The Formation Of The Grand Canyon

In the satellite imagery from Google Earth it is easy to see how the Grand Canyon formed.

Ice ages recur periodically. An ice age begins when it gets cold enough that the snow of one winter hasn't completely melted when the snow of the next winter begins. Snow piles up year after year, decade after decade, and century after century. The weight of the snow above compresses the snow below into ice. Eventually, much of a continent is covered by a vast sheet of ice. The sheet might be 1-2 km thick, it's height being limited by the altitude of the clouds from which the snow falls.

Since so much water is tied up in glaciers, it causes the sea level to drop. This made it possible to walk from Siberia to Alaska, and that is how the native Indians got to the Western Hemisphere. It is also how people got to Japan.

The vast sheet of ice is affected by the spin of the earth. The centrifugal force of the spin pulls toward the equator. But the pull is greater closer to the equator. This causes the sheet of ice to be pulled toward the equator and this is why glacial movement shapes the land during the ice ages.

The Colorado Plateau is a wide area of high ground that is surrounded by mountains. The reddish area in the center of the following image, from Google Earth, is the plateau. The dark areas surrounding it is the Rocky Mountains.

The southern part of the reddish area is the Painted Desert. The northern part is the San Rafael Desert and the eastern part is the San Juan Basin.

During every ice age this reddish area fills with glacial ice. Since it is surrounded by mountains it forms a basin. At the end of the ice age, the ice melts. The Colorado Plateau is high ground so the water will rush out, to lower ground, if it has an opening. It acts like a water tower, the height of the water provides the pressure when a tap is opened.

This is what forms the Grand Canyon, shown by the red line. At the end of every ice age the great rush of water takes the same route to lower ground. Each time, it carves the canyon deeper.

That is how the Grand Canyon formed.

New Thermal Vent In Yellowstone

A new thermal vent has opened up in Yellowstone National Park. That means there is a lot of heat under the ground. But why would that be?

In my geology theory, of Continental Asteroids and lines of magma emergence from below, we saw the spin of the earth causes magma, hot molten rock, to emerge from below, along the equator. This has to be balanced, according to fluid dynamics, by perpendicular longitudinal lines of magma emergence that converge at the poles.

The continents were formed of three successive Continental Asteroids, that landed on earth millions of years apart. Each Continental Asteroid upset the earth's rotation, due to the added mass. The earth compensated each time by shifting on it's axis, so that the center of the new mass was at a pole.

This meant that the equatorial and longitudinal lines of magma emergence also had to shift. Since geology moves at a very slow pace, this meant that some magma emergence continued in lines from previous continental eras.

I found that this scenario explains every major feature of the earth's surface that we see today, both on land and on the seafloor. The reason for the underground heat in Yellowstone National Park is that the Great Basin area was once the north pole, and the longitudinal lines of magma emergence converged there. 

For an abbreviated version of the geology theory, here is a link to "Geology Theory With Satellite Imagery And Maps".

www.markmeeksideas.blogspot.com/2024/03/geology-theory-with-satellite-imagery.html?m=0 

A related posting, about the part of the theory that explains the physical geography of Europe, is "Italy And Europe Made Really Simple".

www.markmeeksideas.blogspot.com/2024/04/italy-and-europe-made-really-simple.html?m=0

Mesopotamia And Basra

The city of Basra, in southern Iraq, is rooted in the very long history of the area. Let's begin our visit to Basra by having a look at it's historical background.

SUMER

One of the first great civilizations was the Sumerians. They were skilled farmers in the area that is now southern Iraq, at the end of the Persian Gulf. The Sumerians had a unique language, which continued in use as a sacred language for many centuries, and are known to have really liked beer and music. There was a shortage of wood and building stone, but an abundance of clay.

Along with those on the Levant, the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea, Sumer was an early independent city-state. Nearby city-states of the Sumerians were Ur, Uruk and, Eridu. The Bible tells us that Abraham was originally from Ur. But Abraham was not Sumerian because the Sumerians were not Semitic by ethnicity.

One of the best-known artifacts of ancient times is the Standard of Ur. I have seen this in the British Museum, one side is about war and the other about peace. It was originally made of wood, which was reconstructed when it was found. Image from the Wikipedia article "Standard of Ur".

