Introduction To This Blog System

                                                                                                                                       

Image used by permission

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

Blogs are organized to be read from top to bottom like a book. There is a list of the postings on each blog to the right of the blog, but you have to click on the months shown. Please use this listing to verify that you have seen all of the postings on the blog. The usual pace of this blog is 1-3 new postings per week.

 

I would really like to thank everyone who reads any of these blogs for your interest.

 

SCIENCE WRITING

 

Most of the postings on this blog are visits to various places around the world, and articles about such topics as history and religion. But much of the writing is about science. I do not write about what is already known but only if I can write something new, or at least a new way of looking at things. If the title of a posting has an asterisk* after it, that means that the posting has already been moved to it's permanent position and will later be deleted from here.

 

If you would like a quick background in the science and mathematics that everyone should really know in the 21st Century, the posting "Scientific Literacy" provides this in about a hundred paragraphs. Similarly, "The Way Things Work" provides a quick background in everyday technology.

 

I am a Christian and I want to show that belief in God is not unscientific at all. I was interested in science long before I was interested in religion, and have never had any trouble believing that God created everything.

 

There are five major scientific theories, each arranged in the form of a textbook. The first four of the following five are on this blog.

 

"The Theory Of Stationary Space" is my cosmological theory of how so much revolves around time being explained by us being in four-dimensional space, with the dimension that we cannot access being perceived as time. This is my version of string theory, with matter actually being strings in four dimensions rather than particles in three dimensions. Everything is ultimately based on negative and positive electric charges, with energy being able to overcome the laws of attraction and repulsion of electric charges. No one has ever explained exactly what time is, and a myriad of explanations of other things fall right into place around it.

 

"The Flow Of Information Through The Universe" is about how so much can be explained by seeing how there is a limited amount of information, and it must be the same information that constructs the highest levels as the lowest levels. A ready example is how the orbits of planets around the sun is based on the orbitals of electrons around the nucleus, in the atoms of which the sun and planets are composed. This concept is extremely useful because, understanding this, we can study things that we cannot directly see by analyzing things that we can see because all must be built on the same information.

 

"The Theory Of Complexity" is about what information actually is, how energy and information is really the same thing, and how we see the universe as we do because of our perspective of being at a higher level of information than our inanimate surroundings.

 

"The Lowest Information Point" is about how, since information and energy is really the same thing and the universe always seeks the lowest energy state, it also always seeks the "Lowest Information Point". So much is explained by how the universe prefers equalities to inequalities and related ratios where the numerator of one ratio is also the denominator of the other. This explains so much from why dust particles are as big as they to why the planets and stars are the scale that they are.

 

"The Story Of Planet Earth", on the geology blog, is about how virtually every major feature of the earth's surface, both on land and seafloor, can be explained by lines of magma emergence from below that were affected by the landing of three Continental Asteroids. Many people believe that land originated from a past "super-continent", but there is no explanation of where it came from.

 

There are a few of what we could call "minor" theories, where there is not as much written as with the major theories. On this blog, there is "How Biology And Human Life Fits Into Cosmology". On the meteorology and biology blog, there is my theory of the nature of water, "Water Made Really Simple".

 

There are compound postings about science which are groupings of writing about a certain topic.

 

Scientific compound postings include, "Computer Science", "Atomic Science", "Measurement", "A Celebration Of The Inverse Square Law", "Our Solar System", "Mind-Bending Cosmology", "The Configuration Of The Solar System Made Really Simple", "In Appreciation Of Electrons", "The Science Of Human Society " and "Orbital And Escape Velocities And Impacts from Space".

 

Compound postings about history and the world include "The House Of Holy Wisdom, Where The Modern World Began", "Niagara Stories", "Economics", "How History Repeats Itself", "The Meaning Of Freedom", "The Western Hemisphere", "Our Language" and, "America And The Modern World Explained By Way Of Paris".

 

There are two compound postings about prophecies and the Bible. There is "The Aztec Prophecy" than, for prophecies that are directly made in the Bible there is "New Insight Into Bible Prophecy".

