Thursday, May 28, 2026

Introduction To This Blog System

                                                                                                                                                                                                       

Image used by permission

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.

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 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 "Thanks To Readers". For general topics of conversation, see "Thoughts And Observations", on the world and economics blog.  
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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".   

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The Rhine-Ruhr (Cologne) Area

The Ruhr area of western Germany is known for industry. It is one of the places that the Industrial Revolution began. For the first stage of the Industrial Revolution, it had those two all-important resources of coal and iron.

But the history of this region began long before the Industrial Revolution. The Rhine River was the edge of the Roman Empire. What you will generally find in the Rhine-Ruhr Area is that the cities to the west of the Rhine River began as Roman outposts, while the cities to the east of the river began hundreds of years later, in medieval times. The part of Germany to the west of the Rhine River is known as the Rhineland.

Cologne is the largest city of the Rhine-Ruhr area. But I would like to begin our visit with Aachen, in the far west of Germany. The way I see it, Aachen is really where Germany began.

Like the other cities in the area to the west of the Rhine River, Aachen has Roman origins. But it is known as the city of Charlemagne. Both France and Germany are descended from people known as the Franks, which is where the name of Frankfurt comes from. Charlemagne, sometimes referred to as "The Father of Europe" was of the Carolingian Dynasty of the Franks. Charlemagne was crowned by the pope as the first Holy Roman Emperor on Christmas Day, in the year 800, in the old St. Peter's Basilica.

The dynasty of the Franks that had preceded the Carolingian Dynasty, the Merovingian Dynasty, had their center of power in Paris. It was they who built a palace on the island in the Seine River from which Paris would grow outward.

But the Carolingian Dynasty moved it's center of power eastward, to Aachen. This is where Charlemagne lived and was buried and where later Holy Roman Emperors were crowned. Notice the similarity between Aachen and the Isle de la Cite in Paris. There was a palace in Aachen, which is now gone. But the chapel of the palace remained, and the present Aachen Cathedral was built around the chapel.

The empire of the Carolingian Dynasty did not last, eventually splitting into East Francia and West Francia. East Francia, including Aachen, would become the Holy Roman Empire and later Germany. West Francia, including Paris, would become France.

The main reason for the split was likely language. The western area had been part of the Roman Empire and had gotten to speaking a Romance language, which would become French. The eastern part had not been ruled by Rome and spoke a northern European language, which would become German.

The name of the Franks lives on today in France and in the German city of Frankfurt. The German name for France is still "Frankreich". The French name for Germany is still "Allemagne", for a people in this area who the Franks had conquered.

Also significant in Aachen is the Rathaus, or City Hall, from the Fourteenth Century. German cities, as well as Vienna, typically have a medieval city hall across the central square from the cathedral. The following scenes of Aachen begin at the Rathaus.

This first image, from Google Earth, shows the Cathedral in the foreground and the Rathaus in the background. The unique dome of the Cathedral is the oldest part of it.


The first two of the following four images are of the Cathedral and the next two are of the Rathaus.





This image, from Google Street View, is of the original statue of Charlemagne from about four centuries ago. This statue has now been brought inside and a copy put in front of the Rathaus.


These images, from Google Street View, are of the octagonal chamber beneath the dome of the Cathedral. This is the oldest part of the Cathedral and we could say that this is where Germany really began. It is very reminiscent of the interior of the Dome of the Rock, in Jerusalem.





Immediately adjacent to this chamber beneath the dome is the shrines of Charlemagne and Mary. The lower gold box is the Shrine of Charlemagne and contains his remains. Two images from Google Street View.



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

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Aachen+Cathedral/@50.7754846,6.0838576,3a,75y,263.87h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sCIHM0ogKEICAgIC1zI61Ow!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh3.googleusercontent.com%2Fgpms-cs-s%2FAFfmt2Zir0rmKfp6qUZtJDzqW2GJEZ4zg15YWQlFA9hNuEyDAW4S3pdJaJEFhn-FON8ib9UKs3XsigAWT-TK4i-1ISRnNmmBxOhP-fo3jclVIiS6g7XBF3L3ziFfj8sUA0WoQO75yQE%3Dw900-h600-k-no-pi0-ya345.8732074369525-ro0-fo100!7i7680!8i3840!4m6!3m5!1s0x47c0997c84f087fb:0x38730b23e56788c3!8m2!3d50.7747198!4d6.0839201!16zL20vMDFmZHFw?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI2MDMxMS4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D

