Happy New Year To Readers

First I would like to express sympathy to everyone who has suffered because of this virus, particularly students who have had their educations interrupted. I have difficulty imagining what it would have been like if this virus had shown up around the time that I turned 18, and closed everything down for more than a year.

At least we have the internet today. Can you imagine what this would be like without the internet? If I had one of these phones when I was a teenager, it would be a dream come true. I would spend so much money on books and music records, if it was today all I would need is a phone.

Please spend more time with your parents. Some day they will be gone. If I could have my mother and father back I would hang out with them all day, every day.

If you are isolated in lockdown, why not make the best use of this time? All of this could turn out to be a very good thing. This time could be used for improvement. You could be reading. You could be exercising. You could be strengthening your relationship with God.

If you are isolated and have no one to talk to, maybe that is part of the plan. Go ahead and start talking because God is listening.

The most common New Year's Resolution is to begin an exercise program, but it tends to have a high casualty rate. When I was 15, one June day just after the end of tenth grade, something just came over me and I got tired of feeling out-of-shape. I walked out to the porch and did five pushups. 

Except for religion, that was about the most life-changing day of my life. I have been obsessed with physical fitness ever since. Having my age begin with a 6 only inspires me more. Exercise is wonderful, as well as absolutely necessary.

Remember, once again, that one of the purposes of this blog is to show readers that everyday, all around you, are things that no one has ever pointed out. With the internet today it is easy to notice something, and then check to see if anyone has ever pointed it out.

Here, for example, are a few things about religion.

We know that there was once a great supernova, the explosion of a large star that made a brilliant light show in the sky. We also know that there was a cataclysmic split in the Christian religion, as a major part separated from the Catholics to become the Eastern Orthodox Church. The remnants of the supernova are today known as the Crab Nebula, the year was 1054.

What I thought of, and could not see that it had been pointed out, was that the two happened at exactly the same time. Could the supernova have been a sign from God? It is certainly the best-known example of a supernova but Europe apparently did not pay much attention to it. The supernova was recorded by Arab, Chinese and, Japanese sources, and the Aztecs are believed to have started their calendar with it.

The Book of Zechariah, in the Old Testament of the Bible, foretells a person with a special mission named Joshua who will "take away the sin of the world in one day". The Book of Zechariah was written well before the Hellenistic era and, maybe this has been pointed out but I couldn't find it anywhere, the name of Jesus is actually the Greek form of Joshua.

What I call the Ancient-Modern Parallel had definitely never been pointed out. There is a famous prophecy in the Book of Daniel of the 69 "Weeks of Years", which is 483 years. It is actually 70 Weeks of Years but, as the book describes, the remaining one is reserved for the reign of the Antichrist.

The 483 years are prophecies to be from the reinstitution of services in the rebuilt Temple, which would be the Second Temple, and the death of the one who would come as the Messiah. The year given by Wikipedia as Ezra reinstituting the correct services is 457 B.C. The most commonly accepted year of Jesus' Crucifixion is 26 A.D.

This is exactly 483 years, just as foretold.

The siege of Jerusalem by the Babylonians which resulted in the destruction of the First Temple, which was Solomon's original Temple, began in 587 B.C. Before that the early worship center, at Shiloh, was destroyed by the Philistines in 1050 B.C.

The time between these two restrictions is 463 years.

Now let's go to more modern times. Just as there has been two great destruction of Temples in ancient times, not counting the destruction of the Temple after the time of Jesus, there have been two great splits in the church in more modern times.

The Eastern Orthodox Church split away from the Catholics in 1054 and the Reformation, which resulted in the separation of the Protestants, began in 1517.

What do you notice here? From the first split to the second is 463 years. From the second split to the end of the millennium is 483 years.

The reason that it dates to the Crucifixion of Jesus, rather than the next destruction of the Temple by the Romans in 70 A.D., could have to do with Jesus referring to His own body as the Temple, which will be destroyed but then rebuilt in three days. The religious authorities didn't understand, and thought he was referring to the Temple on the Temple Mount.

Remember that everyday, all around you, are things that no one has ever pointed out.

HAPPY NEW YEAR

Finally let's not forget to have a little bit of humor. It is actually very good for your health.

I know that I shouldn't think that this is funny but I can't help it. Laundry detergent used to be sold in boxes of powdered soap. During my youth there was a fountain downtown that turned on automatically each morning. 

One night, somebody poured a box of laundry soap into the fountain. When it turned on in the morning it was like a tsunami of suds. All of my life I have not forgotten how funny it was.

Someday we will laugh at how silly these masks look.

Cairo

The first thing that most people associate with Cairo, Egypt's capital city, is the Pyramids of Giza and the Sphinx. We have already seen the Pyramids and the Sphinx in "The Underground Orion Correlation Theory", on this blog. What I would like to focus on for our visit this week is Cairo aside from the pyramids.

There was another visit, Ramesses I, but this was far to the south, is what used to be known as "Upper Egypt", and is not near Cairo.

Cairo is the natural center of the Arab world. If all Arabs united, as Pan-Arab leaders such as Egypt's Gamal Nasser were seeking, it is difficult to imagine that their capital could be any city other than Cairo. The Fatimid Caliphate admired the much-older city of Alexandria, but chose to build a new city, and Cairo was founded in the year 969. The first capital of the Fatimid Caliphate had been Mahdia, in Tunisia. The original Arab conquest of Egypt had begin in 641.

It was a general who had once been a Christian slave, Jawhar, who founded Cairo and built the Al Azhar Mosque there. The name of Cairo is from a word that means "conqueror" or "victory". The story is that Mars, which represents war, was rising in the sky when Cairo was being founded, and this led to the choice of name.

Cairo started as an Islamic city, and so was not there in ancient times. Cities like London and Paris are actually older than Cairo. But Cairo was built, not only adjacent to the Pyramids of Giza and the Sphinx, but also on the sites of much older cities dating back to ancient times. Memphis was a central city of ancient Egypt which is located in the general area, to the south of Cairo, which was eventually superseded by the building of Alexandria and Fustat. The ancient city of Heliopolis, which in Greek means "city of the sun", is today the Cairo suburb of Ayn Shams.

Cairo was originally built to the northeast of Fustat, which was the first Moslem capital of Egypt, but today it's ruins are within Cairo. Fustat is of Umayyad Caliphate origin, while Cairo was founded by the later Fatimid Caliphate. The continuity between the cities of different eras is illustrated by the fact that stones were pillaged from Memphis to build both Fustat and Cairo.

Fustat was the Islamic capital of Egypt for about 500 years, following the Arab Islamic conquest of the country in 641. The first mosque built in Fustat, the Mosque of Amr, was the first mosque on the continent of Africa. Fustat was purposely destroyed during the Crusades, to keep it's wealth out of the hands of the Crusaders. Just as the ruins of the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan now lie within Mexico City, what is left of Fustat can be seen within Cairo. The rebuilt Mosque of Amr is in Old Cairo today.

In later history, the Mamluks were an Islamic order of knights whose sultanate ruled Egypt, while based in Cairo, from 1250 until defeat by the Ottomans in 1517. Even after the Ottoman conquest of Egypt, the Mamluks continued as a feudal ruling class.

Napoleon occupied Egypt for three years, beginning in 1798, and it is this occupation which not only did so much to shape the future of Paris, as we saw in the posting on this blog, "America And The Modern World Explained By Way Of Paris", but also brought the fascination with ancient Egypt into the consciousness of the west, as we saw in the posting on the World and Economics Blog, www.markmeekeconomics.blogspot.com , "The Center Of The World".

An Albanian Ottoman officer named Muhammad Ali Pasha made Cairo the capital of an independent empire, from 1805-82. His dynasty lasted until the 1952 revolution that overthrew the king. His mosque is the best-known structure in Cairo today, other than the pyramids.

Egypt was Christian before it was Moslem, and up to ten percent of Egyptians today are Coptic Christians. The area known as "Coptic Cairo" is within "Old Cairo", which refers to what was there before the Fatimid Caliphate founded Cairo in 969. The Roman fortress of Babylon is actually the oldest structure in the city, and is located within Old Cairo.

Remember that, as we saw in the posting on this blog "The House Of Holy Wisdom, Where The Modern World Began", Egypt's Coptic Christians are neither Protestants nor Catholics nor Eastern Orthodox. The difference is in what is referred to as "christology", or how Jesus relates to God. More specifically, it refers to how Jesus two natures, the divine and the human, relate to one another.

There actually is an Egyptian (Coptic) Catholic Church, but it is one of the more than twenty "Eastern Catholic Churches", which recognize the authority of the pope but have different liturgy. The vast majority of Catholics belong to what is known as the Latin Church.

We rarely hear the term "christology" simply because the three main branches of Christianity all agree that Jesus had his two natures in one. This was established at the Council of Chalcedon, so that Protestants, Catholics and Eastern Orthodox are known as Chalcedonian Christians. But so-called "Eastern Christians", such as the Nestorians, believe that Jesus' two natures remained completely separate, while Egypt's Coptic Christians believe that the human nature is completely subsumed in the divine nature. The Coptic Church is a very early church, the apostle St. Mark is believed to have evangelized there after Jesus' crucifixion. This is the same St. Mark whose bones were later expropriated from Egypt by the Venetians so that he could be made the patron saint of Venice.

The following scenes around Old Cairo and Coptic Cairo begin the the rebuilt mosque that was the first mosque on the continent of Africa. You can tell is a building is Christian or Moslem by whether there are crosses or minarets, or by the caption in the upper left of the screen. Remember that the Mosque of Muhammad Ali Pasha is the most prominent scene in Cairo, other than the pyramids, and that you will see that in many of these scenes here, even if it is not immediately nearby.