 

"Investigations" is the compound posting that is a collection of any posting about an investigation.

 

The rest of the postings are individual postings. For more detailed information about this blog, see the posting "About This Blog". For general topics of conversation, see "Thoughts And Observations", on the world and economics blog.  

Other Blogs And Books

                                                                                      

Lights at night 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Happy St. George's Day

April 23 is St. George's Day, my native England's national day. Here are links to the relevant postings on this blog.

"The Royal Story" reviews the British Royal Family from the beginning, and how it got to where it is today.

www.markmeeksideas.blogspot.com/2020/12/the-royal-story.html?m=0

"Royal Observations" is my observations about British Royalty.

www.markmeeksideas.blogspot.com/2020/12/royal-observations.html?m=0

"America And Royalty" is about how America is as royal as anywhere, even if it is officially a republic.

www.markmeeksideas.blogspot.com/2022/09/america-and-royalty.html?m=0

Our visit to "London" has a lot about British Royalty. 

www.markmeeksideas.blogspot.com/2022/09/london.html?m=0

"Placid Britain" is the immediate area of where I was born.

www.markmeeksideas.blogspot.com/2017/06/placid-britain.html?m=0

"Gloucestershire And Herefordshire" is the wider area.

www.markmeeksideas.blogspot.com/2016/05/gloucestershire-and-herefordshire.html?m=0

"British Photo Project" is the attempt to photograph and link all of Britain and Ireland. This is around where I was born.

www.markmeeksideas.blogspot.com/2015/02/british-photo-project.html?m=0

This is a review of some of what England has contributed to the world.

www.markmeekeconomics.blogspot.com/2012/11/a-celebration-of-my-native-england.html?m=0

Remember that the green of this blog represents the green fields around where I came from. Images from Google Street View on road that goes from Berry Hill, through Bicknor, to Lower Lydbrook.

This is looking over Drybrook from Harrow Hill.

There is discussion nowadays of raising one's own chickens, due to grocery prices. That has long been done around where I was born. Here is one backyard coop. Image from Google Street View.

Along The Heaven Road

Let's celebrate St. George's Day by having a look at a country road near where I was born. After completing high school in the U.S. I visited my native England. While looking around I happened to walk the road from Berry Hill through Bicknor to Lower Lydbrook.

Maybe I was just used to living in a city but the thought occurred to me that I might have died without remembering it and now I was walking in Heaven. I wanted to walk the Heaven Road again but never got around to it. But now there is Google Street View so that we can visit it here.

The next day I first saw Gloucester Cathedral again. It was like this road was a glimpse of what Heaven looked like and the cathedral was the way to Heaven. After becoming a Christian I realized that God had tried to get my attention several times before finally succeeding.

Anyway here is along the Heaven Road.

Apocalyptic Developments

 In the news this week was the process of doing away with boarding passes at airports. Traditional boarding passes are to be replaced by an electronic pass on the traveler's phone. This is similar to the way passes attesting to one's vaccination status was used during the pandemic. This will be much more efficient than traditional boarding passes because if the traveler misses a connecting flight, through no fault of their own, the system will be updated, and the traveler automatically notified of their new connecting flight, by way of the pass on the phone.

This is a definite step toward the "Mark of the Beast", that will be used by the future Antichrist as described in the posting "The End Of The World As We Know It".

Donald Trump And BRICS

Something that I haven't yet seen written about the second term of Donald Trump is the effect that it will have on BRICS. This is the global economic organization that was formed primarily as a backlash to the dominance of the U.S. Dollar. The knock against BRICS is that it's member nations are so diverse and far apart, with their only thing in common being the opposition to Western dominance. But now the protectionism of Donald Trump might be the greatest thing that ever happened to BRICS.

A major recent development in the world is the growth of interest in BRICS. This is an organization of non-western countries. The acronym stands for Brazil, Russia, India, China and, South Africa, but many more countries have joined or expressed interest in it.

