogspot.com/ is my version of string theory that solves many unsolved mysteries about the underlying structure and beginning of the universe.

http://www.markmeekpatterns.blogspot.com/ details my work with the fundamental patterns and complexity that underlies everything in existence.

 http://www.markmeekreligion.blogspot.com/ is my religion blog.

 http://www.markmeekcreation.blogspot.com/ is proof that there must be a god.

http://www.markmeekphotos.blogspot.com/ is my travel photos of Europe.

On my photo blogs, Blogspot will not hold all of the photos in each blog in a straight line. To see all of the photos, you must click on the bottom posting listed on the right at the top of the blog after seeing all that there are in the initial showing. The last posting in the North America blog should be "Tijuana, Mexico" and the last posting in the Europe blog should be "Notre Dame Cathedral Door And Arc De Triomphe, Paris". Each photo in the photo blogs can be clicked on to enlarge it to full screen.

My autobiography is http://www.mark-meek.blogspot.com/

My books can be seen at http://www.bn.com/ http://www.amazon.com/ or, http://www.iuniverse.com/ just do an author search for "Mark Meek".  

Bangkok

Bangkok became the capital of Thailand in 1782. It is one of the most visited cities in the world.

The following scenes are of around Wat Arun, a Buddhist temple which was built in the 1600s. The first six images of Wat Arun are from Google Street View. 







There are multiple scenes following. To see the scenes, after the first one, you must first click the up arrow, ^, before you can move on to the next scene by clicking the right or forward arrow, >. After clicking the up arrow, you can then hide the previews of successive scenes, if you wish.

https://www.google.com/maps/@13.7436778,100.4889689,3a,75y,108.88h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipNKggVLohLOIhrd3l2Y8Ov3if_vzcd4CQcojleS!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipNKggVLohLOIhrd3l2Y8Ov3if_vzcd4CQcojleS%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi0-ya109.398384-ro-0-fo100!7i5659!8i2827

This is the complex of the Grand Palace, where the king of Thailand lived until 1925. Thailand was formerly known as Siam, and Siamese means Thai. The first seven images of the Grand Palace are from Google Street View.











https://www.google.com/maps/@13.7681959,100.5117474,3a,75y,77.57h,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1shspw0x_kwRDtCGR5d79EMg!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fcb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile%26w%3D900%26h%3D600%26pitch%3D0%26panoid%3Dhspw0x_kwRDtCGR5d79EMg%26yaw%3D77.56994617746015!7i16384!8i8192?coh=205410&entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI0MDkwOC4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D

Absolute monarchy was abolished in Thailand's 1932 revolution. If you have never heard of this revolution, it is because it was more of a quick coup by military officers. The king, while still very highly respected, is now a constitutional monarch, bound by a constitution. Monarchists describe the difference as being between that of a "real" king and a "showpiece" king. This revolution is remembered with the Democracy Monument, which is within a traffic circle. The first image of the Democracy Monument is from Google Street View.


https://www.google.com/maps/@13.7565942,100.5022298,3a,75y,55.16h,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sA3PwEJQ5a_fdti7ad5MJTg!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo2.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DA3PwEJQ5a_fdti7ad5MJTg%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D54.370132%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656

Another monument in Bangkok is the Victory Monument. This is to celebrate a victory that Thailand claimed against French colonial forces, taking back land that it had earlier been forced to give up. You may notice the irony here as the obelisk of the monument, while not a genuine Egyptian obelisk, resembles the one in Place Concorde. In the same way that the Democracy Monument, in a traffic circle, looks like something right out of Paris. The first image of the Victory Monument is from Google Street View.





https://www.google.com/maps/@13.7449428,100.5336258,2a,75y,46.93h,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sB5gkhp2VQAsygInEsOtnEw!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo0.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DB5gkhp2VQAsygInEsOtnEw%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D46.10052%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656

You can see on the signs that there are many Chinese-language businesses in this area. The name of Bangkok's river is the Chao Praya.

https://www.google.com/maps/@13.7411316,100.5083451,3a,75y,88.41h,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sOs0WqHPREioATpoQ_YEm_Q!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo2.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DOs0WqHPREioATpoQ_YEm_Q%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D88.366035%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656