There are multiple scenes following. To see the scenes, after the first one, you must 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 previews of successive scenes, if you wish.

https://www.google.com/maps/@30.0062617,31.2297304,2a,75y,96.59h,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1s9yZ2hyTrDfL1mcVehFIS1Q!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo1.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3D9yZ2hyTrDfL1mcVehFIS1Q%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D97.59781%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656

There is a vast cemetery known as the "City of the Dead", within which many people live and work, some living there by choice and others forced there by their financial situation. It is not just a cemetery, the City of the Dead has running water, electricity and schools.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_the_Dead_(Cairo)#/media/File:Cairo,Qarafa1.jpg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_the_Dead_(Cairo)#/media/File:City-of-the-Dead.jpg

Next, we come to the area known as Islamic Cairo. This is where we will find what is probably the greatest concentration of historic Islamic architecture anywhere. Cairo is sometimes known as the "City of a Thousand Minarets". The streets of Islamic Cairo are old and narrow. The Al Hakim Mosque is a well-known mosque of Islamic Cairo. The Al-Azhar Mosque was the first built when Cairo was founded, and the university of the same name if possibly the oldest university in the world that is still in operation. There are large mosques at both ends of the main street along Islamic Cairo. The Al-Hussein Mosque was later found to have been built over a cemetery of Fatimid Caliphs.

https://www.google.com/maps/@30.0498558,31.2611956,3a,75y,134.45h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1s-kAgQ5Ui7Kro%2FUxC9qRZ2jYI%2FAAAAAAAAVhE%2FHx2ioRztzY8I71fwKGOpnabpaxAzEE7Zw!2e4!3e11!6s%2F%2Flh4.googleusercontent.com%2F-kAgQ5Ui7Kro%2FUxC9qRZ2jYI%2FAAAAAAAAVhE%2FHx2ioRztzY8I71fwKGOpnabpaxAzEE7Zw%2Fw203-h100-k-no-pi-0-ya118.74934-ro0-fo100%2F!7i3840!8i1919

Here are some more scenes around the old area of Islamic Cairo. Some of the Old City walls, as well as a few gates in the walls, are remaining.

https://www.google.com/maps/@30.0546245,31.263852,3a,75y,272h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1s-HkbxUmOepX4%2FUwI0uqdzErI%2FAAAAAAAAEg4%2FNu5HJS5j6qog1y4HQrLHP-2R3Ry3bhbeQ!2e4!3e11!6s%2F%2Flh3.googleusercontent.com%2F-HkbxUmOepX4%2FUwI0uqdzErI%2FAAAAAAAAEg4%2FNu5HJS5j6qog1y4HQrLHP-2R3Ry3bhbeQ%2Fw203-h100-k-no-pi-0-ya146.51299-ro-0-fo100%2F!7i3840!8i1919

Moving on to what is known as the Citadel of Cairo, located to the south of Islamic Cairo, we come to the most prominent structure in Cairo, aside from the pyramids, which is the Mosque of Muhammad Ali Pasha.

In 1169, Saladin was appointed as vizier of Egypt by the Fatimid Caliphate. He then seized power from the Fatimids, and constructed the Citadel in Cairo to defend both Cairo and Fustat from Crusaders. The Citadel was begun in 1176. It was the center of administration in Cairo after Saladin's government was overthrown by the Mamluks, in 1250, until the move to Abdeen Palace in 1874. There were great contributions to Cairo architecture during the Mamluk Period, from 1250 to 1517.

The massive Mosque of Sultan Hassan, just outside the Citadel, had the Al-Rifai'i Mosque (The Royal Mosque) constructed as a compliment next to it. The Mosque of Sultan Hassan is from the Fourteenth Century, and the complimentary Al-Rifai'i Mosque from the Nineteenth Century. The Mosque of Sultan Hassan upset many people because of the expense of building it, and it never served as his tomb because he was assassinated but his body was never found.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Rifa%27i_Mosque#/media/File:Flickr_-_archer10_(Dennis)_-_Egypt-13A-061.jpg

On the summit is the Mosque and Tomb of Muhammad Ali Pasha, an Ottoman officer who took control in 1805, and made Cairo the capital of an independent empire.While seizing power, Muhammad Ali slaughtered about a thousand Mamluks, after inviting them to a meeting. One Mamluk leader is reported to have survived by getting his horse to jump from the Citadel. The mosque is supposedly built on the site of a destroyed Mamluk palace. The Al Nasir Mosque, within the Citadel, is from the Fourteenth Century, but the Mosque of Muhammad Ali Pasha was not built until the Nineteenth Century.

Muhammad Ali Pasha formed modern Egypt, during the first half of the Nineteenth Century. He died in 1848. His grandson, Isma'il Pasha, was inspired by the reconstruction of Paris in the Nineteenth Century and built an opera house in Cairo. The economic center of Cairo moved to the newer areas that were built by Isma'il Pasha, centered around Tahrir Square.

The Citadel was the center of Ottoman power in Egypt. The dynasty established by Muhammad Ali Pasha, originally an Ottoman officer, had Ottoman approval and lasted nearly 150 years, through the overthrow of King Farouk, by the Free Officers' Movement, in 1952. From that point on, Egypt has been led by a president who rose to power in the military, with the brief exception of Mohamed Morsi from 2012-13.

One of the Nineteenth-Century projects in the renovation of Cairo by Isma'il Pasha, the grandson of Muhammad Ali Pasha, was the Abdeen Palace. This is now the office of the President of Egypt, where the center of power moved from the Citadel. The upper floors used to be the residence of the royal family of the Pasha Dynasty. The official title of Isma'il Pasha was khedive, or viceroy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdeen_Palace#/media/File:Abdeen_Palace.jpg

The royal families of different nations tend to form connections, and the sister of the last of the Pasha Dynasty, King Farouk, was the first wife of the last Shah of Iran. The relationship continued after the Shah was overthrown. He was welcomed into exile in Egypt by Anwar Sadat, the second of the former military presidents after the overthrow of the Pasha Dynasty, and that was where the Shah would ultimately die.

Here are some scenes around the Citadel, starting in the court of the Mosque of Sultan Hassan, which is adjacent to the Citadel. You can see why Cairo is referred to as "The City of a Thousand Minarets". Does the massive form of the Mosque of Muhammad Ali Pasha, often referred to as simply "The Mosque of Muhammad Ali", look familiar? That is because it was clearly modeled on the Hagia Sophia, in Istanbul, that we saw in the posting on this blog, "The House Of Holy Wisdom, Where The Modern World Began".

https://www.google.com/maps/@30.0322419,31.25621,3a,75y,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1s-xzb3oqRDSpA%2FVcnKgO_m7CI%2FAAAAAAAAEno%2FRnUTUlvEWdgfPIfs_BeXUnep5Uomxn3_g!2e4!3e11!6s%2F%2Flh3.googleusercontent.com%2F-xzb3oqRDSpA%2FVcnKgO_m7CI%2FAAAAAAAAEno%2FRnUTUlvEWdgfPIfs_BeXUnep5Uomxn3_g%2Fw203-h100-k-no-pi-0-ya67.847878-ro-0-fo100%2F!7i9728!8i4864

Not far from the Citadel is the Mosque of Ibn Tulun., with the famous spiral staircase minaret. This mosque was actually built before Cairo was founded. Here are some scenes in and around this mosque.

https://www.google.com/maps/@30.0288215,31.2497211,3a,75y,247h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1s-9kDAgaOF2Qg%2FV--7olQ7OUI%2FAAAAAAAAGj0%2FNAkidbTbw6wHwbT3uzy8vd3WqAO_JUP1QCLIB!2e4!3e11!6s%2F%2Flh4.googleusercontent.com%2F-9kDAgaOF2Qg%2FV--7olQ7OUI%2FAAAAAAAAGj0%2FNAkidbTbw6wHwbT3uzy8vd3WqAO_JUP1QCLIB%2Fw203-h100-k-no-pi-0-ya127.44904-ro-0-fo100%2F!7i8704!8i4352

The green space in the middle of bustling Cairo is Al-Azhar Park. Al-Azhar is a very important name in Cairo because it is the name of the first mosque that was built when the city was founded. It is also the name of the Cairo University that might be the oldest university in the world that is still operating. Here are scenes in Al-Azhar Park, with some of the mosque and the university of the same name. From the park can be seen the dome and minarets of the Mosque of Muhammad Ali Pasha, in the Citadel.

https://www.google.com/maps/@30.0412708,31.2654919,3a,75y,205h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1s-CkWx8sebmqo%2FUxX4Z9VoKuI%2FAAAAAAAAX4Q%2FFJvGstbCfMIJhkcyy7YccgldX6B15YekA!2e4!3e11!6s%2F%2Flh6.googleusercontent.com%2F-CkWx8sebmqo%2FUxX4Z9VoKuI%2FAAAAAAAAX4Q%2FFJvGstbCfMIJhkcyy7YccgldX6B15YekA%2Fw203-h100-k-no-pi-0-ya94.286613-ro-0-fo100%2F!7i3840!8i1919

I think of Tahrir Square, meaning Liberation Square, as kind of the "New Citadel" of Cairo. It was part of the "new downtown" built to the north of the older city by Isma'il Pasha, grandson of Muhammad Ali Pasha, who began the dynasty and for whom the prominent mosque on the Citadel is named.

There is a building of government offices adjacent to Tahrir Square, known as the Mogamma, It will remind Buffalo, NY readers of their city hall, because it is built in a similar style.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tahrir_Square#/media/File:Modan_Tahrir_(2005-05-343).jpg

Tahrir Square is a natural focal point of demonstrations that may take place, it was in the news worldwide during the uprising of 2011.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tahrir_Square#/media/File:Tahrir_Square_-_February_9,_2011.png

Cafes are very important in the everyday life of Cairo. Discussions in cafes are often what gets political movements started. Probably no cafe in the world has hosted more world-changing discussions than downtown Cairo's Cafe Riche. This has got to be the single most important cafe in the world. Most of the events that made modern Egypt began with discussions in this cafe.

