Thursday, November 5, 2026

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".   

Lahore And The Mughals

The city of Lahore is located in Pakistan's Punjab province. It is the largest city in Pakistan, after Karachi, and is near the border with India, and not far from the Indian city of Amritsar. Lahore has been the capital of a number of empires, including the Sikh Empire. The center of the Sikh religion is now the Golden Temple in Amritsar. Lahore has traditionally been considered as a wealthy city, and has been a center of education since medieval times.

I have listened to so many stories about Lahore, it is about time to pay a visit to it. Lahore was the largest city in West Pakistan at the time of Partition, as well as the cultural center, and would have been the most obvious choice for capital of the country. The reason it wasn't, Islamabad was eventually built as the capital city, is likely that it is so close to the border with India.

The Mughals, which we saw in the recent visit to Delhi, are very prominent in the history of Lahore. It was the Mughal capital at the time of the emperor, Akbar, and has even more Mughal-era structures than Delhi. Akbar was Humayun's son, whose tomb is prominent in Delhi. Babur was the founder of the Mughals, and was Humayun's father.

Mugalpura is a section of Lahore that is named for the Mughals. The Mughal language was Persian, but the ruling classes spoke a dialect that became known as Urdu, and is today Pakistan's national language.

The Mughals had a vast empire across what is now India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and, Bangladesh. The Persian conqueror Nadir Shah briefly ruled Lahore while on his way to raid the Mughal capital of Delhi. Muhammad Shah was the Mughal emperor at that time. "Shah" means "king".

Just as there is the Old City of Delhi (Shahjahanabad), from the Mughal era, so is there the Old City of Lahore. Just as in Delhi, the walls around the Old City are gone, but some of the gates remain. Here is the Delhi Gate.

ALL IMAGES ARE FROM GOOGLE STREET VIEW UNLESS OTHERWISE SPECIFIED 


This is Sunehri Masjid, located in the Mughal-era Old City of Lahore. Two images from the Wikipedia article by that name.



The Old City is also known for the elaborately-decorated townhouse-style mansions from the Mughal and Sikh eras. Here is one such example. Image from the Wikipedia article "Haveli".


Lahore is widely-known for it's food. Everyone from Lahore seems to be a good cook. How many cities have streets devoted just to food? This is Fort Road Food Street. Image from the Wikipedia article by that name.


Image from the Wikipedia article "Lahori Cuisine".


In the Old City of Lahore is the Wazir Khan Mosque, also from the Mughal era. Khan is a very common Pakistani surname. We saw in the posting on this blog, "Why We Should Understand The Mongols", how the Mughals, also spelled Moguls, were descended from the Mongols through the Timurids. Babur, who began the Mughals, claimed to be descended both from Genghis Khan and Timur (or Tamerlane). Could Genghis Khan have imagined that someday there would be a mayor of distant London with his name?

Here is a look around the southeastern part of the Old City of Lahore, beginning in the Masjid Wazir Khan. These first six images are of the mosque.







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/@31.5831683,74.3234744,2a,75y,196.05h,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sTr8VzNbpxDIAAAQfr8pCoQ!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo2.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DTr8VzNbpxDIAAAQfr8pCoQ%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D193.76878%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656

Iqbal Park is in the northern part of the Old City of Lahore. The Minar-e-Pakistan, or Tower of Pakistan, is a monument commemorating the Lahore Resolution, that Moslems in India should have their separate homeland, which became Pakistan. The resolution was, of course, named for the heavily-Moslem city of Lahore.



Iqbal Park is so named because of the tomb of Muhammad Iqbal. This was a poet and philosopher who is regarded as being the first to promote the idea of an independent Pakistan.



The focal point of the Old City of Lahore is the three adjacent structures of Lahore Fort, Badshahi Mosque, both from the Mughal era, and the Samadhi of Ranjit Singh, from the Sikh era in Lahore. The positioning of the three is very similar to the adjacent positioning of a fort, a mosque and, a tomb, in Delhi and in Agra.

Lahore Fort, built of red sandstone just like the Red Fort in Delhi and Agra Fort in Agra, is on Fort Road in the Old City. It is on the site of previous forts, was begun by the Mughal emperor Akbar, and added to by emperor Shah Jahan. There is a summer palace in the fort and Moti Masjid is the interior mosque that was added by Shah Jahan. The Taj Mahal was built by Shah Jahan and he was a native of Lahore.

The image of Lahore Fort that most people have is the front gate, the Alamgiri Gate. The first two of these images of Lahore Fort are of the Alamgiri Gate. There are the exterior walls and the vast interior grounds and complex.












This is the Badshahi Mosque which was built in 1673 by Aurangzeb, from the interior of it's red sandstone courtyard, reminiscent of the Jama Masjid in Delhi which was built by Aurengzeb's father, Shah Jahan.







There is a garden between the main entrances to the Lahore Fort and the adjacent Badshahi Mosque, which face each other. The garden is constructed in the typical Mughal quadrangle style, and is known as the Hazuri Bagh. In the center of the quadrangle is a pavilion, known as a Baradari, that was put there in the Sikh era of Lahore. At the south end of this garden is the Roshnai Gate, that we saw above. In the first and third of the following preceding images, the pavilion is in the center. The Alamgiri Gate is in the background in the third image.