There are a lot of Indian stores in this area. Remember that the reason southeast Asia is referred to as "Indochina" is that it has historically been influenced by both India and China.

https://www.google.com/maps/@13.7448278,100.5005303,3a,75y,132.79h,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sQLmYTW_w3sNupBvabZF7dw!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo2.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DQLmYTW_w3sNupBvabZF7dw%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D133.62007%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656

Finally, here are some views of the modern Bangkok, to the north of the older part of the city.

https://www.google.com/maps/@13.7564481,100.5363248,3a,75y,229.84h,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sqEvhzpwRrozQKClYUo6ElA!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo1.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DqEvhzpwRrozQKClYUo6ElA%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D229.0144%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656

The Rule Of Successive Revolutions

I have noticed something very important about understanding recent history.

While I was a child, the Vietnam War was on television every night. The actual war in Vietnam was only part of it. The war was very divisive at home and the anti-war protests were almost as much a part of the news as the war itself. Drawn everywhere was the peace symbol and people would make the peace sign, a V formed by the first two fingers. 


In January, 1973 there was rejoicing as the Communists agreed to a truce and America pulled out of the war. The people who understood the situation seemed skeptical that the truce would last, and they were right. Two and a half years later, seeing America distracted by Watergate and with a new president, the Communists launched a general offensive, gambling that America wouldn't get re involved in the war, and finally conquered South Vietnam. At age 14 I watched the Fall of Saigon live on the news.

But there is so much mystery about this war. The first mystery is that American forces never lost a major battle in the war, and reportedly dropped a greater tonnage of bombs than were dropped by both sides in the Second World War, yet still didn't win the war. The second mystery is that North Vietnam won the war, in the name of Communism, but today is an ally of the U.S. and displays the bustling entrepreneurial spirit that is typical of free enterprise. It was as if the war was really over nothing. 

There was an economic reason for the war, that we saw in the section 17) AMERICA'S WAR IN VIETNAM in the compound posting "Investigations", December 2018, but that is separate from what we are discussing here. 

The first thing to understand is that Southeast Asia was a French colony, and most of it's leading people spent time in France. The mausoleum of Ho Chi Minh, in Hanoi, resembles Napoleon's La Madeleine. Image from Google Street View.

A monument that Thailand claims commemorates a military victory against France ironically resembles the obelisk in Place Concorde. Image from Google Street View.

The monuments of Laos (top) and Cambodia that celebrate independence from France are actually a version of the Arc De Triomphe. Images from Google Street View.


The monument commemorating victory over Napoleon in St. Petersburg, Russia, closely resembles Napoleon's other arch, the Arch De Triomphe Du Carrousel.

Anywhere that has been associated with France will be closely familiar with the French Revolution. This was the opening of the modern political era. I consider the French Revolution as the "Big Bang" of the modern political era. 

The French Revolution began in 1789 and resulted in the overthrow and guillotining of the king and queen, to establish a republic. This was the prototype of the modern republic but what ultimately arose out of it was Napoleon, who was the prototype of the modern dictator. The revolution was also very hostile to the Catholic Church. One reason that the revolution is so memorable is the monuments. Napoleon's two famous arches form an axis in Paris and the Eiffel Tower is to commemorate the centennial of the revolution. 

There have been two major reenactments of the French Revolution, as well as many minor ones. The two major reenactments both changed the direction of the revolution, as far as it's interpretation by the world, as the prototype of modern politics. So we can describe it as a series of three revolutions. Each revolution superseded the one before it.

1) The French Revolution of 1789

2) The October (Communist) Revolution of 1917

3) The Iranian Revolution of 1979

Suppose that a nation went to war but the outcome of the war had already been decided? No matter what the nation did, or how many battles it won, nothing could change the outcome of the war because it had already been decided. That is what happened when America entered the Vietnam War because the war was really all about the French Revolution and that had already been decided. 

The First Vietnam War was the Vietnamese Communists against France. But the battle had already been decided. This was the era of the Second Revolution, which favored the Communists. This is why Communism spread so far. Not only that but France was allied with the Vietnamese Emperor, Bao Dai, while the original French Revolution had been about overthrowing the king. Finally, French forces constructed a great fortress, at Dien Bien Phu, while the signature event of the French Revolution was the storming of a fortress, the Bastille. So, no matter what France achieved in battle, it already had three strikes against it in terms of history.