The best-known international organization is the G7. It consists of the U.S., Canada, Britain, Germany, France, Italy and, Japan. But the G7 has become, in much of the world, a symbol of past western domination that is not at all reflective of the world today.

The G7 was later expanded into the G20, although the G7 exists separately. But the G20 is still considered by much of the world as too tilted toward the west.

BRICS professes no hostility toward the west. But it is seen as the "Non-West", an organization of countries across the world that appear to have little in common other than a wish to move beyond western domination of the world.

A major objective of BRICS involves currency. The U.S. Dollar is the dominant reserve currency in the world. This goes back to the Bretton Woods agreement from just before the end of the Second World War, with the U.S. taking advantage of it's dominant position at the time. Richard Nixon took the U.S. off the Gold Standard, effectively ending the agreement, but by then the dollar had the momentum as by far the world's most important reserve currency.

The issue in the world today is that this gives the U.S. the ability to enact economic sanctions against other countries. The number one target of U.S. sanctions has been Iran, and also Venezuela, but now the main target is Russia. There is increasing resentment of this ability to impose sanctions on other countries, and the formation of BRICS can be seen as somewhat of a backlash. 

There is another way to describe the war in Ukraine that I have not seen. It could be called the BRICS War.

The following image is from the Wikipedia article "BRICS".

Virtually all of the harsh condemnation of Russia for the war, and assistance and praise for Ukraine, have come from western countries that are not members of BRICS. Some BRICS member states have called for peace, and offered to meditate negotiations, but have not directly condemned Russia's war effort. 

This doesn't necessarily mean that BRICS members actually support the war, just as westerners vary in their support for Ukraine, but this war could well be called "The BRICS War". 

The major obstacle to the BRICS movement is that it's membership is so diverse and scattered across the world. The only thing that they really have in common is the desire to undercut the dominance of the West. The central issue of BRICS is currency, to reduce the dominance of the U.S. Dollar as the world's reserve currency.

There is another organization that is somewhat of a parallel to BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, but it's primary focus does not seem to be economic, in the same way as BRICS.

There is nothing innately special about the U.S. Dollar or anything written in stone that it has to be the world's reserve currency. It's just that it has momentum in it's favor and people have confidence in it. The creation of an entirely new currency by BRICS has been discussed but it seems more likely that there will be more emphasis on using existing currencies. 

The creation of a joint currency inevitably involves member nations giving up some of their sovereignty, in that they can no longer print their own money at will. The Euro is the world's foremost joint currency and, although it is working well in Europe it hasn't displaced the Dollar as the global reserve currency.

For a nation's currency to be a global currency it must be completely convertible and must be allowed to "float" freely in value against other currencies. The world's two most populous countries are both members of BRICS. But China doesn't allow the Yuan to float completely freely. This risks allowing it's value to be determined by forces outside the country, including currency speculators.

India does not allow the Rupee to be readily convertible into other currencies. Making the currency completely convertible is taking a risk, it exposes the country to potentially volatile capital flows, including the money leaving the country. The Dollar is the world's reserve currency because the U.S. Government has been willing to take these risks.

Some have thought that maybe cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, might provide a global currency. But a global currency must be stable, without great swings in value. The value of a currency operates by supply and demand, and global use of the U.S. Dollar keeps it's value relatively stable. When using a foreign currency, if it's value increases that makes a country's exports more expensive and increases the amount of real money that has to be repaid for debts. If it's value decreases that decreases a country's spending power, although it makes it's exports less expensive.

BRICS cannot be ignored. With it's new members it has close to half of the world's population, and many more countries want to join. But what it has to realize is that a global currency must be allowed to freely float in value and be freely convertible into other currencies. There are fewer than 20 currencies that are completely convertible, including the U.S. and Canadian Dollars, the Euro and the British Pound. Most governments are uneasy about completely removing restrictions on how their currency relates to foreign currencies.