The modern excavation of Ur took place during the 1930s, and amazed the world at what was found. The excavation was a joint venture between the British Museum and the University of Pennsylvania. Image from the Wikipedia article "Ur".

Here is a Sumerian queen. Image from the Wikipedia article "Puabi".

There are three ancient ways of writing from the Middle East. The Egyptians developed hieroglyphics, writing with pictures. The Sumerians used what is known as cuneiform. Cuneiform means "wedge-shaped" writing. This is because writing was done by pressing the end of a reed against a tablet of soft clay. The third way of writing, from the ancient Middle East, is by an alphabet,  which was developed much later by the Phoenicians, a sea-faring people who lived in what is now Lebanon.

Here are some examples of cuneiform writing, which began to be used about 3000 B.C., in Sumer. Image from Wikipedia article "Cuneiform".

The Sumerians had the oldest known code of law, the Code of Ur-Nammu. Image from the Wikipedia article "Ur-Nammu".

Early astronomy took major steps in Sumer, they may have been the first to identify the planets which move against the background of the stars.

Most important to us today, the Sumerians were adept mathematicians. It was they who came up with the idea of a numbering system with a base, and using places. In our base-ten number system, for example, the first column to the right is the ones place, the second column the tens place, the third column the hundreds place, and so on.

The Sumerians used a base-sixty number system. Sixty is the lowest number that is factored by every number from one to six. This number system of the Sumerians is why today we have sixty seconds in a minute, and sixty minutes in an hour. It is also why there are 360 degrees in a circle.

AKKAD

Akkad, just to the north of Sumer, may have been the first empire, from the 24th to the 22nd Centuries B.C. The Akkadians ruled all of Mesopotamia. This was the land around and between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, which was such a center of early civilization. Mesopotamia means "the land between the rivers". The remnants of the Akkadian Empire would later form Assyria, in the north, and Babylon, in the south. The Akkadians, unlike the Sumerians, were Semitic, and this is from where Abraham got his ethnicity.

There was a city of Akkad, also known as Agade, but it's location is not yet certain. Maybe someday it will be found and excavated, just as Ur was. Sumer had only an abundance of clay, and good agricultural lands, and so the conquests of Akkad, which took over and had an inter-relationship with Sumer, could have been to gain access to metals, timber and, building stone. The Akkadian language, which also used cuneiform script, spread throughout this part of the Middle East, and gradually replaced the Sumerian language.

Akkad is known for it's great king, Sargon, who may have been the world's first emperor. Sargon followed the Sumerian religion, conquered as far as the Mediterranean Sea, and successfully put down revolts against his rule. He may have led the first naval expeditions in history. The time after Sargon is often referred to as the "Sargonic Dynasty". Much later, there was an Assyrian ling, Sargon II, that was named for Sargon. He was the Assyrian king who conquered Babylon, and took the "Ten Lost Tribes" of Israel into exile.

Sargon's grandson was the Akkadian king Naram-Sin, who was also a great conqueror. He ruled what is now Syria.

The Akkadian Empire lasted about 180 years. It's collapse coincided with the end of the Old Kingdom in Egypt, and may have been related to change in climate. There was a Sumerian revival next, known to history as the Third Dynasty of Ur. This just preceded the beginning of the Second Millennium B.C. The founder of the Third Dynasty of Ur is known as Ur-Nammu, another well-known name of ancient history.

Among the oldest of Sumerian cities was Nippur. Akkadian conquerors thought it to be very important. Naram-Sin rebuilt it's temple and walls. Nippur would later be superseded in importance by Babylon.

OBSERVATIONS CONCERNING ANCIENT TIMES

I have made a number of observations about ancient times, particularly in the Middle East.

1) There is nothing new about the science of archeology. The first archeologist was probably Nabonidus, who was the last king of Babylon. He spent quite a bit of time exploring and documenting the remains of civilizations which had come before his.

2) There were many more walls around cities than we see today. Walls are built for protection, but the need for that protection may change or diminish over time. When that happens, the wall becomes a ready source of stone for the construction of other buildings.