America's involvement is sometimes referred to as the Second Vietnam War, and it followed France into a war where the outcome had already been decided by history. Emperor Bao Dai, who had been close to France, had been overthrown but replaced by a Catholic president, Ngo Dinh Diem, in this mostly Buddhist country. When Diem was overthrown he was ultimately replaced by Nguyen Van Thieu, who was also a Catholic. 

This represented France before the revolution, as the revolution was as hostile to Catholicism as it was to monarchy. We saw in the compound posting, "America And The Modern World Explained By Way Of Paris", December 2015, that America, unlike most other western countries, represents the France before, rather than after, the revolution. The king and queen who were overthrown and guillotined were actually America's first allies who helped it gain independence. America's Republicans are actually the continuation of the Bourbon Dynasty, which is why America's Democrats were generally the anti-war protestors.

So no matter what America did in the Vietnam War, the outcome had already been decided by history. The amazing thing is that American forces never lost a major battle during the war, but that didn't matter at all. The 1968 Tet Offensive, where the Communists simultaneously struck at targets all across South Vietnam, was actually a military defeat for the Communists as they suffered heavy losses. But it ended up as one of the turning points against America because it was like a national level "Storming of the Bastille", and those who stormed the Bastille were the winning side. The American base at Khe Sanh also represented a Bastille that was stormed during the Tet Offensive. 

During the Third Vietnam War, in 1975 after America's withdrawal, the helicopters evacuating staff from the roof of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon, with news cameras from across the world recording it, as the Communists surrounded it, was a final and perfect reenactment of the Storming of the Bastille to conclude the war, because the war had been all about the French Revolution and no military force was going to change that.

What I find really interesting about Southeast Asia is that the countries that had been French colonies, Vietnam, Cambodia and, Laos, became Communist, but none of the countries that hadn't been French colonies, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand or, Myanmar, became Communist. Yet France itself wasn't Communist and certainly didn't introduce the idea of Communism. What France did do was to introduce the idea of it's own revolution and the October (Communist) Revolution was now the successor of that.

But then if Communism had history on it's side, as the successor of the French Revolution, and it did conquer about a third of the world, then why did it just seem to evaporate like it did? Not many years after great victories like this in Vietnam, came the spectacular collapse of Communism in eastern Europe, and the Soviet Union ceased to exist in 1991. 

What happened is that the Second, October or Communist, Revolution had been supplanted by the Third Revolution. This is the Iranian Revolution of 1979. Like the Second Revolution, this had contact with France. The ideals of the French Revolution had been brought to Russia by the conquests of Napoleon and the Iranians who fermented the Iranian Revolution did so in exile near Paris. 

Not so long ago the superpowers had nuclear missiles pointed at each other over competing economic systems. But now, when nations deal with each other, no one seems to care much about economics anymore. The First (French) Revolution was secular and hostile to religion. The Second (Communist) Revolution was even more so. But the Third (Iranian) Revolution is moving back toward religion, and not only Islam.

Does anyone remember when there used to be lewd and crude bumper stickers on many cars, that we don't see anymore? Could anyone have ever imagined, in the days of "Godless Communism" that Russia would one day refer to a military campaign as it's "Holy War", and soldiers who were killed in it would have their sins forgiven? Albania once declared itself as an officially atheist nation, where any expression of religion was forbidden. But it recently established a Vatican-like area for a religious group.

It is all the result of the Third Revolution superseding the Second and bringing the world, at least the west, back toward religion.

But then why is there still Communism in the Far East? China, North Korea and, Vietnam are ruled by Communist parties, although that Communism has been considerably modified, even though Communism is of the Second Revolution and we are now in the era of the Third Revolution?

We find a simple answer in the posting "Understanding The World In Terms Of The South And West And The North And East" April 2016. The two parts of the world operate differently and are defined by religion. The South And West is the realm of the monotheistic religions, primarily Christianity, Islam and, Judaism. The North And East is the realm of the eastern religions, primarily Hinduism and Buddhism. The primary difference between the two realms is that nations tend to come into being with ideas in the South And West, while the same nations have mostly existed since ancient times in the North And East. 

Since the Iranian Revolution was about Islam, which is a monotheistic religion, we should expect that the Third Revolution would apply more to the South And West that to the North And East, and this is why some degree of Communism, at least in name, remains in the Far East. 