I haven't seen anything about it yet but the protectionism of Donald Trump is a reversal of the global economic order. This changes everything about the global dominance of the U.S. Dollar and might be the greatest thing that ever happened to BRICS.

The Nationalization Of British Steel

The Nationalization Of British Steel was announced this week. The government is taking it over to prevent it's being shut down because the ability to make steel, aside from recycling existing steel, is considered as vital to national security.

I wonder what Margaret Thatcher would think. She was the conservative prime minister who sold off the state-owned industries to the private sector, considering it as more efficient. Now that is being reversed with re-nationalization. 

We saw the issue of steel production and national security in the posting about Margaret Thatcher after her death: www.markmeekeconomics.blogspot.com/2013/08/margaret-thatcher-in-perspective.html?m=0

The concept of the free market is based on the Law of Supply and Demand, and letting everyone do what they do best. But it is a rather simplistic model that doesn't always fit with the real world.

One of those ways is that countries don't always get along with each other. The free market model allows processes to move to other countries, if that means increased efficiency. But that presumes that the world is a level and fair playing field. Profit is not the only motive, there is also national security. Steel is absolutely essential to a nation's ability to protect itself, and is detrimental to national security if there is no steel-making capacity, even if the move offshore might be more economically efficient.

The way I see politics and economics is that it is a 360 degree picture. Our economics are necessarily just as complex as we are. That makes it easier for each of us to just see either the right, supply side, or left, demand side, rather than the entire picture. This means that both sides have valid points, but each has difficulty seeing the other's point of view.

Let's review my view of the leftist theories of Karl Marx.

THE MARX CLOUD 

I have a new way of looking at the theories of Karl Marx. I conclude that the fulfillment of Marxist theory can be seen in, of all things, computer technology. Since the end of the Cold War, Marx has been viewed as one of the great losers of history. He was nowhere near completely right in his predictions, yet was on to something and cannot be ignored. When I was in London, I thought of visiting his grave in Highgate Cemetery but never got around to it.

The workers of the world did not unite and take over the means of production, as Marx had envisioned. But he was somewhat vindicated by the crash of Capitalism in 1929, as well as the somewhat lesser crashes of 1987 and 2008. He might have been pleased with the implementation of minimum wage and workplace safety laws, labor unions, unemployment benefits and social security, and especially mandatory public education. All of which, with the exception of labor unions, was virtually unheard of in the Nineteenth Century when Marx wrote his theories. 

Samuel Gompers could be seen as America's reflection of Marx. Religion, the "opiate of the masses" certainly has not faded away as expected by Marx. But it is true that the western countries, at least, are more secular than they were in the days of Marx.

We look at the theories of Marx in socio-economic terms. But what if there was another side to the theory, that of technology, even if Marx himself did not see this? Some of the fulfillment of Marxist theory certainly was in the socio-economic sphere, as the above mentioned reforms. But the other side, the technical side and it's global social effects, had to wait for the advent of computers and the internet.

Computer and phone technology has empowered the masses like nothing else, even though it is produced by companies owned by wealthy capitalists. Wikipedia, for one, seems to be straight from the pages of Marxist theory. It is the collective encyclopedia of the masses, operated by donations and open to anyone who wishes to contribute. All free apps on the internet, open to all and not driven by profit motive, also fall into this category.

The nation-state has not faded away, at least not in the way that Marx supposedly envisioned. In the more than century and a half since the days of Marx, nationalism has been stronger than ever before. My theory is that people are designed to believe in something and if they drift away from religion, substitutes like nationalism will take it's place.

But yet national borders also mean less today than ever before. Trade and travel goes around the world. It is possible to wake up in any country one morning, and go to bed in any other country that night. You can log onto a web site, or make a call, or send an email virtually anywhere on earth, with the national borders in between being absolutely meaningless.

But the latest manifestation of Marxist theory is this phenomenon of collective global internet, known as "the cloud". The basic meaning of the cloud is that the data that you store, and increasingly the applications that you use, are not stored on your computer but are "out there somewhere" in the cloud. This blog is an ideal example of the cloud. It is not stored on my computer. I presume that the content of this blog is kept at Google's HQ in Mountain View, California, but could be on any server farm anywhere.