Not far from Tahrir Square is one of the best-known museums in the world, the Egyptian Museum. It specializes, of course, in the relics of ancient Egypt. Much of Egypt's heritage is now in other countries, but this museum has the greatest collection of ancient Egyptian antiquities in the world. The central museum of Egyptian artifacts moved several times before ending up here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_Museum#/media/File:The_Egyptian_Museum.jpg

Also not far from Tahrir Square is the Cairo Opera House. Khedive Isma'il Pasha, an admirer of Paris who rebuilt Cairo in much the same way as Paris was being rebuilt in the late Nineteenth Century, had an opera house built. But it was not built to resemble the Palais Garnier, in Paris. The original Cairo opera house was destroyed by fire in 1971. President Hosni Mubarak had it rebuilt, opening in 1988.

But look at the design of the new Cairo Opera House. It is immediately reminiscent of the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, which we saw in the compound posting on this blog, "The House of Holy Wisdom, Where The Modern World Began". The opera house was modeled, of course, after the prominent Mosque of Muhammad Ali Pasha, on the Citadel, and, remembering that Pasha was an Ottoman himself, was what was modeled on the Hagia Sophia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cairo_Opera_House#/media/File:Cairo_opera_house.jpg

Here is what modern Cairo looks like. Tall, modern buildings tend to be along the Nile River. The following scenes begin in what is known as Garden City.

https://www.google.com/maps/@30.0362555,31.22968,3a,75y,256.66h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipOdUVjOAHN4CFqzKj60Ix8GMPVQUXPq0o9fo7FS!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipOdUVjOAHN4CFqzKj60Ix8GMPVQUXPq0o9fo7FS%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi0-ya47.48591-ro-0-fo100!7i6720!8i3360 

What we have seen so far of Cairo has been to the east of the Nile River, which flows through it. Here is a residential area of Giza, to the west of the river, and between the river and where the Pyramids of Giza are located, which can be seen in some of the images.

https://www.google.com/maps/@30.0075257,31.1839836,3a,75y,340h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipOMZYhyftV7TsHwEWpzTcPd7oqTtRTl5tUPBUT2!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipOMZYhyftV7TsHwEWpzTcPd7oqTtRTl5tUPBUT2%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi0.50294167-ya334.44476-ro0.5594501-fo100!7i6080!8i3040 

Cairo has built a number of new towns outside the city, in an effort to relieve congestion. One of the best known is 6th of October City, which is well to the west, past the Pyramids of Giza. The name commemorates the Yom Kippur War of 1973. Just as Paris likes to link itself to history by it's street names, Cairo names many streets after significant dates.

https://www.google.com/maps/@29.9511308,30.9128247,3a,75y,120h,110t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipO82-whLBEP3LErg3yGwY9LwoGzJDg4uuA8zSaw!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipO82-whLBEP3LErg3yGwY9LwoGzJDg4uuA8zSaw%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-20-ya251-ro0-fo100!7i8704!8i4352 

Finally, let's go south of Cairo to the ruins of the ancient Egyptian Step Pyramid of Djoser. We have not yet visited this pyramid, which is even older than the Pyramids of Giza. The Step Pyramid of Djoser is believed to be the oldest complete stone structure in the world. This is near the former city of Memphis. Saqqara, where the pyramid is located, was the funerary complex of Memphis. Remember that we saw the three much-better known Pyramids of Giza and the Sphinx in the posting on this blog, "The Underground Orion Correlation Theory". The following scenes include the pyramid and the ruins of the smaller structures around it.

https://www.google.com/maps/@29.8737878,31.2185262,3a,75y,119h,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1s4vwtIybVJTWouavzm-tvmA!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo1.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3D4vwtIybVJTWouavzm-tvmA%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D119.06666%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656

The Meaning of The Pyramids At Cairo

Remember that we saw the solution to what the Pyramids of Giza, at Cairo, are, and why they are arranged as they are. The three pyramids, the best-known of all of the Pyramids, are arranged in not quite a straight line. The arrangement matches that of the three stars of the belt of the constellation Orion, except that it is upside-down.

The ancient Egyptians believed in the "underworld" as a place that the soul passes through after death. If "seen" from below ground, the arrangement of the Giza Pyramids would exactly match that of the stars in the belt of Orion.

This makes it clear that the pyramids were meant to represent stars, if seen from the "underworld". The vertices of each pyramid represents the "points" that we see on stars. The pyramids were originally cased in white limestone, which would have shone brilliantly in the sun. Some of this original casing remains at the top of the middle pyramid, that of Khafre or Chephren.

Here is the posting with my explanation of those three pyramids, "The Underground Orion Correlation Theory".

http://markmeeksideas.blogspot.com/2016/03/the-underground-orion-correlation-theory.html 

Merry Christmas To Readers

Please have a very merry, but socially-distant, Christmas.

A new strain of the virus has emerged. Remember that we saw in "The Natural History Of The Flu", August 2020, that a viral illness tends to mutate in a direction that is more contagious, but less deadly.

On a large scale the virus can "think" by natural selection. It is, of course, in the virus' interest to be more contagious. But it is not in the virus' interest to be deadly because it's host is it's home. It is not in the virus' interest to make it's host so sick as to be confined to bed, because then the host will not spread the virus.

At least we have the internet. What would this have been like before the internet?

Alexandria

Alexandria is a city in Egypt that is northwest of Cairo, along the Mediterranean coast. The city is not as big as Cairo, but is much older. Alexandria is today Egypt's major port, but is not on the Suez Canal. It was founded by Alexander, the Greek conqueror, in 331 B.C., and was the capital of Egypt for nearly a thousand years, and one of the greatest cities of the ancient world. Alexander never returned to Egypt after founding the city. In a way Alexandria took the place of the ancient port of Tyre, on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean, which Alexander had conquered and destroyed.

Alexandria has been the natural window on the world for Egypt, and has been an important city to the world ever since it was founded. It was one of the early centers of Christianity. In the Hellenistic era, which followed it's founding, Alexandria probably surpassed even Athens as a center of Greek civilization. It was not an entirely new city, but absorbed the Egyptian town of Rhakotis, which was already in the location. this town became the "Egyptian Quarter" of the city when it attracted migrants from all over. Unlike Cairo, there are no pyramids in Alexandria.

The city of Alexandria changed the dynamic of Egypt, making it less a part of Africa and more Mediterranean. Moslems would later move the cultural center back to the south, by founding Cairo more than a thousand years later, but not as far south as it had been in ancient Egypt.

After the breakup of Alexander's vast empire into several pieces, a general named Ptolemy founded a dynasty that would last for about three hundred years, and ruled Egypt from Alexandria. The Ptolemies claimed to be Egyptian pharaohs, but continued speaking Greek. The last queen, the legendary Cleopatra VII, claimed to be a reincarnation of the Egyptian god Isis. She was born and died in Alexandria.

Alexandria was a great intellectual center and was known for it's outstanding library. The location of the library isn't exactly known today. The city had a thriving Jewish community during the Hellenistic era. As their children began to forget how to speak Hebrew, the community had the Jewish scriptures translated into Greek. The translation was known as the Septuagint, because seventy scholars worked on it, and would become the basis for the Old Testament of the Christian Bible.

Alexandria was laid out around two main streets that met near Alexander's tomb. He died in Babylon, but was finally buried by Ptolemy in Alexandria. However, the location of the tomb is now not known. Some areas sank into the water, due to earthquake activity, and quite a bit of underwater archeology has taken place there.

The island of Pharos was joined to the mainland. There was a great lighthouse in Alexandria, that was one of the 7 Wonders of the Ancient World. It was about 137 meters high, but was damaged in earthquakes and the remaining stones were used to build the Citadel of Qaitbay on the site. This is what the lighthouse is believed to have looked like.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lighthouse_of_Alexandria#/media/File:PHAROS2006.jpg

This is Pompey's Pillar, which has stood in Alexandria since Roman times, although it was built much later than the time of Pompey. It is in the form of an ancient Egyptian obelisk, but is in the style of a column.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pompey%27s_Pillar_(column)#/media/File:Alex_Sawary.jpg

There are vast underground catacombs in Alexandria, dating from the Middle Ages, which were accidentally discovered in the Twentieth Century.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catacombs_of_Kom_El_Shoqafa#/media/File:113KOM_EL_SHOQAFA_CATACOMBS.jpg

After the times of the Ptolemies and then the Romans, Alexandria was ruled, over it's long history, by the usual parade of conquerors in this part of the world, the Sassanids, the Byzantines, the Fatimid Caliphate, the Mamluks, and then the Ottomans. Rosetta was a nearby medieval city, somewhat of a rival to Alexandria, that was a commercial center during Mamluk and Ottoman rule.

The Qaitbay Citadel was founded in 1477, by the Mamluks on the site of the former lighthouse, and some of the remaining stones of the lighthouse were used in construction of the Citadel. It was later restored by the Muhammad Ali Pasha Dynasty, which began when an Albanian Ottoman officer named Muhammad Ali established independent rule of Egypt, that was recognized by the Ottomans.

Here are some views of the Citadel of Qaitbay, and the surrounding area. The island, later joined to the mainland, on which first the lighthouse and then the Citadel of Qaitbay was built, is very reminiscent of the offshore island on which Tyre had been built, and which Alexander reached and conquered by filling in with rubble. this citadel in Alexandria is, of course, reminiscent of the citadel in Cairo, where the main structure is the Mosque of Muhammad Ali Pasha.