We have seen the significance of the Iranian Revolution in the posting "The Great Revolution Of Our Time", January 2017. 

So when first France, and then America, went to war in Vietnam, they were up against more than the Communists, they were up against history. This was the era of the Second Revolution, which was about Communism, while America and France were still in the past, and no amount of bombs and bullets and victories were going to change that. 

In the Second World War, Hitler was the new Napoleon figure. We saw this in "Germany And The French Revolution", July 2024. Hitler made a point of visiting Napoleon's tomb and his field of conquest was virtually identical to that of Napoleon. But the era of the Second Revolution had begun, and this made inevitable the come-from-behind triumph of the Soviet Union. Napoleon never knew it but his own apparently unsuccessful invasion of Russia succeeded in planting the seed of the Second Revolution, about Communism.

But when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan it turned out similar to the American venture in Vietnam. That's because it was now the era of the Third Revolution, which began not long before in neighboring Iran. This is what brought Communism as we knew it to a conclusion. It was not capitalism that "won" the Cold War. It is true that Communism "crashed" in Russia but, during the tenure of Boris Yeltsin, capitalism crashed even worse and global democracy has been in slow decline since the end of the Cold War. What happened is that the Second Revolution had been supplanted by the Third Revolution.

You can see that the Rule Of Successive Revolutions always holds true, and no amount of military force can change it.

Energy, Meteorite Impacts And, Meteor Showers

A new "moon" is visiting earth for a while. It will go into orbit around the earth but won't impact it's surface. But if it will be under the influence of the earth's gravitational field then why wouldn't it fall to the surface? It is because that would be creating energy out of nothing and that is something that can never be done. This simple fact actually explains a lot.

A natural object, made of rock or metal, passing through space is called a "meteor". After it impacts a planet or moon it is called a "meteorite". 

Meteors usually come from the Asteroid Belt. It is generally believed that the asteroids would have coalesced by gravity into a planet but the powerful gravity of Jupiter, the most massive of the planets, prevented them from coalescing. 

A higher position or a higher orbit is a higher energy position. An object ten meters above the ground can be seen to have more potential energy than one five meters above the ground because, if both objects are dropped, the one that was higher will impact the ground with greater force. Likewise a higher orbit has more energy than a lower one. Gravity operates by the Inverse Square Law so that if we give an object in orbit three times the orbital energy it will orbit at nine times the original altitude, but with only one-third the speed. 

What happens is that the orbit of Jupiter is further from the sun, and thus a higher-energy orbit, than the orbits of the asteroids. The mutual gravity between Jupiter and an asteroid gradually slows the asteroid, every time it passes Jupiter in it's orbit. This transfers orbital energy from the asteroid to Jupiter, causing the asteroid to fall into a lower orbit closer to the sun. Eventually the asteroid encounters the inner planets, and may collide with one of them or the moon. 

Here is the mystery. We can see that there has been countless meteorite Impacts on the moon and on Mercury, as evidenced by the number of craters, but much fewer on the earth and on Mars. Part of the explanation is erosion that can erase evidence of meteorite impacts over time. There is weather on earth and wind and dust on now-dry Mars. But that cannot fully explain why there are so many more meteorite impacts on the moon and Mercury than there is on earth and Mars. There is another explanation that I have noticed.

Venus is also an inner planet but I am leaving it out of this explanation because it is shrouded in dense cloud and we cannot see it's surface.

Now here is what we must remember, and it is simple. It is that energy can never be created out of nothing. 

When an object falls toward a planet it undergoes acceleration due to the planet's gravity. On earth the acceleration due to gravity of a falling object is 32 feet, or 9.8 meters, per second squared. For an object to fall into orbit around the earth it will have come from further away from the sun than the earth. When it is in orbit around the earth it is still also in orbit around the sun, since the earth itself is in orbit around the sun, the additional orbital energy from it's original higher orbit will go into it's orbit around the earth. The total orbital energy of the object will be that of it's orbit around the sun plus that of it's orbit around the earth.