3) In times past, there was not the regard for ancient ruins that we have today. When a new settlement was being built, and there were ruins nearby, they were plundered as a source of stone. It may even have been considered that the memory associated with those ruins were being honored by incorporating their building stone into new buildings. An ideal example of this is stone being taken from the ruins of Memphis to build Cairo. A stone might be part of several buildings over thousands of years.

4) We consider it to be better to be the conqueror, rather than the conquered, but over the long term that may bot be the case. When one kingdom conquers others, it actually puts itself at risk of being absorbed into the nations that it has conquered. This is particularly true when a smaller nation manages to conquer a larger one. If occupation troops begin marrying local women, the conqueror may eventually disappear into the conquered. Whatever happened to the Hyksos? They were a warlike people, who even managed to rule Egypt for some time, but seem to have simply disappeared into history. India in particular has a history of simply absorbing invaders, and making them into part of the mix.

5) Warfare in ancient times depended heavily on mercenaries. We read in the Bible of each tribe of the Israelites contributing soldiers for war, but this was the exception rather than the rule. There were professional soldiers who fought for whoever paid them. Greece seems to have arisen suddenly as a great civilization in both military and intellectual terms, but the fact is that Greeks had been studying and serving as mercenaries in other countries for quite some time, and brought their knowledge back home. Germanic tribes managed to topple Rome simply because they had the military experience of having served for so long as mercenaries for Rome.

6) Remember my principle of "Archeological Representation", that we saw by the posting by that name on the world and economics blog. The more technically advanced a society is, the more distorted will be it's "archeological footprint".

7) The concept of nationalism is a relatively recent development. When people went to war in ancient times, they were not fighting for their nation but for their god. A nation was just the collection of people who followed that god. The thought of a world war over political or economic ideology would be utterly nonsensical to the ancients. Even around the beginning of the Twentieth Century, there were people in remote areas who were not sure, and were not greatly concerned with, which nation they belonged to. The tribe or the religion was more important. I see the Franco-Prussian War as being a turning point toward modern secularism. The many small German-speaking states across central Europe had long been divided between Protestant and Catholic. The French, who were historically Catholic, didn't think that the southern German-speaking states would join Prussia against them, because the southern German-speakers were more Catholic. But for the first time nationalism, usually based on language or secular ideology, had turned out to be more important than religion.

BASRA

The city of Basra, in the south of Iraq, began as a military base in the year 636. It became an intellectual center of the Abbassid Caliphate. The famed medieval traveler, Ibn Battuta, visited Basra.

I see the present city of Basra as the modern heir of the great civilizations that were in the area, starting with Sumer and Akkad. This is possibly the most natural location in the world to build a city. A reason that Basra is not in the same place as Ur is that the shoreline of the Persian Gulf has retreated southward since ancient times. But it is in approximately the same place today, relative to the Persian Gulf coast, as Ur was when it was probably the greatest city in the world.

Basra, in accord with it's origin as a military base, has always been in the center of conflict. It was involved in the conflict between the Ottomans and the Persians, to the east. It was an important port during both World Wars of the Twentieth Century. It was close to the battlefront during the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s, and suffered artillery shelling. I remember the news, during the Iran-Iraq War, that shelling had started a massive fire in a petrochemical facility that shrouded the city in toxic smoke. Basra was the center of an uprising against Saddam Hussein, following the Gulf War of 1991.

Here are some scenes around the center of Basra. We can almost imagine the legend of Sinbad the Sailor setting out on a voyage into the Indian Ocean, where he will encounter monsters, mysterious islands and, fantastic wealth. The first five images are 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/@30.5215528,47.8373104,3a,75y,123.47h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipPSraFdLEoffyaXbwcO6Uid5W1jVirQQ3JViBr0!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipPSraFdLEoffyaXbwcO6Uid5W1jVirQQ3JViBr0%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-0-ya185.51027-ro0-fo100!7i7680!8i3840

Here is more of Basra, some distance from the city center. The first four images are from Google Street View.