There are multiple scenes following. To see the scenes, after the first one, you must 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 previews of successive scenes, if you wish.

https://www.google.com/maps/@31.2137144,29.8856402,3a,75y,350.93h,93.1t,-5.4r/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1s39oiLytxkk6L92GY8XBpIw!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo0.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3D39oiLytxkk6L92GY8XBpIw%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D76.00648%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656

Here is an area in Alexandria with ancient ruins, from the Greek and Roman era, but not going back to ancient Egypt.

https://www.google.com/maps/@31.1971224,29.9036879,3a,75y,181h,88t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipM8gkgV8TxopGNll1o8NUtVPdlUTJ_XUQzPq2Vx!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipM8gkgV8TxopGNll1o8NUtVPdlUTJ_XUQzPq2Vx%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-2.9338646-ya333.1-ro-0-fo100!7i5146!8i2572

This is the central area of Alexandria.

https://www.google.com/maps/@31.2007319,29.9095781,3a,75y,277h,83t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipO0OjG1pu5b0AiulHFpajcecSvk3JoaFyHk6bZe!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipO0OjG1pu5b0AiulHFpajcecSvk3JoaFyHk6bZe%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-7-ya27.499979-ro-0-fo100!7i6000!8i3000

Here are some scenes east of downtown in the city.

https://www.google.com/maps/@31.2072121,29.9226943,3a,75y,220h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipMCJCkD8N-tT9CMeQpNM8RIffhV2jVhIcyILo4!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipMCJCkD8N-tT9CMeQpNM8RIffhV2jVhIcyILo4%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi1.079058-ya67.01746-ro2.6109712-fo100!7i5760!8i2880

This is around the Green Plaza Mall.

https://www.google.com/maps/@31.206592,29.965447,3a,75y,81.06h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1s-LpD_QzKtxPc%2FVXoPclRm8xI%2FAAAAAAAAHLo%2Fbl4S1UVUvi0hRY5vgEPYuSkKQX9MmmBOACJkC!2e4!3e11!6s%2F%2Flh6.googleusercontent.com%2F-LpD_QzKtxPc%2FVXoPclRm8xI%2FAAAAAAAAHLo%2Fbl4S1UVUvi0hRY5vgEPYuSkKQX9MmmBOACJkC%2Fw203-h100-k-no-pi0-ya80.85692-ro0-fo100%2F!7i13700!8i6850

The Ottomans ruled Egypt from 1517-1798. Napoleon then ruled Egypt, which was what brought ancient Egypt into the world's consciousness, many artifacts to the Louvre and, one of the obelisks known as "Cleopatra's Needles", although they far pre-dated her time, and were not from the Alexandria area, to where it remains today in the center of Place Concorde in Paris.

http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3879/3734/1600/dc_250926.jpg

Another of the three "Cleopatra's Needles" is on the side of the Thames River, in London, the other is in New York's Central Park.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleopatra%27s_Needle#/media/File:Cleopatra.needle.arp.400pix.jpg

Alexandria was really revived, and moved back as being more prominent than Rosetta, by the Muhammad Ali Dynasty's construction of the Mahmoudiyah Canal. from the Nile River to Alexandria.

Has anyone ever noticed a historical pattern in Egypt? Alexander conquered Egypt, in 332 B.C., and one of his generals, Ptolemy Soter, established a ruling dynasty after the death of Alexander. The Ottomans conquered Egypt in 1517, and an Ottoman general, Muhammad Ali, established a ruling dynasty after Ottoman rule had temporarily been interrupted by Napoleon? These two events, more than 2100 years apart, follow exactly the same historical pattern. In fact, the length of time that the Muhammad Ali Dynasty ruled Egypt in modern times is just about identical to the length of time that the Hyksos ruled Egypt in ancient times.

There are a number of palaces today in Alexandria. The Montaza Palace was built in 1892. Anwar Sadat, former president of Egypt who was assassinated in 1981 for trying to make peace with Israel, lived there.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montaza_Palace#/media/File:Side_view_of_the_montaza_palace_..JPG

The Ras El Tin Palace was the Royal Palace of the Muhammad Ali Dynasty, built in 1847. King Farouk, the last of the dynasty, signed the abdication here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ras_El_Tin_Palace#/media/File:Bundesarchiv_Bild_102-12200,_Alexandria,_Ras-El-Tine-Palast.jpg

The following scenes are in the area where there are two palaces.

https://www.google.com/maps/@31.2874379,30.0204996,3a,75y,314h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1s-mURgaQp-nyA%2FV2BHdYtO-LI%2FAAAAAAAABgw%2Fv9lDivPsDF8BdYubMIxKRg_LWEWGMRWuwCJkC!2e4!3e11!6s%2F%2Flh4.googleusercontent.com%2F-mURgaQp-nyA%2FV2BHdYtO-LI%2FAAAAAAAABgw%2Fv9lDivPsDF8BdYubMIxKRg_LWEWGMRWuwCJkC%2Fw203-h100-k-no-pi-2.9999962-ya317.5-ro-0-fo100%2F!7i10240!8i5120

Gamal Nasser, an army officer who overthrew and replaced King Farouk in 1952, was reenacting the expulsion of the Hyksos from ancient Egypt. The Muhammad Ali Dynasty was a foreign, Ottoman, dynasty that ruled Egypt until expelled in a way that was like a mirror of the Hyksos. Many European ex-pats enjoyed living in Alexandria, which is just across the Mediterranean from Europe. Rudolf Hess, who would become the Nazi third in command, was actually born in Alexandria. But that changed when Nasser's nationalization policies were announced.

Alexandria is also known for, of course, the beach. It was so reminiscent of Miami Beach that a section of beach has been named after it.

https://www.google.com/maps/@31.2699122,29.9895762,3a,75y,60h,110t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipOq3I0ZyFcwfPCMlHBPzDHlyq14MtO1_06-qSE!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipOq3I0ZyFcwfPCMlHBPzDHlyq14MtO1_06-qSE%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-16.930164-ya332.7301-ro-4.5365505-fo100!7i5760!8i2880 

This is some more of the city near the beach.

https://www.google.com/maps/@31.2496552,29.9756284,3a,75y,280h,110t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipOkLZ1ZXD7CJJ6cu30wZc0DRkl2C-1w04Kexjw!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipOkLZ1ZXD7CJJ6cu30wZc0DRkl2C-1w04Kexjw%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-11.942214-ya322.14536-ro-1.5220513-fo100!7i5760!8i2880

Finally, here are some scenes in the far western part of Alexandria.

https://www.google.com/maps/@31.1665464,29.8680806,3a,75y,91h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1s-yzQ8GHMgg-c%2FV6x31adYQdI%2FAAAAAAAAY70%2F_qNpQSE1TdgIWs3H3hHVdQxOEOm5WEgFQCLIB!2e4!3e11!6s%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2F-yzQ8GHMgg-c%2FV6x31adYQdI%2FAAAAAAAAY70%2F_qNpQSE1TdgIWs3H3hHVdQxOEOm5WEgFQCLIB%2Fw203-h100-k-no-pi-0-ya36.500008-ro-0-fo100%2F!7i6144!8i3072

Royal Observations

After reading "The Royal Story" last week, and reviewing the history of Britain's ever-popular monarchy, I would like to point out a few things that I cannot see referred to anywhere.

THE LEGEND OF KING ARTHUR

One of Britain's best-known monarchs is almost universally considered to be a legend. That legend is of King Arthur.

King Arthur's story was of an early king who battled Anglo-Saxons who were invading the island. While he was a great warrior, Arthur was known for his wisdom and had a noble and benevolent character.

There is no standard story of King Arthur. One account may differ from another. More was added to the legend later. The Knights of the Round Table may have been a French contribution to the legend.

The legend seems to have begun with Geoffrey of Monmouth, who lived in the Twelfth Century. We saw in our visit to "South Wales" that Monmouth is on the border between England and Wales.

The Legend of King Arthur was largely forgotten after the Middle Ages but was revived in the Nineteenth Century. It has permeated popular culture. The presidential court of John F. Kennedy was named Camelot, after the legendary castle of King Arthur.

There are even people who believe that King Arthur will return as a messiah some day.

There were early kings who fit the general description of Arthur, Alfred the Great and his grandson Athelstan. But they were Anglo-Saxons who battled Vikings, which came later. Both were known for their wisdom, character and, benevolence.

I believe that it was these early kings that inspired the Legend of King Arthur. Geoffrey of Monmouth was Welsh, and the story was given a Welsh slant. The Welsh people are generally the descendants of the original Celtic inhabitants of the islands while English people are generally the descendants of those who came later, particularly Anglo-Saxons. "Arthur" was also originally a Welsh name.

This puts King Arthur in the same bracket with Owain, a medieval Welsh king and warrior with a legend that he will return someday. The story of Cadwalladr, another early Welsh king that was popularized by Geoffrey of Monmouth, seems to parallel that of King Arthur.

Can you believe it? There are those three crowns again, on King Arthur's vest, That we saw in the posting on this blog, "The Three Crowns And Fleur De Lis". The Three Crowns, in this arrangement, is a symbol that goes far back into medieval times, is widespread across northern Europe, but no one knows where it originated.

The symbol was adapted into France but the crowns were each changed to a fleur-de-lis, the old French royal symbol, in the same triangular pattern.

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Arthur#/media/File:Arth_tapestry2.jpg 

THE RETURN OF THE JACOBITES?

During the time of the House of Stuart there was the interruption of the monarchy known as the Protectorate, from 1649 to 1660. It was led by Oliver Cromwell, who declined to be crowned as king. When the monarchy was restored the son of the executed Charles I took the throne as Charles II.

But when James II, younger brother of Charles II, inherited the throne he made it clear that he was a Catholic and would favor the appointments of Catholics. The conflict involving the interruption of the monarchy was not directly about Catholicism but there had earlier been a Catholic queen, Mary I, who had used barbarity in an effort to bring England back to Catholicism by force. The attempt had not been successful but had gotten a mixed drink named for her, the "Bloody Mary".

Then there was the Catholic plot to blow up the Parliament, with barrels of gunpowder, that we saw in the posting on this blog, "The Far-Reaching Story Of Guy Fawkes".