But the fact that energy can never be created out of nothing determines whether the object will fall to earth as a meteorite or remain in orbit. If the object falls to earth it will be subject to the acceleration due to gravity of a falling object and will impact the ground with force. But there is no energy in gravity itself, it is just a force, and if the energy with which it would impact the earth exceeds it's original orbital energy around the sun, minus the orbital energy of the earth around the sun, then it would be creating energy out of nothing for it to impact the earth. Since this can never be done the object has to stay in orbit around the earth, rather than impacting the earth. 

This means that, the more massive a planet is, the more likely that a passing object will fall into orbit around it, rather than impacting it, to avoid the impossibility of creating energy out of nothing. Also the closer a planet is to the sun the less it's orbital energy and thus the more likely that a passing object will have sufficiently more orbital energy so that impacting the planet, after undergoing it's acceleration due to gravity, would not be creating energy out of nothing. So the less massive a planet is, or the closer to the sun it is, the more likely it is to be impacted by meteors. 

This explains why there are so many more meteorite impacts on the moon and Mercury than there are on earth and Mars. 

Mars is not really a massive planet. But it is the furthest of the inner planets from the sun, thus having the highest orbital energy per mass. It is also the closest inner planet to the asteroid belt. This means that an asteroid that was descending to a lower orbit around the sun, due to lost orbital energy, would have the least orbital energy difference with Mars, compared to the other inner planets. Thus the asteroid would have less chance to not have to create energy out of nothing, which is impossible, if it impacted Mars after undergoing it's acceleration due to gravity. 

This is why Mars does not have that many meteorite impacts and it's two small moons, Phobos and Deimos, are widely believed to have originated as asteroids that fell into orbit around the planet but have never impacted it, because to impact Mars would have required creating energy out of nothing. 

Since the moon is in orbit around the earth it is the same average distance as the earth from the sun. But the moon is much less massive than the earth, it's surface gravity is only 1 / 6 that of the earth. This means that approaching meteors require much less additional energy than the orbital energy of the moon, per mass, to be able to impact the moon without creating energy out of nothing. This is why the moon gets struck by meteorites much more than the earth, at least per area. 

Mercury is the planet that is closest to the sun, meaning that it has the least orbital energy of the planets. This is why it really gets hammered by meteorite impacts. It is also the smallest planet, if Pluto isn't included, although Mercury does have a high density because so much of it's interior is made of iron. Mercury was impacted with such force by one meteorite, the Caloris Impact, that the resulting shock wave affected the terrain on the diametrically opposite side of the planet.

WHY THERE ARE METEOR SHOWERS

There are regular meteor showers throughout the year. As the earth moves through it's orbit around the sun it passes through clouds of dust. Particles burning up by friction with the atmosphere is what produces the "shooting stars".

The dust was mostly left behind by comets. These comets are composed mostly of ice and collect dust in space as they move along in their orbits around the sun. The orbits of comets around the sun tend to be extremely eccentric, coming from far out in space and spending only a brief time near the sun before going far back out into space for long periods of time. There are comets with orbital periods of thousands of years.

When the comet gets close to the sun the outermost ice gets vaporized by the heat. This is what produces the visible "tail" of the comet, as the vapor reflects sunlight. It also leaves a trail of dust in space in the part of the comet's orbit that was close to the sun. It is this trail of dust that the earth passes through every year to create the predictable shower of "shooting stars".

The comets have orbits around the sun in geometric planes that are not the same at all as the earth's. This is why different meteor showers that occur every year seem to come at us from different directions in the sky. Each meteor shower has it's own direction.

Meteor showers, which occur on the same date every year as the earth passes through the cloud of dust during it's orbit around the sun, are thus named for the constellations in the sky that they seem to radiate from. Some of the meteor showers are the Perseids, Geminids, and, Leonids.

The first thing that is obvious is that the particles of dust cannot be in orbit around the sun. For the particles to enter the earth's atmosphere would mean that the particles are the same distance from the sun as earth. This would then mean that the earth and the particles would never run into each other since everything in the Solar System orbits the sun in the same direction, and objects at the same distance from the sun will orbit at the same rate. In a similar way Jupiter has two groups of asteroids that share it's orbit at Lagrangian Points L4 and L5, known as the Greeks and the Trojans, but which never meet Jupiter.