Marx sensed what would come. The Nineteenth Century in Europe was a time of revolution, and he presumed that the inevitable changes that he saw would be brought about in the same way. We could say that half of the fulfillment of his theory was by way of the social reforms listed above. But the communication technology of the time was limited to telegraphs relaying Morse Code. Marx could not possibly have imagined the computer revolution which would one day manifest the other half of this fulfillment.

He also did not see that while the technical side of his theory would be fulfilled, and it would greatly empower the masses that Marx saw as exploited and ill-treated, it would be brought about by very wealthy capitalists. The difference, with which Marx would be at least partially pleased, is these capitalists would not be from an entrenched upper class, but would be college kids who got an idea, quit school to work on it, and found themselves as the billionaires which would, ironically, bring about the remaining fulfillment of Marxist theory.

This shows what Karl Marx actually envisioned. He was right but he only saw half of the picture and it would require advancement in technology, which would take time, to bring his half of the picture about.

My observation is that the best economic model is not one that is right or left, but the one which best weaves right and left together.

Models Of Politics

Seeing how politics and economics tends to bounce between left and right, as exemplified this week by the re-nationalization of British Steel, decades after it had been de-nationalized, let's review the two buildings that I consider as models of politics.

The real reason for politics is complexity. The primary component of politics is economics, and our economics are as complex as we are.

This makes it very difficult for any of us to see the entire economic picture. It is far easier to just see what we refer to as the "right" or the "left". The right can be said to represent the seller and the left the buyer.

Any economic transaction requires both a buyer and a seller. Both are therefore of equal importance. To say that one is more important than the other is like saying that a right shoe is more important than the left shoe.

But shoes are simple and it is easy to see that the left and right are of equal importance. But economics is not so simple and it is much easier to see either the right or left as more important. 

To fully understand something, we must construct a mental model of it. But this means that we are limited when it comes to understanding ourselves because we would have to be "smarter than ourselves" to be able to contain a complete mental model of ourselves, which is impossible.

This obvious fact that we cannot be "smarter than ourselves" has a number of ramifications. For another thing, the limitation that we cannot be "smarter than ourselves" means that while we can break physics down into formulae, we cannot do that with human behavior. This does not mean that there are no formulae that describe and predict all that humans do, it is just that we cannot arrive at these formulae because we cannot be "smarter than ourselves" in the way that would be necessary for us to break ourselves down in the same way as with physics.

If this could be done, sports would no longer make sense because the actions of each player could be described in advance by formula and it would be completely unnecessary to hold the sports event to see which team would win. There is a formula for all that each person does, as well as the entire world, but we cannot be "smarter than ourselves" to arrive at it.

Now, back to economics. The sum of all economic transactions is a reflection of our own complexity. When we look at economics, we are looking at ourselves. So to completely build a mental model of all of it's complexity, we would have to be "smarter than ourselves" which is impossible.

Economics is a vast reflection of ourselves, and it is much easier to simplify it by looking at either one side or the other. This is what brings systems such as capitalism and Communism into being. These are the two opposite sides of the total economic picture. Both must have valid points or they would not have attracted so many adherents. Yet, both have been shown to have serious flaws. The flaws in one creates believers in the other so that economic history has tended to zig-zag between left and right.

Industrial era economics began with capitalism. People had to start the industries which would produce wealth, but could not be expected to do this if they would not then be the owners of that wealth. Capitalism, at least in it's more extreme forms, is unsustainable. Factories will pay their workers as little as possible, in order to maximize profit, but that will leave too few people with enough money to buy the goods and services that are being produced. A purely capitalistic system will crash like it did in 1929 and repeatedly in the late Nineteenth Century.

Communism began as a reaction to extreme capitalism. Karl Marx, a German Jew in exile in London, put together the theory in the reading room at the British Museum. The theories of Marx were intended for Britain, but Communism never gained significant numbers of followers there. 