Cologne, being on the west bank of the Rhine River, has been important since Roman Times. The Frank conquest of Cologne was the beginning of them becoming the people from whom both modern France and Germany would descend. Is is known today especially for it's Thirteenth-Century cathedral with the twin spires. Notice how dark the stone of the old cathedral looks, that is from prolonged exposure to coal smoke following the Industrial Revolution. The first five images of Cologne Cathedral are from Google Earth and Street View.







We have seen, in previous visits to Vienna and Moscow, how city walls are sometimes later dismantled and a grand boulevard built over the former course of the wall. The following scenes begin on the Kaiser Wilhelm Ring in Cologne. The first two images are from Google Earth and Street View. The Ring is indicated by the red dots.




Dortmund, to the east of the Rhine River, is not of Roman origin but from the early Middle Ages. The first three images are from Google Earth.




https://www.google.com/maps/@51.5170243,7.4597047,3a,75y,207.51h,100.76t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipP5TOzFG-QVAgthVlnUWUDhTk0PoE-LjOg_vgGR!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipP5TOzFG-QVAgthVlnUWUDhTk0PoE-LjOg_vgGR%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-20-ya262-ro0-fo100!7i10240!8i5120

Bonn is another city from Roman times. It is remembered today as having been the capital city of West Germany until the capital was moved back to Berlin upon reunification. The vote, held in 1991, was only narrowly in favor of moving the capital back to Berlin. 

Bonn is not a really major city and it was supposedly chosen as the capital of West Germany for this reason. It was never really intended to be a permanent capital, only until the country could be reunified and the capital moved back to Berlin. If a larger city had been chosen as capital, such as Cologne or Frankfurt, it might have been tempting to make that the permanent capital. 

The following views of Bonn begin at the Munsterplatz in the center of the city. The first six images show the area of the Munsterplatz and the church known as the Bonn Minster.







https://www.google.com/maps/@50.7344922,7.0989619,3a,75y,134.57h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipOgy71LmowfZOkti3uWX1c05kSDvt4jJ_3kJE0b!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipOgy71LmowfZOkti3uWX1c05kSDvt4jJ_3kJE0b%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-0-ya277.20572-ro0-fo100!7i7776!8i3888

There are suffixes that are common to the names of German towns and cities, -heim means "home", -stadt means "place", -berg means "hill" or "mountain", -burg means "castle", -bad means "bath" or "spa", -furt means "ford" which is a place where a river is shallow enough to be crossed, and -dorf means "valley". Here is the city of Dusseldorf, which means "The valley of the Dussel River". The first four images, from Google Earth and Street View, are of the old part of Dusseldorf and the modern observation tower.






Essen is another city of the Ruhr which originated in the early Middle Ages and later for industry. It was the home of Krupp, the famous steel company. These three images of modern Essen are from Google Earth.





Munster is one of the most charming old cities anywhere, and also the home of a very old cathedral. After the Reformation, there was even a plan to make Munster the "New Jerusalem". Munster is also an Irish name, Ireland is geographically divided into four quadrants and the southwest is called Munster. I cannot see that the two names are connected although very early Irish monks did evangelize in this area. 

The following scenes of the center of Munster begin at the Prinzipalmarkt. The first two images, from Google Street View, are of the St. Paulus Cathedral and the next are of the St. Jacobi and the area of the Prinzipalmarkt.









Hanover is another medieval city with an impressive Rathaus, or town hall. This town hall is not from medieval times, but from the time of the Kaisers. The first six images are from Google Earth and Street View.

The first of these three are the Rathaus and old part of Hanover.




These three images are of the Herrenhausen Palace. This belonged to the House of Hanover. The Kingdom of Hanover, which is now part of Germany, was in a personal union with Britain for over a century. This means that two countries are ruled by the same king, although not that the two are completely united. Queen Victoria was actually of the House of Hanover but the personal union was ended by different succession rules. Hanover didn't allow a female to inherit the throne, while Britain had male-preference inheritance but not exclusive. Victoria became queen because she didn't have any living brothers.





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