Neither is it possible that the particles of dust that are shed by the comet when it is near the sun continue with the momentum of the comet in the orbit of the comet. Comets have very eccentric orbits with long orbital periods. A comet comes close to the sun, where it's outer layers are vaporized into the familiar "tail" and it sheds the dust that it has collected in it's journey through space, for only a relatively brief time during it's long orbit. If the particles of dust continued with the momentum in the orbit of the comet they would be there for the earth to pass through them for one, or just maybe two, years. But the earth has been passing through the same cometary clouds of dust that have been producing the same predictable meteor showers that have been recorded for hundreds, or even thousands, of years.

The only possible conclusion is that the clouds of dust that the earth passes through during it's orbit around the sun are stationary in space and do not orbit the sun. I don't see how it could be any other way.

This requires some special explanation. These dust particles are made of matter, which has mass, and gravity acts on mass. So why aren't these clouds of dust that the earth passes through in it's orbit in orbit themselves around the sun? The vast clouds of dust and gas in our galaxy orbit the center of the galaxy along with all of the stars.

We know that the sun was preceded by a large star that exploded in a supernova. Some of the debris fell back together by it's mutual gravity to form the sun and planets. My theory is that at least one, but probably three, nova preceded the supernova. As stellar fusion proceeds to successively heavier atoms more energy is released per time and this upsets the equilibrium of the star. A nova is the blasting away of the outer layers of the star, in an effort to regain equilibrium. If that doesn't restore equilibrium then the star will explode from the center as a supernova. 

We also know that the tremendous energy released by a supernova fuses together elements heavier than iron, which would not otherwise exist because the ordinary fusion process only goes as far as iron. This is why iron and lighter elements are exponentially more common than heavier elements, like silver, gold and, uranium. The much-lesser energy released by a nova fuses molecules together from the light atoms in the outer layers of the star. These light molecules include water, ammonia and, methane. Comets are composed mostly from these light molecules and the water on earth almost certainly came from comet impacts.

The comets were in orbit around the previous star before it exploded in the supernova. Some of the matter from the explosion collected back together by gravity to form the sun and the planets. But the sun was much less massive than the previous star had been. This means that the comets had much less orbital energy than before but the information of their orbits around the previous star could not just be lost. So the orbits of the comets around the sun "shrank" but with the high point, aphelion, remaining as it was before. This is why the orbits of comets are so elliptical. 

In the first of the following diagrams the previous star is shown in red and the typical orbit of a comet around it in green. The second diagram is after the supernova and the falling back of a portion of the matter to form the sun and Solar System. But the sun, shown in black, has only a fraction of the mass of the previous star so the orbit of the comet, shown in blue, has to "shrink" to match the decreased orbital energy. These diagrams are not to scale.


The question is why the particles of dust don't orbit the sun so that the earth passes through them in it's orbit every year. The answer is that their orbits would necessarily contain orbital energy. The planets orbit the sun because they formed in the same way as the sun, from the supernova debris, but the comets existed, and were in orbit around the previous star, before the sun formed. For the particles of dust to begin orbits around the sun would thus mean creating energy out of nothing, and we know that this cannot be done.

The dust is not entirely stationary. It is stationary with regard to the sun but the sun itself is in orbit around the center of the galaxy, bringing the Solar System with it. The comets orbit the sun because they were in orbit around the previous star before it exploded.

So the reason there are meteor showers that repeat every year is that energy cannot be created out of nothing. 

This also explains why the new "moon" that will be visiting us for a while will go into orbit around the earth, but will not impact the earth's surface. Because, if it fell to earth, it would be subject to the earth's acceleration due to gravity. This would give it more kinetic energy but that would be creating energy out of nothing, and creating energy out of nothing is something that simply cannot be done.


Exodus And Tampa Bay

The high winds of Hurricane Milton caused part of Tampa Bay to empty of water. 

In 2022 the same thing happened with Hurricane Ian and some people walked on the dry bottom of the bay. But then it refilled with water.

What do you notice here? This sounds like Moses leading the Israelites across the Red Sea. When the Egyptians pursued them the water came rushing back in.

The story in the Bible, Exodus 14, explains that there was high winds, from the east. Since they were in the Sinai Peninsula afterward it wasn't the main body of the Red Sea that they crossed but the northward extension, the Gulf of Suez.

Why is this story considered as so fantastic and incredible? Just look at Tampa Bay. It wasn't the main body of the Red Sea that they crossed but the Gulf of Suez, as shown by the red dot in the following image from Google Earth, because they were in the Sinai afterward.


