Introduction To This Blog System

                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

Image used by permission

Posting is usually done once a week, on Thursday.

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 six major scientific theories, each arranged in the form of a textbook. The first five of the following six 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 Theory Of Infinite Dimensions" is the most recent scientific theory. It is the second cosmological theory, after"The Theory Of Stationary Space". We see the universe as an infinity of distance in three spatial dimensions and light as always moving in straight lines. But this is another example of how we see the universe as we do not only because of what it is but also because of what we are. It is more logical that the universe has an infinite number of dimensions. We can see in all of the dimensions because light actually can turn corners but it requires energy. We can only see it as three dimensions because of our limited dimensional order. Light consists of two-dimensional waves and we perceive space as being three-dimensional. This means that we can see light as coming from different directions but can only perceive it as moving in a straight line.

 

"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.  

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".   

Edinburgh

The logical place to begin a visit to Edinburgh is at Edinburgh Castle. It is build on a geological formation known as a crag and tail. The castle is above the city, atop the crag, and the famed street, known as the Royal Mile, extends along the tail. Edinburgh Castle, at the high end of the Royal Mile, was the royal residence of Scotland before Holyroodhouse Palace, at the opposite end of the Royal Mile, was built. The Royal Mile is so-called because it's length is just about exactly a mile, actually a little bit more.

Edinburgh is a very photogenic city and I took a lot of photos there. This posting combines those photos with images from Google Earth and Street View. There is a section on Edinburgh in the posting "Travel Photos Of Europe" with the same photos. The links to those photos are from when the travel photos were on a separate blog.

Here is the photos of Edinburgh Castle, from the travel photo blog of Europe. Photos can be enlarged simply by clicking on them:

http://markmeekphotos.blogspot.com/2006/09/edinburgh-castle-scotland.html

These eight images of Edinburgh Castle are from Google Street View.

Scotland's crown jewels, called the Honours of Scotland, are displayed at Edinburgh Castle. These were used by the Scottish Monarchy before the country joined Britain in 1707. These are the oldest crown jewels in Britain, since England's original crown jewels were destroyed by Oliver Cromwell. This is the Crown of Scotland, image from the Wikipedia article "Honours of Scotland".

Another important Scottish royal artifact is the Stone of Scone. This is a rectangular block of sandstone that was the symbol of the Scottish monarchy and first used to crown Scottish kings nearly eight hundred years ago. It was captured during a conflict with England and brought to Westminster Abbey. It was actually incorporated into the English coronation throne, the symbolism being that the King of England is also the King of Scotland.

In 1950, four Scottish students managed to take the stone, in a carefully planned operation, and return it to Scotland. Authorities later recovered the stone and returned it to Westminster Abbey. In 1996, the stone was given back to Scotland. For some time it was in Edinburgh Castle. But it is Britain's coronation stone and temporarily returns to London when a new monarch is crowned.

I am going to approach Edinburgh by way of the contrast between the Old Town and the New Town. The Old Town, including the castle, is centered along the Royal Mile, while the New Town is aligned along Princes Street, which is roughly parallel to the Royal Mile.

In the first of the following scenes, we are in Edinburgh Castle looking northward. The closest buildings that are seen in the distance are along Princes Street, from which there is a spectacular view looking up at the castle. The trees between Princes Street and the castle is the Princes Street Gardens. The water in the far distance is the Firth of Forth, which separates the southern part of Scotland, where Edinburgh is located, from the rest of the country, to the north. The beginning of northern Scotland can be seen in the far distance.

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/@55.9487831,-3.2000375,3a,75y,337.03h,90.39t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1s-SjYvdFlKB0V3usIWBm44Q!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo3.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3D-SjYvdFlKB0V3usIWBm44Q%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D71.930229%26pitch%3D0!7i13312!8i6656

Here are the general photos of Edinburgh, from the Travel Photos Of Europe, around the Old Town area:

http://markmeekphotos.blogspot.com/2006/09/edinburgh-scotland.html

The Building, to the right, with the pillars is the Scottish National Gallery. This is in the green space between the New and the Old Towns. The buildings to the left are the Old Town. This park was formerly an artificial defensive lake that was later filled in.

http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3879/3734/1600/dc_250919.jpg

I went to a show of the Camera Obscura, next to Edinburgh Castle. The rotating dome on the top of the building has a large lens and images of the city outside are projected on a wall. Two images from Google Street View.