The daughter of James II, Mary, was an Anglican and married to the Dutch king William, whose mother was English. They were invited to land in England and rule jointly. James II left for exile and William and Mary became so popular that they got a university in Virginia named for them. 

The replacement of James II with William and Mary was known as England's "Glorious Revolution". But this was not a new dynasty, since Mary was the daughter of James II it was still the House of Stuart.

Catholics were not persecuted but most people wanted to be sure that there would never again be a Catholic monarch. Early in the Eighteenth Century a law was passed that no one who was a Catholic, or married to a Catholic, could be king or queen.

A movement arose, known as the Jacobites, who felt that James II was still the rightful king and demanded his return. There were several Jacobite uprisings. After the death of James II the Jacobites kept track of which of his descendants they thought was the rightful king.

In 2015 the law barring Catholics from the monarchy was repealed. Where are the Jacobites now? Surely it could be traced who the rightful monarch should be. Do they have any plans to claim the throne?

THE HEAD OF OLIVER CROMWELL

Here is a story that seems to have been forgotten.

Oliver Cromwell led the Puritans that overthrew and executed King Charles I, in 1649. This was not a Protestant-Catholic conflict, it was after the Reformation and both sides were Protestant. Politics got intertwined with religion, the Parliament against the Royalists, and Cromwell led the Puritan Parliamentarians to victory in the English Civil War against the Anglican Royalists.

But when Oliver Cromwell died his son didn't inspire the same devotion and the monarchy ended up being restored. The son of Charles I had escaped capture by hiding in an oak tree and returned, in 1660, to take the throne as Charles II.

The Royalists wanted to execute Oliver Cromwell but he was already dead. That didn't stop them, they dug up his body and beheaded him. His head was put on display on a spike where the trial of the executed king had been held.

One day the spike reportedly broke and the head fell to the floor. The story is that a guard retrieved the head and took it home. As time passed the head of Oliver Cromwell found it's way into all manner of displays and exhibitions.

This went on for nearly three hundred years before the head was finally given a proper burial in the early 1960s. It was buried at Cambridge University, where Oliver Cromwell had studied. Only a few people were present at the burial and the exact location was kept secret.

There has always been speculation that the head did not belong to Oliver Cromwell to begin with which, in the days before DNA testing, was difficult to confirm. Only a few people knew where exactly the head was buried so testing cannot be done on it now. 

There is additional speculation that Cromwell's supporters knew that the Royalists would dig up his body to publicly behead him, and it was not his body that they dug up. 

IRELAND AND THE BRITISH MONARCHY

Every one of the five royal dynasties to rule England has had a connection outside England.

The House of Plantagenet had a connection to France. It arose in the period after the Norman Invasion of 1066.

The House of Tudor had a connection to Wales. It's first king, Henry Tudor, had been born in Wales.

The House of Stuart had a connection to Scotland. When Elizabeth II died childless in 1603 her cousin, the king of Scotland, also inherited the throne of England. The "Glorious Revolution" also brought the House of Stuart a connection to the Netherlands, when the princess who was married to the Dutch king took over from her father.

The House of Hanover and the House of Saxe-Coburg / Windsor had connections to the states that are now part of Germany. A monarch of Britain was required to be Protestant and the nearest Protestant relations of the childless Queen Anne were the House of Hanover.

Before the named dynasties King Canute had a connection to Scandinavia.

But there was never a similar Irish connection to the British monarchy. How might history have been different if there had been?

What made Ireland different from the rest of northern Europe is, of course, that Ireland remained Catholic during the Reformation while the rest of northern Europe joined the Protestants. This was no doubt due to memory of the powerful personality of St. Patrick, more than a thousand years before who, ironically, was from Britain. Monks from Irish monasteries converted much of northern Europe, only for Ireland to remain Catholic when they later went Protestant.

There actually was a similar connection with Ireland but it came in the realm of politics, not of royalty.

From 1801 to 1922 Ireland was actually part of Britain. An Irishman from Dublin rose to become one of Britain's greatest military heroes, overall commander of the British Army and finally, British Prime Minister.

He was Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington. The great obelisk in Dublin's Phoenix Park is a monument to him.

KAISER WILHELM II AND THE BRITISH MONARCHY

The reign of Queen Victoria brought an end to the personal union between England and Hanover, which is now part of Germany, because, under Hanover's rules but not England's, a female could not inherit the monarchy.

History might have been very different because Victoria is known as the "Grandmother of Europe". Her oldest grandson was Kaiser Wilhelm II, of the German Empire. The Kaiser wasn't a political leader, he was a monarch with the title of Emperor.

It was Hanover's rule, not Britain's, about female inheritance that ended the personal union between the two. If not for that rule, or if it could be retroactively reversed, then Victoria would also have been Queen of Hanover. Since Kaiser Wilhelm II was her oldest grandson, and he was Emperor of now-united Germany, which included Hanover, then shouldn't the Kaiser have a legitimate claim to the British throne?

Queen Victoria died in 1901, on the Isle of Wight, and Kaiser Wilhelm was at her bedside. But her grandchildren never got along with each other and in 1914 Germany, led by Kaiser Wilhelm, went to war with Britain and Russia. The Tsarina of Russia was also German-born and a granddaughter of Queen Victoria.

I am greatly surprised that Kaiser Wilhelm, or his government, never seems to have tried to claim the British throne. Even if it didn't amount to anything, it would still have been a psychological tool before and during the First World War.

The linking of the royal families of different nations has a long history, going back to ancient times. While it has long been used to cement alliances between kingdoms, it can also mean a foreigner showing up with a legitimate claim to a nation's throne.

A lasting monarchy must be rooted in history. Monarchies actually have a high casualty rate. The British Monarchy involved a lot of bloodshed over the centuries, but that is what has made it last. Creating a monarchy "out of the blue" for a new country, or a newly-united country, doesn't have this history behind it. Upon unity in the 1870s, both Germany and Italy inaugurated monarchies, but neither lasted.

THE NAZIS AND THE BRITISH MONARCHY

Maybe the Nazis realized that the Kaiser had missed a chance to make a valid claim on the British monarchy. They couldn't claim the monarchy themselves, through royal houses of the states that had now been united into Germany, because all of that had been abolished by the revolution of 1919. See the posting on this blog, "The End Of The First World War", November 2018.

But maybe the Nazis could get the British monarchy on their side. The devastating market crash of 1929 not only made Communism into a global system, it also prompted sympathy for the National Socialism of the Nazis. The Nazis had been brilliant at bringing their country out of the Great Depression.

Other than Germany there were Nazi-like political parties in a number of countries, including Britain. Prince Edward, next in line to the throne, was rumored to have some sympathy for Nazi ideals. Remember that in the 1930s, after that terrible economic crash, a search was on for a better way to run society. This was before the Nazis became associated with genocide.

In London lived an American socialite that made no secret of her Nazi sympathies. Her name was Wallis Simpson. What if she could be maneuvered close to Prince Edward, who was in line to be king?

I realize that it is speculation that the Nazis were behind their meeting, but I cannot be the first person who has ever thought of this.

Wallis Simpson was a divorcee, and royal rules forbade Edward, now King Edward VIII, from marrying her. What few people seem to have expected was that he gave up the throne, likely not really wanting to be king anyway. His younger brother George, the father of Queen Elizabeth II, took the throne.

The former king and Wallis Simpson met with Adolf Hitler who commented that "She would have made a good queen". Of course, that was what he had wanted. 

For Buffalo, NY area readers, this was the then-future king who was at the opening of the Peace Bridge in 1927.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallis_Simpson#/media/File:Duke_and_Duchess_of_Windsor_meet_Adolf_Hitler_1937.jpg 

SCOTLAND AND THE BRITISH MONARCHY

When Scotland held a referendum on independence from Britain in 2014 what I think got missed was that the intention was not to completely separate. It was stated that Scotland would still recognize the monarchy and use the pound as currency.

This would not be a complete separation but a scaling back of the relationship to the personal union that existed for over a century before England and Scotland joined as one country, in 1707.

A personal union means that a monarch rules over more than one country, although that doesn't necessarily mean that the two countries are completely united.

Elizabeth I, the final monarch of the House of Tudor, died childless. A daughter of the first Tudor king, Margaret Tudor daughter of Henry VII ( The Seventh ), had married a king of Scotland. That meant the current king of Scotland, James IV ( The Fourth ) was her cousin and first in line for the throne of England.

James IV of Scotland also became James I of England, in 1603. This began the personal union between the two countries that would last for over a century, until the two countries were officially united in 1707. This was the beginning of the House of Stuart in England.

In Edinburgh, Scotland still has it's original Parliament building, adjacent to St. Giles Cathedral, Holyroodhouse Palace is still in use, and Scotland's original Crown Jewels are on display at Edinburgh Castle.

The monumental achievement of James I in England was the King James Bible, that has certainly done more to shape the English language than any other manuscript and was named for King James. We saw the King James Bible in the posting on this blog, "Hampton Court Palace And The King James Bible", July 2016.

It was this personal union, known as the "Union of the Crowns", that the separatists were seeking to return to in the 2014 referendum, not to separate altogether, as it was stated that Scotland would still recognize the monarchy and use the pound as currency. The news barely mentioned this.

THE NAMES OF WILLIAM AND HARRY

This is something that I haven't seen pointed out about the split between the two royal brothers. It concerns their names, William and Harry.

"Harry" is usually short for "Harold". Harry's real first name is "Henry" but his brother gave him the nickname of "Harold", according to the Wikipedia article on Prince Harry. Prince Harry's official title is the Duke of Sussex.

Let's not forget what a powerful force history and names can be. History dictates that these two brothers should not get along with each other.

Sussex is where the Battle of Hastings took place, in 1066 nearly a thousand years ago. This pivotal battle in English history was between forces led by Harold Godwinson against William the Conqueror. It was Harry against William, and William emerged victorious.