The knock against Communism is simply that, while it does not have the unsustainable concentration of wealth that capitalism does, it destroys the incentive that is necessary for people to work hard. Why should a business person put forth his best effort to create wealth every day if he is only going to have to share the wealth with everybody else?

Capitalism and Communism each represents one side of the complete economic picture. To see the full picture of economics would be to encompass both capitalism and Communism into a middle ground to get the best of both and the worst of neither. Both sides did move away from extremes, and toward the economic center, as time went on and experience was gained with industrial-era economics, but voters are still very much divided between left and right.

I see economics as ultimately coming down to freedom. There are two slants to freedom-"freedom to" and "freedom from". A simple example that I use for illustration is smoking. Should people have "freedom to" smoke, or should they have "freedom from" second-hand smoke?

The truth is that people, being complex, are both competitive and self-interested as well as communal. "Freedom to" represents capitalism, while "freedom from" represents Communism. Both are a fundamental part of human nature, and both must be accommodated by an effective economic system. The best solution is the middle ground halfway between capitalism and Communism.

There will be maximum economic activity when the available wealth is shared equally between the people. But, on the other hand, equal distribution of wealth will destroy incentive. The purpose of an economic system is to find the best balance of these two facts by seeing the total economic picture, even though it is more complex and thus more difficult, than only seeing either left or right.

There are two buildings that provide an illustration of how economics, which is the core of politics, works. One is in Liverpool and the other in Buffalo.

The Royal Liver Building, which is one of the "Three Graces" along the waterfront in Liverpool, has two statues of "Liver Birds" facing in opposite directions. In the following image, from Google Earth, the two Liver Birds are just to the left of the two red dots. 

In the Liberty Building, in Buffalo, there are two Statues of Liberty also facing in opposite directions. As shown just to the left of the two red dots in the following image from Google Earth. 

These pairs of statues show how politics and economics works. Each statue has it's view of reality. The reality is of the same complexity as the statue so the statue would have difficulty grasping the whole 360 degree reality. It is easier to just see in one direction. The same applies to us with regard to left and right. Each statue is not aware that it is seeing in only one direction and thinks that the view of the other statue is absurd. 

Northern Iran

We have already visited Tehran. This visit will be to the cities of Tabriz, Karaj, Qom and, Mashad.

The major city of northwestern Iran is Tabriz. It's primary language is Azerbaijani. Tabriz is an ancient city that was a link in the Silk Road. It is especially known for it's historic bazaar. The following scenes begin in the Bazaar. The first six images of the Bazaar are from Google Street View.

This Bazaar is an ideal place to shop for traditional Persian carpets.

Portraits of the ayatollahs are very often seen. Khomeini is on the right and Khamenei on the left.

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

https://www.google.com/maps/@38.0807483,46.2922475,3a,75y,76.45h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipO6b9nmQRUqv5iHSu_5n1a8PCQQHkUcM6-9KcWD!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh3.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipO6b9nmQRUqv5iHSu_5n1a8PCQQHkUcM6-9KcWD%3Dw900-h600-k-no-pi0-ya74.33245203319255-ro0-fo100!7i7680!8i3840?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MDEyMS4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D

Another historic sight in Tabriz is the Blue Mosque. This doesn't look like a Shiite mosque, which tend to be more colorful. But remember that it was the Safavid Dynasty that forcibly converted Iran from Sunni to Shiite in the Eighteenth Century, and this mosque was built before then. The first five images are from Google Street View.