The route from Edinburgh Castle to Holyroodhouse Palace is the famed Royal Mile. Here are the photos of the Royal Mile from the travel photos of Europe blog. Notice the crowned church steeple, in the first and third photos from the top. That is St. Giles Cathedral, the national cathedral of Scotland.

John Knox was one of the great leaders of the Reformation, and he did a lot of preaching here. His supposed home is on the Royal Mile. His preaching turned Scotland from a stronghold of Catholicism into one of the most Protestant of nations. St. Giles Cathedral is actually the central cathedral of Presbyterianism. Image of a statue of John Knox from Google Street View.

The building with the two turrets, straight ahead in the bottom photo, is Holyroodhouse Palace. It was the residence of Scotland's royal family, until Scotland joined Britain in 1707. The British queen spends one week a year at Holyroodhouse. In the second photo from the top, I made a mistake. That is in Glasgow and not Edinburgh:

http://markmeekphotos.blogspot.com/2006/09/along-royal-mile-to-holyroodhouse.html

The following scenes on the Royal Mile begin inside St. Giles Cathedral.  It is named for the patron saint of Edinburgh during the time of Catholicism. Next to the cathedral is the old parliament building from before Scotland joined Britain in 1707, after both ended up on the same side of the Reformation. Remember that the church with the crowned steeple is St. Giles.

The first three, of the following seven images from Google Street View, are of St. Giles Cathedral. The next two are of the old Parliament building, and the final two are general views along the Royal Mile.

https://www.google.com/maps/@55.949494,-3.190985,3a,75y,180h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1s-JCHJvPh1YR4%2FUgV8B6m1qVI%2FAAAAAAAAT4k%2FzhSC_jiN74A5Zyb4dZM5HxFrWKGXJ6T7g!2e4!3e11!6s%2F%2Flh4.googleusercontent.com%2F-JCHJvPh1YR4%2FUgV8B6m1qVI%2FAAAAAAAAT4k%2FzhSC_jiN74A5Zyb4dZM5HxFrWKGXJ6T7g%2Fw203-h101-n-k-no%2F!7i4000!8i2000

Scotland is part of Britain, but has it's own parliament. This is Scotland's new Parliament Building, on the Royal Mile near Holyroodhouse Palace. Two images from Google Street View.

Nearby is the Scottish Government Building. Image from Google Street View.

The Old Royal High School was near Calton Hill. It closed and was considered for use as a parliament building. Image from Google Street View.

This is what Princes Street, in the New Town with it's many shops, looks like. It is from Princes Street that there is the spectacular view upward to Edinburgh Castle. The clock in the clock tower of the Balmoral Hotel is purposely set three minutes fast, so that no one will miss their train at nearby Waverley Station. The Balmoral Hotel is on the south side of Princes Street, but that side is ordinarily kept vacant to preserve the view up at the Old Town, which is centered along the Royal Mile. The first two of the following three images, from Google Street View, are general views of Princes Street. The third is of the Balmoral Hotel.

Near Holyroodhouse Palace, and at the end of Princes Street, is Calton Hill. This is where monuments of Scotland are located. The pillars are Scotland's National Monument. It was supposedly intended to be a temple, but was never finished. Six images from Google Street View.

This is the Admiral Nelson Monument.

This is the observatory on Calton Hill.

This is the Dugald Stewart Monument, for the Scottish philosopher.

Near Calton Hill is the Robert Burns Monument, for the Scottish poet.

Along Princes Street is the monument for the writer Sir Walter Scott.