Isn't it expecting too much for two brothers that are part of the organization that represents the history of the country to get along with names like these? Is this why William gave his brother the nickname of "Harold"? 

The two brothers reportedly once had a physical altercation. Of course, they were reenacting the Battle of Hastings. History demanded it.

Harry reportedly emphasized that he had outranked his older brother in the military. This was so important because of the historic battle of Harold against William.

Giving the two brothers the names of these historic enemies, and giving one the title of Duke of the place where their battle happened, virtually ensured that this modern split would happen.

CADET BRANCHES

With the acrimonious split between Harry and Meghan and the rest of the Royal Family it might be a good time to review junior royal lines, also known as cadet branches.

There are no set rules of how a monarchy operates, and each country has it's own way. The British monarchy today doesn't officially have cadet branches. Junior members of the royal family are given nobility titles, dukes and duchesses. 

When there are two brothers and the elder inherits the throne, the younger brother may inaugurate a cadet branch of his descendants. A cadet branch may possibly gain the throne if the reigning dynasty should die out.

The royal family where cadet branches seem to be most predominant was that of France. The original royal family, of the third and final dynasty, was the House of Capet, after Hugh Capet. The House of Valois was a cadet branch that ultimately came into power. The House of Bourbon was another cadet branch that eventually took power, and was the one overthrown in the French Revolution of 1789. 

The House of Bourbon made a comeback, after the time of Napoleon, and it was the House of Orleans, a cadet branch of Bourbon, that held the throne when the monarchy was eliminated for good in 1848. 

Another French cadet branch was the House of Guise. It never held royal power but one of it's princesses, Mary of Guise, married into being Queen of Scotland.

There are no British cadet branches today, but that was not always the case.  In the Fourteenth Century the ruling House of Plantagenet fell into civil war between it's two cadet branches, the House of Lancaster and the House of York. The losses in that war, called the "War of the Roses" because the symbol of Lancaster was a red rose and York a white rose, caused Henry Tudor to inherit the throne of the House of Lancaster. This brought the next dynasty to the British throne. It's first king was Henry Tudor, reigning as Henry VII. The bloody "War of the Roses", between two cadet Branches, is likely why England ceased recognizing cadet Branches.

The split of Harry and Meghan from the royal family is not out-of-the-ordinary at all. Why don't we consider the two as inaugurating America's cadet branch, since Americans are as fascinated by British royalty as anyone.

There is a portrait of Diana on the pillar of the bridge underpass into which her car crashed in Paris.

Image from Google Street View

The Royal Story

Considering the never-ending fascination with British royalty, I would like to give my explanation of it.

There were two early kings of England that are credited with consolidating the country, Alfred the Great and his grandson Athelstan. They were from Wessex, one of the states that were combined to form a united England. I was born in the state that was then known as Mercia, and the Midlands of England are still occasionally referred to as Mercia.

Another significant early king was Canute, who was connected to Scandinavian royalty. His grandfather was Harald, who was known as "Bluetooth". Because he united Denmark and Norway, which are separated by sea. A thousand years in the future a computer protocol would be named for him that unites devices that are separated and not connected by wires.

The king of France had ceded some land of his north coast to the Vikings. These Vikings became known as Normans, and the land as Normandy. In 1066 the Normans crossed over to England and gained control of the country.

The Normans also settled in Wales. No country was affected as much by the Normans as Ireland, which we saw in the visit on this blog, "The Land Of St. Patrick". This added the "Norman Irish" to the original Irish people. In England and Wales, the Normans eventually melted into the population.

What the Normans contributed were language and castles. English is a Germanic, or Northern European, language related to German, Dutch, Danish, Swedish and, Norwegian. But the mixing in of Norman French made English a more difficult language to learn, but gave it the broad "span" that makes it suitable to be the world's language today.

Remember that we saw the tremendous Norman influence on the language in "Traces Of The Normans".

The other great Norman contribution was castles. They built castles everywhere. There is quite a bit of Norman architecture around where I was born. The ultimate land of castles might be Wales. Ironically, the cities of South Wales today are built around Norman castles that were originally built to defend against the native Welsh people.

In those days castles were difficult to attack. The defenders had the advantage. The unfortunate thing about the mobile warfare of today is that it encourages aggression by giving the advantage of momentum to the attacker.

The kings that followed William the Conqueror were known as the Angevin Kings. Due to a succession crises the first royal dynasty with a name arose, this was the House of Plantagenet, which ruled from 1154 to 1485.

The time that the Plantagenets ruled was very eventful and full of conflict. England was a united country but was still "sorting itself out". The nobility managed to force the king to sign a document, the Magna Carta, that limited his power relative to the nobility. There was the Crusades, the Catholic attempts to regain the Holy Land from Moslem control. The Norman Invasion had entwined England and France and now an English king claimed the French throne, leading to the Hundred Years War.

King Edward I added Wales to the Plantagenet realm and had great castles built there, notably the one at Caernarfon.

The Plantagenets established the supremacy of royalty over the nobility. But the House of Plantagenet fell into civil war between it's two cadet branches, the House of Lancaster and the House of York. Since the symbol of Lancaster was a red rose, and the symbol of York a white rose, the war was known as the War of the Roses.

Every dynasty, or royal house, has had a connection outside England. Just as the Plantagenets, following the Norman Invasion, had a French connection the following dynasty, the Tudors, had a Welsh connection.

In Pembroke Castle, in the far southwest of Wales, Henry Tudor, of the House of Lancaster was born. He led Lancaster to victory in the War of the Roses, and then married Elizabeth of the House of York. This reunited the country and the symbol of the new House of Tudor was a white rose inside a red rose. Since there had already been six kings named Henry, he took the throne as Henry VII ( The Seventh) in 1485. The Tudors would rule until 1603.

The House of Tudor was the peak of the monarchy of England and Wales. The central figure of the House of Tudor would be Henry's son and successor, Henry VIII (The Eighth). The remaining three monarchs of the House of Tudor would be the children of Henry VIII.

The wife of Henry VIII was Catherine of Aragon, in Spain. She was the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, the first monarchs of Spain after gaining complete independence from Moorish rule, and who commissioned the voyage of Christopher Columbus. Few people fully realize how interconnected the royal houses of different European countries are. I wonder if there is actually a preference for marrying foreign royalty to keep it that way.

Catherine did not produce a male heir, although they had a daughter named Mary. Henry wanted to marry Anne Boleyn but, although the Reformation was under way in northern Europe, England was still Catholic and the pope forbade him from divorcing Catherine. Henry simply broke with the Catholic Church and started his own Protestant church. This was the beginning of the Reformation in England. This, and the ensuing conflict, would be the defining event of the House of Tudor.

Henry VIII would be succeeded by his son, Edward. But he was ill and would die as a teenager. Edward was a devout Protestant and was worried that he would be succeeded by his Catholic half-sister, Mary. He deeded his throne to his cousin, Lady Jane Grey, who was about the same age as Edward. 

The succession line in England is male-preference but not exclusive. If a monarch died, a younger son would take precedence over an older daughter but the daughter could become queen if there were no sons.

Lady Jane Gray took the throne when Edward died. But Mary, the daughter of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon, managed to outmaneuver her and the reign of Lady Jane Gray lasted only nine days. Mary took the throne as Mary I. 

Mary I was a devout Catholic. Her mother was Spanish and she had been married to King Phillip of Spain, the one that the Philippines is named for. She infamously tried to bring England back to Catholicism by force. The attempt was unsuccessful and her reign only lasted five years. But she did get a mixed drink named after her, the "Bloody Mary".

Upon the death of Mary I her half- sister took the throne as Elizabeth I. Elizabeth was what a queen should be, and I am a great admirer of her's. She was a Protestant and reversed the barbarity that her predecessor had unleashed. Elizabeth I was a kindly person and the glorious time of her reign is known as the Elizabethan Era.

One person that Elizabeth I did have executed was her cousin, the Catholic Scottish queen named Mary, Queen of Scots who had been forced to abdicate by the Reformation. She came south to England and many English Catholics wanted her as their queen.

What Elizabeth I is best-known for is her religious comprise. The Tudor era brought the Reformation to England and was a time of great religious strife, as Mary I had unsuccessfully tried to bring England back to Catholicism by force. Elizabeth I created the Anglican Church, or Church of England, as an attempt at comprise.

One one side were the Puritans, who wanted to rid the country of anything to do with Catholicism and thought that the focus should be on just the Bible itself. On the other side were the remaining Catholics. 

The Anglican Church was certainly a Protestant church that separated from the pope. But it kept some of the familiar Catholic hierarchical organizational structure, such as bishops and an archbishop. Even today the Anglican Church is said to have a "high church" side, representing Catholicism, and a "low church" side representing Puritanism. The Lutheran Church, in Scandinavia and northern Germany, was another Protestant church that kept some of the forms of the Catholic Church.

The Puritans who wanted nothing to do with anything remotely connected with Catholicism ultimately left to start their own society in Massachusetts. This is where America's Pilgrims and Puritans came from.

American history has it that the Pilgrims and Puritans came for religious freedom because they were not allowed to worship as they chose in England. It is true that there was a ban on starting new churches. But it was only a temporary measure, an attempt to maintain order, in a time of great religious turmoil.

The Anglican Church was England's state church but Protestantism is about freedom. Anyone can read the Bible for themselves and start their own church. The Archbishop of Canterbury is automatically a member of the House of Lords but, other than that, no one is compelled to be a member of the Anglican Church, nor does membership bring any benefits with regard to hiring or promotion. 

When America declared independence the Anglican Church there was renamed the Episcopal Church. But now it is reunited to the Anglican Communion and America's national cathedral is Episcopal.