The Prince Miracle Of Niagara

Remember that God has given me a miracle that I can show you here. Niagara Falls is the site of a miracle that can be seen anywhere. A short distance from where this took place is where I first read the Bible. We used to have Bible readings in the gym at Valley Way School. 

www.markmeeksideas.blogspot.com/2024/03/do-you-want-to-see-miracle.html?m=0


Thursday, October 3, 2024

Cambodia

Phnom Penh is the capital city of Cambodia. The name means "Penh's Hill". The city was founded in 1434, at the spot where some Buddhist icons were found in a floating log. 

The oldest structure in the city is Wat Phnom, which means "The Temple on the Hill". This was originally built to house the Buddhist images that were found in the log, and the city of Phnom Penh grew up around it. From the beginning, this was a Buddhist city. The Buddhist structures, that are shaped like a bell, are known as a stupa. The first three images of Wat Phnom are from Google Street View.




There are multiple scenes following. To see the scenes, after the first one, you must first click the up arrow, ^, before you can move on to the next scene by clicking the right or forward arrow, >. After clicking the up arrow, you can then hide the previews of successive scenes, if you wish. 

https://www.google.com/maps/@11.5761424,104.9232926,3a,75y,156.27h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipNO4hHfSJ-12jLN0gGmkiKvQhwFFG6rqPr6ODom!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipNO4hHfSJ-12jLN0gGmkiKvQhwFFG6rqPr6ODom%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi1.209325-ya281.79462-ro-1.0887631-fo100!7i5376!8i2688

Not far from Wat Phnom is the Royal Palace. This was built in the Nineteenth Century. The first five images of the Royal Palace are from Google Street View.






https://www.google.com/maps/@11.5628701,104.9318915,3a,75y,98.45h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipONzU87U071ENpAlhDsJnewHaOz7QhlOPiasBCG!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipONzU87U071ENpAlhDsJnewHaOz7QhlOPiasBCG%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi0-ya348.61948-ro-0-fo100!7i8704!8i4352

Looking like a boulevard out of Paris, the Independence Monument, which ironically celebrates Cambodian independence from France, is linked to a statue of Norodom Sihanouk. This is the most prominent name in Cambodia since independence. Norodom Sihanouk had been king, prince and, prime minister throughout the country's post-independence history. The first four images of the Independence Monument and the statue of Norodom Sihanouk are from Google Street View.








https://www.google.com/maps/@11.5644471,104.8940014,3a,75y,181h,87t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sBSDwTGQw7sxLfCxne224og!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo1.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DBSDwTGQw7sxLfCxne224og%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D181.5%26pitch%3D-3%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656

This is more of the city, south of downtown.

https://www.google.com/maps/@11.5378175,104.9168344,3a,75y,214h,87t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sPEkbzxmZ7Xgo9BlYax191A!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo1.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DPEkbzxmZ7Xgo9BlYax191A%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D214.5%26pitch%3D-3%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656

To the northwest of Phnom Penh, the great visitor attraction of Cambodia is Angkor Wat. It began as a vast Hindu temple, but had a conversion to Buddhism undertaken in the 12th Century. This is the largest religious monument in the world, and the towers represent mountains. The stories from the Hindu scriptures are carved in stone.

Some people see more possible meaning in Angkor Wat. It is a mystery why, unlike other Khmer temples, it is aligned to the west. The carvings in stone tell the story of Hindu scriptures but, unlike other temples, the story is told counter-clockwise around the temple, rather than clockwise. The towers that represent mountains, also appear to be aligned like the stars in the constellation Draco.

Indeed Draco is a circumpolar constellation, near the north celestial pole, and these stars rotate around the pole in a counter-clockwise direction, as the earth revolves around the sun from season to season. The constellations do move clockwise as the earth rotates daily. Also, of course, the constellations are seen after the sun has set in the west. The first six images of Angkor Wat is from Google Street View.


 





https://www.google.com/maps/@13.4125355,103.8668271,3a,75y,213.31h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipMGTFqKQgImrhvXkBkBCnEBYvoP4H4S1UXmmahh!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipMGTFqKQgImrhvXkBkBCnEBYvoP4H4S1UXmmahh%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi0-ya267.58676-ro-0-fo100!7i8704!8i4352

An image of Angkor Wat is on the flag of Cambodia. From the Wikipedia article "Flag of Cambodia".