The monuments on Calton Hill can be seen in the upper left background of this photograph:

http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3879/3734/1600/dc_250913.jpg

And also in the upper right background of this photograph:

http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3879/3734/1600/dc_250918.jpg 

Holyroodhouse Palace and Abbey are at the bottom of the Royal Mile. The palace was the home of Scottish kings before the union with England in 1707. Edinburgh Castle, at the top of the Royal Mile was the royal residence before Holyroodhouse was built. The abbey is in ruins. An abbey was the church of a Catholic monastery, some of which were on the scale of cathedrals. After the Reformation, most abbeys became Protestant churches but some were simply abandoned and are now in ruins. That is why so many churches in Britain are called abbeys but we do not see that in North America.

This is Holyroodhouse Palace. The stone structure in front of the palace is the fountain. The first seven images are from Google Earth and Street View.

This is the ruins of the abbey next to the palace.

https://www.google.com/maps/@55.9528014,-3.1731905,3a,75y,280.8h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipNCXi4GJcbm5-7F8OzsyiQbLAuRqWaBQlB5jU7P!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipNCXi4GJcbm5-7F8OzsyiQbLAuRqWaBQlB5jU7P%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi0-ya223.80983-ro-0-fo100!7i8704!8i4352

The Dry East Wind

The concentration of wildfire smoke where I live is causing heavy periodic rainfall. This happens because the particles of smoke provide condensation nuclei for water vapor, until it gets heavy enough to fall as a raindrop. The smoke also lowers the temperature by blocking sunlight and this means that the air cannot hold as much water vapor, which must condense.

This reminds me of how we could change the global climate for the better.

Look at the following image of India. The prevailing wind is from the east, as indicated by the white arrow. It is influenced from the southeast due to the Hadley Cells in the atmosphere. Around where the white arrow is are the heavy Monsoon rains. But downwind from there, indicated by the red line, is the Thar Desert. That is because the air has dropped virtually all of it's moisture by the time it gets here. The green area beyond that, indicated by the yellow line, is the area along the Indus River. The terrain in upper right is so different because the Himalayas are high enough to block the weather. Image from Google Earth.

From there eastward, as indicated by the black line, it is very dry. The Middle East is dry and Tehran might have to be evacuated for lack of water. The drought in Mediterranean Europe is causing this fire season. 

The reason for this imbalance in rainfall is that airborne dust from the dry Australian Outback is acting as condensation nuclei for water vapor. The result is the east wind dropping it's moisture in the Monsoons and being dry from that point on.

We could change this if we could water the Outback and here is a link to my plan.

https://markmeeksideas.blogspot.com/2025/08/the-australia-sequence.html?m=0

Peace

It's time for the anniversary of the nuclear bombings again.

This is the intersection of two bridges, which meet at a right angle. This was the T-Bridge, in Hiroshima, that was designated as the visual aiming point for the first nuclear bomb to be used in warfare, because it was visible from high altitude.

Image from Google Earth

The bomb was dropped by parachute, and detonated at an altitude of about 800 meters. It detonated over a point that was to the southeast of the T-Bridge. The famous domed building that survived the blast, and remains as a memorial, remained standing because it was almost directly under where the bomb exploded. Hiroshima Castle is also nearby, it was destroyed by the blast but later rebuilt. Two images from Google Street View.

I don't think the U.S. leadership knew about the number of Korean laborers that were in Hiroshima, and that maybe a fifth of the victims of the bomb would be Korean.

But this really isn't fair to the Hiroshima of today. It's what I call the "Association Syndrome". Hiroshima, like Stalingrad, are probably nice and pleasant cities but all that anyone can think about, upon hearing the names, is the bombing or the battle that once took place there.

Have you ever heard of Kokura? If you haven't, it's because it was never bombed. Three days after the Hiroshima bombing, an attempt was made to drop another nuclear bomb on Kokura. But visibility was poor, and it was essential that the bomb be dropped in just the right place. According to one story, factory workers in Kokura saw the plane, and burned a lot of coal tar, which produced thick smoke. The plane turned instead to it's alternate target, which was Nagasaki.