But Elizabeth I never settled on a husband and died childless. A daughter of the first Tudor king, Henry VII (The Seventh), named Margaret Tudor had married the king of Scotland. This meant that the first in line to inherit Elizabeth's throne was the present king of Scotland, James VI (The Sixth), who was a cousin of Elizabeth I.

Elizabeth I is sometimes referred to as the "Virgin Queen". She got the U.S. state of Virginia named for her and Virginia also came into use as a girls' name.

We saw how every royal dynasty had a connection outside England. The Plantagenets had a French connection and the Tudors a Welsh connection. James VI of Scotland took the throne as James I of England and reigned over both countries. This brought about the next dynasty, the House of Stuart with it's Scottish connection, in 1603.

A king can rule more than one country. It is known as a personal union, but does not necessarily mean that the two countries are completely united. A more recent personal union in Europe was the Austro-Hungarian Empire. But a citizen would be either Austrian or Hungarian, but not both. Much earlier, King Canute had England and Scandinavia in a personal union.

England and Scotland landed on the same side of the Reformation. The personal union of the House of Stuart between the two countries would last over a century before they officially united in 1707. The personal union between England and Scotland was known as the Union of the Crowns.

Scotland was generally more Protestant than England, which tolerated Catholicism and still had a considerable number of Catholics. The Scottish Presbyterian Church rejected the hierarchical church organization of bishops and an archbishop, in favor of a more egalitarian model.

Northern England remained the most Catholic part of the country and there was a short-lived rebellion against the new Protestant order. There was also the plot to blow up the Parliament with barrels of gunpowder, and force the country back to Catholicism that we saw in the posting on this blog, "The Far-Reaching Story Of Guy Fawkes". 

The monumental achievement of James I, the first king of the House of Stuart, was to commission the King James Bible, as we saw in the posting on this blog, "Hampton Court Palace And The King James Bible", July 2016.

This Bible, first published in 1611, certainly did more than any other manuscript to shape the English language that we have today. There are modern translations now but still a movement in Christianity that will only use the King James Bible. This is the old Bible with the "thee" and "thou", the way people used to talk in those days.

During the Plantagenet era the royalty had established it's dominance over the nobility. That was why the following Tudor era was the peak of monarchical power, there was little to challenge it. But the House of Stuart had to contend with the rising power of Parliament. Royalty versus Parliament became entwined with the religious conflict between Anglicans and Puritans.

This led to England's Civil Wars. The Anglican Royalists were twice defeated by the Puritan Parliamentarians. The Puritan leader, Oliver Cromwell, took over as "Lord Protector" ruling the Protectorate. King Charles I, the son of James I, was executed. The son of Charles I escaped capture by the Parliamentarians by famously hiding in an oak tree near Worcester. Since Oliver Cromwell declined to be crowned as king, this was actually an interruption in the monarchy, known as the Interregnum.

Oliver Cromwell had won a great victory. But when he died, his son simply didn't inspire the same devotion. More people wanted a restoration of the monarchy. The son of Charles I, who had escaped by hiding in the oak tree, returned and took the throne as Charles II.

The Royalists now really wanted to execute Oliver Cromwell. It didn't even matter that he was already dead. They dug up his body and beheaded him.

Charles II was succeeded by his younger brother James II, who made it clear that he was a Catholic and would promote Catholicism. A powerful movement arose against him. His daughter, Mary, favored Anglicanism.

Mary's husband, William, was the Protestant king of the Netherlands, of the House of Orange, whose mother was English. A plan was made where William would be invited to "invade" England and rule jointly with Mary.

The "invasion" was met by a welcoming committee, James II left for exile, and the two ruled as William and Mary. This is known as England's "Glorious Revolution" and William and Mary were so popular that they got a university in Virginia named for them.

The Dutch-born William and his House of Orange is why there is an orange stripe on the Irish flag and why one of the predecessor states of South Africa was called the Orange Free State. Since eastern New York State was originally a Dutch colony, it is probably why sports teams at Syracuse University are called The Orange.

Can you believe how our values have changed? In those days, religion was what was important. A nation was nothing more than an earthly collection of people. It didn't matter if our king or queen came from a foreign land, as long as their religious views were the same as ours.

When William and Mary died childless the throne passed to Mary's younger sister, who took the throne as Queen Anne. When Queen Anne also died childless, that was the end of the House of Stuart, in 1714. Like the Tudors before them, the Stuarts had died out.

There was religious freedom. But after the bloodshed during the reign of Mary I, mostly-Protestant England wanted to be sure that there would never again be a Catholic monarch. A law was passed that no one who was Catholic, or married to a Catholic, could be king or queen. A movement, known as the Jacobites, arose among mostly Catholics that James II had been deprived of being the rightful king and demanded that he, or his appropriation descendent, be restored to the throne.

As stated earlier every royal dynasty had a connection outside England. The throne went to Queen Anne's nearest Protestant relations, which were the House of Hanover in what is now a united Germany. Hanover became a personal union with England.

It is ironic that, during the days of Catholic England, the country's patron saint would be St. George, but there was never a king named George. Now, during the House of Hanover, when England had been established as definitely a Protestant country, there would be four kings in a row named George. Although one of them presided over the loss of the American colonies, they got the U.S. state of Georgia named after them.

But the relative power of the monarchy continued to decline during the House of Hanover. A new authority arose, that of the Prime Minister. England certainly still respected it's kings and queens, it was just that now some of the power was held by Parliament and the Prime Minister. During the Tudor era, there had been nothing but the monarchy.

While the relative power of the monarchy was declining another factor was at work. It was the Imperial Age and, like the other European powers, Britain was building an empire. Toward the end of the House of Hanover era, the British Empire would be at it's peak. As far as the monarchy went, toward the end of the Hanover era, there would be the phenomenon of phenomenons.

That phenomenon would be Queen Victoria. She was barely five feet (152 cm) tall and became queen as a teenager. But she had a very long reign when the empire was at it's peak. She didn't have the absolute power of the monarchy that Henry VIII and Elizabeth I had. But she had a global empire that they had not had. She also had the recent development of photography and widespread periodicals and news going for her.

The phenomenon of Queen Victoria can be seen by her name. When she took the throne Victoria was a rare girls' name. Today it is not only a popular name but mountains, lakes, rivers, islands, cities, towns and streets across the world are named Victoria. Her era is known as the Victorian Age, as are the furniture, architecture and, way of life during that time.

In Niagara Falls Queen Victoria Park, right along the Canadian side of the river by the falls, was opened to celebrate her birthday in 1888.

Queen Victoria is known as the "Grandmother of Europe". As stated earlier, the European royal families are more interconnected than most people realize. Among others, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany and the final Romanov empress of Russia were her grandchildren.

How great a king or queen becomes is not entirely under their control. It is a great advantage to have a long reign. If the monarch lives a long life, while their predecessor dies early, the reign might be very long.

Although males are preferred under British succession rules a girl can become queen, other than by marriage, if she has no brothers. But that was not true of the Hanover, and that ended it's personal union with England when Victoria became queen. So Victoria was the last monarch of the House of Hanover. Queen Victoria died in 1901.

Victoria's son, Edward, was the first monarch of the House of Saxe-Coburg. His reign was generally a continuation of the good times of the Victorian Age, before the First World War. His time is referred to as the Edwardian Age.

There were two kings named George, and between them the brief reign of Edward VIII who abdicated the throne when told that he couldn't be allowed to marry a divorcee. During the First World War the name of the House of Saxe-Coburg was changed to the House of Windsor.

In 1952 the present Queen Elizabeth II took the throne. She doesn't have the absolute power of the monarchy that Henry VIII and his daughter, Elizabeth I, had going for them. Although she has the modern Commonwealth, she doesn't have the global empire that Queen Victoria had going for her.

But what Queen Elizabeth II does have is the media. As Queen Victoria came along just in time for photography, Queen Elizabeth came along just in time for both television and jet travel, and later the internet and social media.

Queen Elizabeth II ended up becoming far and away the most visible queen or king in the history of the world.

More than a quarter of the nations in the world are members of the Commonwealth, led by Queen Elizabeth. The Commonwealth is a rather informal organization, looking for ways to make the world a better place. Most of the nations of the Commonwealth are republics. But some, known as Commonwealth Realms, recognize Elizabeth as their queen, although she may not have actual ruling powers.

If a woman becomes queen by marriage, and gives birth to a daughter who becomes queen in her own right, the woman will be known as the "Queen Mother" during her daughter's reign. The mother of the present Queen Elizabeth II was also named Elizabeth, and was known as Queen Elizabeth. She died in 2002.

The Cosmology Theory And The Lowest Information Point

When I began the theory of "The Lowest Information Point", December 2017, I considered it as a spin-off of the earlier information theory, "The Theory Of Complexity", August 2017. The concept was also related to "The Flow Of Information Through The Universe", January 2016. In fact, there are successive forms of "The Lowest Information Point" and I now consider "The Flow Of Information Through The Universe" as being the fifth form of "The Lowest Information Point".

But I thought that my general cosmology theory, "The Theory Of Stationary Space", , was about something that was completely different from "The Lowest Information Point", and the other information theories.

However, as "The Lowest Information Point" has grown and developed, it has become clear that it actually strongly supports "The Theory Of Stationary Space". That is what I would like to have a look at today.

The cosmology theory, "The Theory Of Stationary Space", explains how so much that seems otherwise unexplainable falls right into place if we consider that the matter of our universe actually occupies four spatial dimensions, one of which we experience as time. 

What we perceive as the particles comprising matter, such as electrons, are thus long strings that we perceive as particles because we can only see in three of the four dimensions. Our consciousness moves along the bundles of strings comprising our bodies and brains at what we perceive as the speed of light.

For an explanation of the cosmology theory, other than the theory itself in the compound posting, "The Theory Of Stationary Space", see the posting, "In Cosmology, Everything Just Fell Right Into Place".

http://markmeeksideas.blogspot.com/2019/05/in-cosmology-everything-just-fell-right.html

One of the principles of my informaion theories is that energy and information is really the same thing. We cannot add information to anything without applying energy to it, and we cannot apply energy to anything without adding information to it. 