https://www.google.com/maps/@30.4746876,47.8053894,3a,75y,45.93h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipOu1PlP-oVuVy6bEiEl1AvHOLv0-t8nHlmyV9XB!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipOu1PlP-oVuVy6bEiEl1AvHOLv0-t8nHlmyV9XB%3Dw900-h600-k-no-pi0-ya45.932476-ro0-fo100!7i8192!8i4096?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI0MTEyNC4xIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D

This is a new development to the west of the city. The first three images are from Google Street View.

https://www.google.com/maps/@30.4915136,47.7932417,3a,75y,108.33h,91.69t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipPLTfsRV8kQKm26sqAwQX87Cyoldx34vtxv5En1!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipPLTfsRV8kQKm26sqAwQX87Cyoldx34vtxv5En1%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-1.6885552-ya108.33021-ro-0-fo100!7i4096!8i2048

When Abraham left Ur, on his way to the Promised land, he lived temporarily in a place called Haran. Abraham did not travel alone, and some of his relatives remained there. It was to this area that Jacob, Abraham's grandson, would travel to work for his relative, Laban, and marry his two daughters, Leah and Rachel, to whom would be born the twelve sons who would each be the founder of one of the tribes of Israel.

Most people believe that the town and ruins of a place called Harran, in what is now southeastern Turkey, is where Haran was located, it is in about the right location, although this has not yet been proven by any archeological finds.

What is more certain is that Harran is the location of the last stronghold of the Assyrian Empire, after the capital of Nineveh had fallen to it's enemies. The Egyptians were former enemies of Assyria, but were warily watching the rise of Babylon. In an apparent effort to help balance the power of Babylon with that of Assyria, the Egyptians established a base near Harran.

The Bible describes Pharaoh Necho (Necho II) leading his army across part of the territory of Judah, well after the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel had been exiled, on his way to support the Assyrian stronghold at Harran. Judah's King Josiah, a great and wise king, insisted that he stop. Necho replied that he was only on his way against Egypt's enemies and had no quarrel with Judah.

But Josiah insisted on confronting the passing Egyptians. Josiah was killed in the battle, Judah was occupied by Egypt until Babylon took over, and this seems to have begun the downward spiral that led to the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem by the Babylonians, and the Jews being taken into exile in Babylon. Unlike the "Ten Lost Tribes", exiled by the Assyrians, these Jews would return from exile to rebuild Jerusalem and the Temple.

Notice how the scattering of the "Ten Lost Tribes" across the Assyrian Empire, which ended the ancient Kingdom of Israel, and the later exile of the remaining Jews in Babylon are reversals of Abraham's original journey from Ur to the Promised Land. Ur was in what had become Babylon, and he would have crossed what would later become Assyria on the way to the Promised land, after living temporarily in Haran.

Babylon was actually very old, but had faded in importance. The Babylon that became a great empire, and took the Jews into exile is actually what is referred to as Neo-Babylon. It was revitalized by an influx of settlers, known as Chaldeans, and overthrew their Assyrian rulers. The famed king, Hammurabi, was of the original Babylon.

Remember that, as we saw above, the last king of Neo-Babylon, Nabonidus, was also an early archeologist, and he took note of the old cities within his realm.

This is what Harran looks like today. This is not near Basra, but is along the route that Abraham would have taken from Ur to the Promised Land. The first three images are from Google Street View.

https://www.google.com/maps/@36.8631752,39.0307794,3a,75y,328h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipOY-FL6Q2lnRQQgxb9FGXFyRsmBhkIBqyTpfgw!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipOY-FL6Q2lnRQQgxb9FGXFyRsmBhkIBqyTpfgw%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi0-ya266.5-ro-0-fo100!7i8704!8i4352

The Ancient Sumerians

The greatest culture clash in history is not between east and west, or between north and south, or between rich and poor. It is between our modern civilization and the ancient Sumerians. The Sumerians lived about 3,500 years ago, in what is now southern Iraq and Kuwait. But how can we possibly have a culture clash with people that haven't been around for thousands of years?

The first thing that I think of with regard to the Sumerians is clay. They made so much out of clay. They didn't have a lot of stone or wood or metal but they had an abundance of clay. Clay is to Sumerians as snow is to Eskimos.