Kokura was then supposed to be the target of the third nuclear bomb, but the war ended before it was ready.

"THE MAN WHO SAVED THE WORLD"

There is a former Soviet military officer who is referred to as "The Man Who Saved The World", but it doesn't have any messianic connotations. In 1983, the Soviet Union had a system of satellites that were keeping watch over the U.S. for hostile missile launches. One day, several missiles were detected as having been launched toward the Soviet Union.

It was a tense time, not long after the Soviet Air Force had shot down a South Korean passenger jet that had apparently accidentally strayed into Soviet air space, killing all on board. Ronald Reagan had angrily referred to the Soviet Union as an "Evil Empire".

It fell to the Soviet officer on duty, Stanislav Petrov, to make a very quick decision as to whether or not this was a false alarm. Reporting the event would begin the process of nuclear retaliation. He decided that it must be a false alarm. One story is that only a few "missiles" were detected, and if America was going to launch a sudden nuclear attack, it would certainly be with more than a few missiles.

It turned out that what the satellites had detected was sunlight reflecting off moving high clouds in the atmosphere.

THE "DEAD HAND" RADIO STATION

Have you ever heard of UVB-76? It is an object of fascination for people around the world, and is commonly referred to as "The Buzzer".

It is a shortwave radio station that has been broadcasting little but a continuous tone for more than forty years. There is usually no information at all in the signal, just a continuous tone. There is nothing secret about it, anyone can listen to it at 4.625 Mhz, but there is not much to listen to.

Very infrequently a few apparently nonsensical words are spoken, in Russian. According to one account, the tone once stopped, the Russian words for "farming specialist" were spoken, and then the tone continued.

But what is the purpose of this radio station? "The Buzzer" is the best-known such station, but there are several others like it. It couldn't be any kind of communication, because there is no information in the tone. With modern navigation technology, it would be of no use as any kind of navigational beacon.

Some have wondered if the occasional nonsensical words might be coded messages to secret agents. Remembering that the broadcasts from London to Nazi-occupied Europe often contained seemingly-nonsensical phrases. The one that leaders of the French Resistance were waiting for was the "Wound my heart with a monotonous langour", from a French song, which indicated that it was time for D-Day.

After the D-Day landings, the nonsensical phrases continued. This was to make the Nazis think that the landings in Normandy were just a diversion. The real landing was still to come at Calais, and the Nazis should keep the bulk of their forces there.

Of course, the nonsensical phrases could be to make listeners think that the purpose of the broadcast was to send messages to secret agents, in order to disguise whatever it's real purpose is.

What many have concluded is that this has to be a "Dead Hand" mechanism. The transmission points are located near cities and if the station ever stops broadcasting, meaning that the city and the station have been destroyed, it will trigger an automatic nuclear retaliation, even if no one is left alive.

Or could it be to make everyone think that it is such a "Dead Hand" mechanism, to initiate an automatic nuclear retaliation, in order to discourage a nuclear attack?

THE SUBMARINES OF 1968

The loss of a submarine in peacetime is exceedingly rare. The only four examples that come to mind are the U.S.S. Thresher, which sank while diving in 1963, the Russian Kursk in 2000, the Argentine San Juan in 2017, and an Indonesian submarine in 2021. 

When the Kursk sank, in Russia's Arctic waters, seismographs detected two explosions. There was a smaller explosion and then, about two minutes later, a larger explosion. The conclusion was that the explosion of a torpedo on board caused the ship to sink, and then the rest exploded when it hit the bottom.

So, how can it be that four submarines were lost, in early 1968, at a rate of nearly one per month?

1968 began with a Cold War naval incident, the seizing of a U.S. Navy intelligence-gathering ship, the U.S.S. Pueblo, by North Korea. We visited the ship during our visit to "Pyongyang".

Around the same time as the Pueblo incident, a former British submarine being delivered to Israel, the Dakar, vanished in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. The year before, Israel had fought the Six-Day War against neighboring Arab nations, including Egypt and Syria.