The following images are of the area around the Blue Mosque.

https://www.google.com/maps/@38.0734046,46.3010152,3a,75y,352.7h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipOutEGAQXa6CmNd2pnkL2Lw0zzrmI-s-2jE3Kqx!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh3.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipOutEGAQXa6CmNd2pnkL2Lw0zzrmI-s-2jE3Kqx%3Dw900-h600-k-no-pi0-ya159.94311176222863-ro0-fo100!7i4096!8i2048?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MDEyMS4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D

Karaj is a city to the west of Tehran. It is known for the Suleymanieh Palace. This was a palace of the Qajar Dynasty. This was the dynasty that preceded the Pahlavi Dynasty, which was the final dynasty before the Islamic Revolution ended the monarchy in 1979. It was the Qajar Dynasty that made Tehran the capital of the country. The palace has murals of the Qajar Dynasty royal family. The following three images are from Google Street View.

Here is a look around central Karaj. The first three images are from Google Street View.

https://www.google.com/maps/@35.844212,50.971883,3a,75y,320h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipOkzhQUfQps2ASecgVH_Ehafb3NJ0ya667xd5ij!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh3.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipOkzhQUfQps2ASecgVH_Ehafb3NJ0ya667xd5ij%3Dw900-h600-k-no-pi0-ya217.3446960449219-ro0-fo100!7i5760!8i2880?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MDEyMS4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D

Qom is considered as a holy city of Shia Islam. Much of the life of Ayatollah Khomeini revolved around this city. The reason that the original Shia cities are in Iraq, Najaf and Kufa, is that Iran was only converted to Shia Islam, from Sunni, by the Safavid Dynasty in the Eighteenth Century. Qom is a very old city that, previous to becoming a holy city, has been a part of all of the empires that have controlled the region.

The central sight of Qom is the spectacular Shrine of Fatima Masumeh. She was the daughter of one of the Twelve Imams revered by Shiite Moslems, and the sister of his son and following Imam. The daughter of Muhammad was also named Fatima.

Here is the Fatima Masumeh Shrine. The first ten images are from Google Street View. 

https://www.google.com/maps/@34.6534483,50.8401386,3a,75y,121.72h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipOkDyirJW20TOqG7wfQeFdc2KiNyAWElszjd6B8!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh3.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipOkDyirJW20TOqG7wfQeFdc2KiNyAWElszjd6B8%3Dw900-h600-k-no-pi0-ya262.72269114151584-ro0-fo100!7i8704!8i4352?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MDEyMS4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D

Also in Qom is the Imam Hasan Askari Mosque, with the "swirl" pattern dome. These three images are from Google Street View.

Another notable sight in Qom is the Mosque of Jamkaran. These four images are from Google Street View.

Mashad is the major city in the northeastern corner of Iran. Along with Qom, it is considered as a holy city of Shia Islam. It is a very old city that existed long before Islam, having been a stop on the Silk Road. The most important place in Mashad is the Shrine of Imam Reza. This includes the tomb of one of the twelve successive Imams revered by Shiite Moslems.

This is the Shrine of Imam Reza. The first seven images are from Google Street View. The fourth image looks like a model of the Dome of the Rock.

Also in Mashad is the Tomb of Nadir Shah, with a statue of him on a horse. This was a great conqueror who was like the Persian version of Napoleon or Alexander the Great. Image from Google Street View.

This is a look around the city of Mashad. This first three images are from Google Street View.

https://www.google.com/maps/@36.3051188,59.5730462,3a,75y,200h,100t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipP99XCS4XfR8RxvB18Mw1LFIemOKIwX5aPtiUvw!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh3.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipP99XCS4XfR8RxvB18Mw1LFIemOKIwX5aPtiUvw%3Dw900-h600-k-no-pi-10-ya11.265213012695312-ro0-fo100!7i3840!8i1920?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MDEyMS4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D

Here is more of the city of Mashad. This is the largest city in Iran after Tehran.

https://www.google.com/maps/@36.2699282,59.6108163,3a,75y,110t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipNdnaNV-BVlBnG1iboTUPVI5p1hL3AUmpGOuD5H!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh3.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipNdnaNV-BVlBnG1iboTUPVI5p1hL3AUmpGOuD5H%3Dw900-h600-k-no-pi-20-ya50-ro0-fo100!7i5300!8i2650?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MDEyMS4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D