Another way we can see how energy and information is really the same thing is that we can use technology to make our lives easier, but only at the expense of making them more complex. We can never, on a large scale, make our lives easier and also less complex.

We know that the universe always seeks the lowest energy state. This is why stars and planets are spherical. Because a sphere is the three-dimensional geometric form with the lowest energy. It is also why an object in the air tends to fall to the ground. Because it requires less energy than to have it in the air.

The basis of "The Lowest Information Point" is simply that if the universe always seeks the lowest energy state, and if energy and information are really the same thing, then the universe should also always seek "The Lowest Information Point". This turns out to have far-reaching implications.

A way that the universe reaches the "Lowest Information Point" is by reusing information. First, the universe prefers an equality to an inequality. An equality contains only one piece of information, such as A = A, while an inequality contains two, such as A is not equal to B. This is why, if we put hot and cold or high pressure and low pressure in contact, the inequality will tend to even out into an equality.

Also, if we have related ratios the universe will prefer one where the numerator of one is also the denominator of the other. A / B = B / C is preferable to A / B = C / D because the first only contains three pieces of information, while the second contains four. This leads the universe to prefer halfway points when it comes to scales.

One of the examples of this preference for halfway points in scales that I pointed out in "The Lowest Information Point" is that so much of the matter in the universe is in the form of dust, and the typical size of a mote of dust is exactly halfway between the scale of one of the near-infinitesimal electric charges that comprises everything in the universe, both space and matter, and the scale of the entire universe.

Other than that energy and information is really the same thing, the primary principles of my information theories is that the complexity of a number is the value of the denominator when the number is expressed as a ratio or a fraction. Since all numbers are part of a system, 9 is no more complex than 5. But 1 / 9 does involve more information, and thus more complexity, than 1 / 5 because it involves making a decision from a greater number of choices.

Another primary principle of the information theories is that distance in space is information. We can see this in how the sphere is the default gravitational form of matter in the universe, as with stars and planets. This is because the sphere is the three-dimensional geometric form with the lowest energy, and also requiring the least information to describe because energy and information is the same thing. We know that the universe always seeks the lowest energy state and surface area is simply distance squared.

Objects placed atop one another do not merge together because of electron repulsion. The outer electrons in the atoms of both objects are all negatively-charged and like charges repel. This is what keeps the objects separate. In terms of information the objects must remain separate because it would be a loss of information if they merged, because it would be a loss of surface area, and information cannot just be lost.

But suppose that enough matter was brought together by gravity to overcome this electron repulsion and crunch smaller atoms together into larger ones. This would mean a loss of surface area because, if two spheres are combined into one, the new larger atom has less surface area than the smaller atoms that were combined to form it. Since surface area is related to energy, the lost energy has to go somewhere. The process is known as nuclear fusion and is why stars, including the sun, shine.

With that review of "The Lowest Information Point" let's move on to the cosmology theory, "The Theory Of Stationary Space", and see how the information theory supports it.

In the cosmology theory everything in the universe, both space and matter, is composed of nearly-infinitesimal negative and positive electric charges. The basic rules of electric charges are that opposite charges attract while like charges repel. But these basic rules can be overcome, to some extent, by energy.

Energy can hold collections of like charges together against their mutual repulsion. In fact, the primary way that energy is manifested in the universe is overcoming the basic rules of electric charges. That is why the fundamental particles, such as electrons, are electrically charged. They are bundles of like charges, held together by energy.

Negative and positive electric charges, without any additional energy, will form an alternating checkerboard pattern, in multiple dimensions, and this is what empty space is. Matter is, in my cosmology theory, any collection of like charges held together by energy. The energy is what gives the matter it's mass and this is the well-known Mass-Energy Equivalence, where a given mass is equal to a certain amount of energy. This Mass-Energy Equivalence is central to Einstein's famous formula for the conversion of mass to energy, E = MC squared.

We see the energy of this Mass-Energy Equivalence if we react matter and antimatter together. Antimatter is similar to matter except that it's electric charges are reversed. In ordinary matter, negatively-charged electrons are in orbitals around positively-charged protons in the nucleus of an atom. In antimatter, positively-charged positrons are in orbitals around negatively-charged antiprotons in the nucleus of the atom.

If we bring matter and antimatter into contact, both vanish in a fantastic burst of energy. What happens is that the energy of the Mass-Energy Equivalence that was holding together the charged particles of both is released, and the electric charges that were composing both rearrange back into the perfectly alternating checkerboard pattern of negative and positive charges comprising empty space.

The basic rules of the electric charges are that opposite charges attract while like charges repel. Energy always ultimately goes to overcome the rules of the electric charges. If energy overcomes the mutual repulsion of like charges, we get the concentration of like charges that give us the charged particles ( Actually strings in four spatial dimensions ) comprising matter. If energy overcomes the mutual attraction of opposite charges, we get electromagnetic radiation in space.

If the two electric charges are equal then the two rules of electric charges should also be equal. If energy overcomes the mutual repulsion of like charges to create matter, then there should be a net attractive force associated with matter. There is such an attractive force, it is what we refer to as gravity.

If energy overcomes the mutual attraction between opposite charges to create electromagnetic radiation then there should be a net repulsive, or pushing, force. This is why radio waves can move electrons in an antenna, and why lasers can exert force.

We know that the universe always seeks the lowest energy state. But that is not the first priority of the universe. Absolutely the first priority is that the negative and positive electric charges must balance out.

Remember my rule of information that the complexity of a number is the value of the denominator when the number is expressed as a fraction or ratio. This is why my cosmology theory can explain how the universe began down to a single electric charge.

Suppose that there was a single electric charge, whether negative or positive. That would violate the rule that electric charges must always balance out. So the single charge induces an opposite charge to balance. But if there are two electric charges it means that there must be two opposite directions in each spatial dimension. That means that the original single charge has to also induce an opposite charge on the other side of it. But this then leaves an imbalance of two new charges which are opposite to the original single charge. The only way to balance the charges is further induction. But since this always results in an odd number of total charges they can never balance out and the induction of new charges continues to infinity.

That is how the space of our universe formed, with the process continuing in multiple dimensions. 

Such a universe, with no additional energy, will be a universe of just empty space, with no matter. All of the energy that we deal with involves matter, since electromagnetic waves originate with matter.

The reason that distance in space is equivalent to energy is that, while negative and positive electric charges always have to balance out, energy increases the distance over which they have to balance out. A universe of no additional energy, of space only, means that the distance over which charges have to balance out is zero. That is why, in empty space, the negative and positive charges have to be right next to each other. There can be no concentration of like charges.

This is why additional energy in the universe makes matter, composed of charged particles, possible. It increases the distance over which the two opposite electric charges have to balance out. 

The structures within which electric charges ordinarily balance out are atoms. There is concentration of charges within atoms, the charged particles of which they are composed. The balancing out of electric charge within atoms is not always perfect. Atoms can give or share electrons with other atoms to form molecules. In metals large numbers of atoms share their outermost electrons. The upward movement of air can knock outermost electrons out of atoms, until it is corrected by a bolt of lightning.

As described in the cosmology theory, "The Theory Of Stationary Space", matter in the universe, and the additional energy that makes it possible, originated with a two-dimensional sheet of space that grew by mutual charge induction, as described above, within background space that already existed. The two-dimensional sheet was within, but the patterns of it's negative and positive charges was not contiguous with, the background space.

Since an inequality contains more information than an equality, this non-contiguous two-dimensional sheet of space added information to the background space, and remember that energy and information is really the same thing. This is where all of the energy in the universe that we deal with came from.

Seeking a lower energy state, as the universe always does, charge migration took place in the two-dimensional sheet, positive charges to one side and negative to the other. Since the sheet was not contiguous with the background space, the negative and positive sides of the two-dimensional sheet came into contact. 

The resulting matter-antimatter mutual annihilation is what we perceive as the Big Bang. One dimension of the two-dimensional sheet disintegrated and became energy. The remaining dimension became the long one-dimensional strings that comprise matter in my cosmology theory. Much

Much of the energy radiated by the disintegrated dimension went to bind the like charges of the strings into what we perceive as particles of matter, such as electrons, today. Again, this energy shows up as the well-known Mass-Energy Equivalence and we perceive strings as particles because we can only see in three of the four dimensions of background space over which the strings were scattered by the Big Bang.

The familiar matter of our universe was scattered, by the Big Bang, over four spatial dimensions. But in no way does that mean this is all of the dimensions that there are.

Remember that my information theories define the complexity of a number, the information that it contains, as the value of the number when it is expressed as the denominator of a ratio or fraction. Zero could be said to be 0 / 1 and infinity as 1 / 0. Infinity is not really a number and is thus the lowest information quantity for anything that is defined as existing. Instead of giving an exact quantity of something, infinity just says that there are "countless" of them. While zero is as much a piece of information as any other finite number.

We cannot see how many dimensions there are in the universe because we only occupy four of them, one of which we perceive as time. But this means that the most probable number of dimensions is infinity, simply because it is the "Lowest Information Point". If four dimensions can form, why should it stop there, or at any other finite number?

So this cosmology theory, "The Theory Of Stationary Space", explains why the universe always seeks the lowest energy state. There were four dimensions of background space in our universe, but only two dimensions that went into matter and energy. Basically, there is an abundance of space but a shortage of energy. The energy shows up as increasing the distance over which the charges have to balance out, which gives us atoms, but the charges still have to balance out. 

The overall density of matter in space, including the vast reaches of inter-galactic space is extremely sparse, estimated to be only about three hydrogen atoms per cubic meter of space. But that sounds about right if matter is really one-dimensional strings in four dimensions of space.