At around this same time, January 1968, and also in the Mediterranean, a French submarine, the Minerve, disappeared and only recently has been found. It is interesting that France had earlier been the paramount supporter of Israel. The late Israeli prime minister, and all-around politician, Shimon Peres, although remembered primarily as a peacemaker, had been the one to procure French nuclear technology for Israel. Charles DeGaulle reportedly supported Israel, but didn't want it to have nuclear weapons. Peres managed to get the technology anyway.

This is Israel's nuclear research center, in the Negev Desert.

Image from Google Earth

Barely a month later, on March 8, the Soviet submarine K-129 disappeared on the other side of the world, northwest of Hawaii. The U.S., in a very secret and expensive operation, would have a ship especially built to recover the submarine, which was in extremely deep water. Part of the submarine was recovered. The Soviets apparently never made an effort at recovery.

Finally, on May 22, the U.S.S. Scorpion was monitoring the activity of Soviet submarines when it also disappeared. No official explanation was given of what happened, but the wreckage of the ship was found to be scattered over a wide area on the seafloor. This is an indication that something catastrophic happened, and the submarine did not sink in one piece.

I leave you to draw your own conclusions. Did the Cold War turn hot, starting with the Middle East and then drawing in the superpowers, but the action was limited to beneath the sea, until cooler heads prevailed and it was kept quiet? 

THE FUNERAL OF HO CHI MINH 

The Cold War was multi-faceted. Communist theory was open to interpretation and this caused tension and division between Communist countries. Josef Stalin was seen as the victor in the Second World War and had support among hard-liners across the Communist domain. His successor, the more moderate Nikita Khrushchev, shocked the world by denouncing Stalin and beginning the process of "De-Stalinization". This was the root of strict Communists in other countries being opposed to the relative moderation of the Soviet Union. 

Aside from doctrine, Communist countries differed on how much they were willing to submit to the leadership of the Soviet Union. There were three times that the Soviets intervened militarily in Eastern Europe, in East Germany, in Hungary and, in Czechoslovakia. But that was to protect Communism. There were also countries, Yugoslavia, Romania and, Albania, that were dedicated to Communism but declined to submit to Soviet leadership. 

Khrushchev's denunciation of Stalin led to what was known as the Sino-Soviet Split. This was between the Soviet Union and China, both Communist countries. In 1969 there were months of border clashes between the two countries along the Ussuri River, which formed part of the border between the two countries in the Far East.

Ho Chi Minh had been President of North Vietnam during the Vietnam War. North Vietnam was a Communist country that was on good terms with both the Soviet Union and China. In September 1969 Ho Chi Minh died. The foreign ministers of the Soviet Union and China just happened to meet at his funeral. That led to better relations between the two countries and an end to the border clashes. 

When history repeats itself it is sometimes religious history repeating in secular form. Moscow became an important city as the center of the Eastern Orthodox Church. This church resulted from the first great split in the Catholic Church, in 1054 the pope and the Patriarch of Constantinople split and the Eastern Orthodox Church began. Khrushchev's denunciation of Stalin, and separating from the harsh Communism that he was about, is a modern, secular mirror image of the Patriarch of Constantinople denouncing the pope, and separating from what his church was about. 

NUCLEAR FIREWORKS 

In the 1950s, nuclear tests were a tourist attraction. Scheduled tests were conducted, in the Nevada desert, that were visible from Las Vegas.

Also in the late 1950s, both the United States and the Soviet Union had plans to detonate a nuclear bomb on the moon so that it would be visible from earth. This was before any spacecraft had landed on the moon and a decade before astronauts had landed on the moon. Both nations eventually cancelled their plans.

There used to be atmospheric tests of nuclear weapons. The 1962 test, called Starfish Prime, not only did a lot of damage to Honolulu and to satellites, it also created spectacular aurora that were widely visible. Atoms were broken apart by the explosion and the aurora were formed by energy that was released when electrons and nuclei rejoined.