 


Angkor is from the Sanskrit word meaning "city". Just as Wat Phnom is the temple of Phnom Penh, Angkor Wat was the temple of a great city that was named Angkor. The city of Angkor was the largest city in the world. It's residents were known to be masters of water management, and an abundance of rice was grown in the surrounding area to feed it's population. Angkor lasted about six hundred years, and was abandoned at about the time that Phnom Penh was founded, during the 15th Century.

But why was such a great city abandoned? No one seems to know for sure. Angkor Wat began as a Hindu temple. But we saw how Phnom Penh was a Buddhist city from the beginning, having been founded where Buddhist icons were found in a floating log. It could be that, as the country moved from Hinduism to Buddhism, it was felt necessary to abandon the "Hindu City", which had been Angkor, to start the "Buddhist City", which was Phnom Penh.

This logic would then help us to understand events in Cambodia during the 1970s, when the Khmer Rouge took power. When there is a new order to society, the city that represented the old order is abandoned. The Khmer Rouge emptied Phnom Penh, leading all of the people into the rural areas, in the quest for a primitive, rice-growing, purely communist society. Private property or religion was not even allowed to be mentioned.

These are the rice fields, and village, where Pol Pot, leader of the Khmer Rouge, was born. Maybe the difference in wealth between the city and the countryside was part of what not only led him to Communism, but also to the hostility toward cities. He had spent time in France, and elements of the French Revolution can be seen, as the reign of the Khmer Rouge began with "Year Zero". The first image is from Google Street View.


Have Bangladeshis noticed how in rural Cambodia houses are built on stilts to avoid flooding?


I once investigated what all great dictators might have in common. What I found is that just about all seem to come from small towns.

https://www.google.com/maps/@12.6940602,104.861009,3a,75y,244h,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sl0OoK6qpTtDWkdWdVp-Q_g!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo2.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3Dl0OoK6qpTtDWkdWdVp-Q_g%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D244.0126%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656

This is the nearest town to where Pol Pot was born, in Kampong Thom.

https://www.google.com/maps/@12.7120577,104.8880648,3a,75y,175h,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sWI6rOsSngWHGB4gpkuwgww!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo2.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DWI6rOsSngWHGB4gpkuwgww%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D175.89607%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656

The Khmer Rouge had a policy of simply killing anyone who did not fit their vision of a Communist agrarian utopia. Being educated, or being able to speak French, or even wearing eyeglasses could get one killed. One story is that Pol Pot, in his student days, had been sent to France to study radio electronics. But he was unable to learn it, and returned to Cambodia with a hatred of anything modern.

While I was in high school, we didn't know that this former high school on the other side of the world was being used by the Khmer Rouge as an interrogation and execution center. Of nearly twenty thousand prisoners who entered here, only seven are known to have come out alive. About a quarter of the population of Cambodia would die between 1975 and 1979.

https://www.google.com/maps/@11.5496854,104.9174677,2a,75y,37.06h,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1slRB3WQvCUKsWTAA6P7MbXg!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo3.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DlRB3WQvCUKsWTAA6P7MbXg%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D36.49307%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656

For Americans who remember the "Mayaguez Incident", The only military encounter between the U.S. and the Khmer Rouge, the following is a view of Koh Tang. This is the island where three U.S. Marines may have been left behind. The Khmer Rouge, shortly after coming to power, seized a cargo ship, which it claimed was in it's territorial waters. The U.S. launched an operation to rescue the crew, not knowing that they had already been released, and many Americans were killed in an accidental helicopter crash.

The coastal islands had been heavily fortified by the Khmer Rouge, but Americans were not the reason. The emergence of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, renamed Kampuchea, and the victory of the Communists in the nearby Vietnam War had coincidentally occurred at about the same time, in April 1975. Some of the coastal islands near the border of the two countries were disputed, and the Khmer Rouge had immediately fortified it's islands in case the victorious new government in Vietnam might try to seize the disputed islands. But what came through was an American ship. Four years later, it would be war between these two countries that would drive the Khmer Rouge from power. Image from Google Earth.