This image, from Google Earth, shows the garden, the Hazuri Bagh, and pavilion, indicated by the yellow line. The yellow dot just below it is to the right of the tomb of Muhammad Iqbal. The white line above the yellow line indicates the Sikh structures, the Samadhi of Ranjit Singh and the Gurdwara Dera Sahib. The red line indicates the Badshahi Mosque and the blue line is Lahore Fort. The green line at bottom is the Lahore Food Street and the purple line at top is under the Minar e Pakistan.


The first of the following scenes show that building in the middle of the garden, with the Badshahi Mosque in the background. Behind where the image was taken is the Alamgiri Gate of the Lahore Fort. The Sikh building, the Samadhi of Ranjit Singh, can be seen to be in a line perpendicular to the axis between the Badshahi Mosque and the Red Fort.

https://www.google.com/maps/@31.5883026,74.3123325,3a,75y,269h,85t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sKaq5UEtu0Hmzvevi9lB05Q!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo0.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DKaq5UEtu0Hmzvevi9lB05Q%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D269.58453%26pitch%3D-5.5640655!7i13312!8i6656

Lahore was ruled by the Sikh Empire for the first half of the Nineteenth Century. The Sikh Empire actually began with the capture of Lahore. During the Sikh era, mosques in Lahore were re-purposed into Gurdwaras. The Samadhi of Ranjit Singh is considered as the foremost example of Sikh architecture in Lahore. Ranjit Singh was the founder of the Sikh Empire and the building is his Nineteenth-Century mausoleum. Here is a close view of the Samadhi of Ranjit Singh. Two images from the Wikipedia article by that name.



This is next to the Gurdwara Dera Sahib, on the site where the sixth Sikh Guru was martyred. Image from the Wikipedia article by that name. The dome of the above building and a minaret of the Badshahi Mosque can be seen in the background.


Here are scenes in and around the many universities that Lahore is known for.

https://www.google.com/maps/@31.5707923,74.3147623,3a,75y,61.48h,86.03t,-0.19r/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sGO_WOBQtBuuLxHBmn7VpAw!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo1.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DGO_WOBQtBuuLxHBmn7VpAw%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D153.38243%26pitch%3D0!7i13312!8i6656

The universities of Lahore are concentrated in the district of Anarkali, the name of which we will get to.

https://www.google.com/maps/@31.569542,74.3090767,3a,75y,11h,86.81t,1.88r/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sFXS-pQCWedBEfwEEu73tJA!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo1.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DFXS-pQCWedBEfwEEu73tJA%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D269.70007%26pitch%3D0!7i13312!8i6656

Lahore is sometimes known as the "City of Gardens", and for good reason. It is the home of possibly the best example of a Mughal garden anywhere, the Shalimar Gardens. This garden has over 400 fountains and is built in the Mughal quadrangle form, known as Charbagh. Mughal gardens are intended to convey an idea of what Heaven will be like. Shalimar Gardens were built by the Mughals in the Seventeenth Century.




https://www.google.com/maps/@31.5870918,74.3826212,3a,75y,345.73h,87.42t,-3.98r/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1s6egHwkIQwbD2M3kM2YCwHQ!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo3.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3D6egHwkIQwbD2M3kM2YCwHQ%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D76.178421%26pitch%3D0!7i13312!8i6656

The tomb of the Mughal emperor Jahangir, who died in 1627, can be considered as Lahore's version of the Taj Mahal or Humayun's Tomb. His wife, Nur (or Noor) Jahan, was the best-known woman in Mughal history. The tombs of both are in Shahdara, to the northwest of Lahore. Jahangir was the son of Akbar, who began Lahore Fort.

A city cannot become as fabled as Lahore without some romance and intrigue. Movies have been made and stories written about Jahangir. Those stories tend to fall into two categories. The first is that Jahangir was fond of drinking alcohol and that his wife, the strong-willed Noor Jahan, was the real power behind the throne during his reign. The second category is that Jahangir carried on an illicit relationship with a woman named Anarkali.

By the way Mumtaz Mahal, for whom the Taj Mahal was built as a tomb by Shah Jahan, was a niece of Noor Jahan.

Here is the tomb of Jahangir, starting from the inside, with Noor Jahan's tomb outside.






https://www.google.com/maps/@31.622511,74.3032314,3a,75y,213.48h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sTpZ6rffDIbUAAAQumcKgYQ!2e0!3e11!6s%2F%2Fgeo1.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DTpZ6rffDIbUAAAQumcKgYQ%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D63.641178%26pitch%3D0!7i13312!8i6656

But some distance away is another tomb. Some believe that this is the tomb of Anarkali. Some are certain that she never existed, and that the story is the invention of later writers. Others believe that she was real, but was common-born and such a relationship would never have happened. But Anarkali does have a section of the city named for her, where the universities are concentrated. Anyway, this might be Anarkali's Tomb. Image from the Wikipedia article "Anarkali".