The Sumerians did one thing completely differently from the way we do it. That one thing was counting. We count by tens because we have ten fingers and ancient people used to count on their fingers. Such a Base Ten system is not always the most efficient. Computers operate on a binary, or Base Two, system.

The Sumerians used a Base Sixty system. This is a little bit more difficult to use because it requires sixty numerals, whereas our system only requires ten. But it must have been useful because successive kingdoms, such as Babylon, adopted it.

Maybe the Sumerians didn't have aircraft or social media but their number system had an advantage over ours. That advantage is easy divisibility. Sixty is a nice, round easily divisible number, whereas ten isn't.

Division is important, particularly when we measure time. By far the most important and frequent thing that we measure is time. We often want to divide up a parcel of time.

Have you ever wondered why we measure other things, such as weight and distance, with ordinary numbers, but when we measure some things we have to use some special number system?

One of those things is time. We do measure time on a large scale with ordinary numbers, such as the number of minutes, hours or days. But we cannot specify time with ordinary numbers. For that we use the o'clock system, and it is not based on ten.

The number of hours in a day is 12, or 24 with AM and PM. The number of seconds in a minute, and minutes in an hour, is sixty. The Sumerians are still with us, in the most important thing that we measure their system has proven to be superior.

What about the number of degrees in a circle, including measurement of latitude and longitude. Again it is not based on ten, and we do not use our usual numbers. There are 360 degrees in a circle and a right angle is 90 degrees. The Sumerian system has proven superior again.

Another way we see the lack of divisibility in our number base is how stores tend to sell things by the dozen, rather than by tens. If a family is having eggs for dinner then a dozen is more likely to be evenly divisible between a number of people.

News This Week

A French politician has demanded that America return the Statue of Liberty, which was a gift from post-revolutionary France, due to the conduct of Donald Trump. But look at what we have seen in the posting "America And The Modern World Explained By Way Of Paris", December 2015. I know that I keep referring to that posting but it is impossible to understand the modern world without it.

I wrote it on a computer, so that it had links to the images. I have replaced the links with images in the posting, which might make it a little bit easier to read.

We saw that the King and Queen of France, which were overthrown and guillotined in the revolution of 1789, had been America's first allies, and helped it to gain independence. America's Republican Party, which is a misnomer, is actually the continuation of this Bourbon Dynasty. 

You can see the relationship to the French Revolution in that the signature event of the French Revolution was the Storming of the Bastille. Each reenactment of the French Revolution has some corresponding "storming" of some establishment associated with the old order. In the October (Russian) Revolution it was the Storming of the Winter Palace and in the Iranian Revolution it was the Storming of the U.S. Embassy. The corresponding storming of the Donald Trump Revolution is that of the Capitol on January 6. Except that it was done in reverse in that it was the side of the king that was doing the storming.

The Democratic side of America, in contrast, represents post-revolutionary France. This is when the Statue of Liberty was given to America and we saw in the posting how the "Democrat Heartland" of America is centered around the statue while the "Republican Heartland" closely corresponds to the territory of the Louisiana Purchase, which is named for the French kings.

This is the historical reason for demanding the return of the Statue of Liberty.

In other news, classified documents relating to the Assassination of John F. Kennedy have been released. All that you need to know about the Kennedy assassination is in the compound posting "Insights Into Major Crimes", September 2024, section 1) THE ASSASSINATION OF JOHN F KENNEDY MADE REALLY SIMPLE. 

Why do people announce that there is going to be a recession? A recession is not like a storm. A recession is self-fulfilling. Warnings of a pending recession leads people to cut back on spending and then the lack of consumer spending is what causes the recession.

Particles, Antiparticles And, Galactic Rotation

It was in the news this week that scientists have made a baffling discovery about the rotation of galaxies. It would seem to be the lowest information state, and thus preferred, for an equal number of galaxies to have each opposite spin. But it was found that two-thirds of the galaxies sampled spin in the same direction as our galaxy. 

This requires some special explanation, and my cosmology theory has that explanation. First let's review how the cosmology theory explains why neutrinos and antineutrinos spin in opposite directions as they move through space. What I mean by that is one spins clockwise and the other counter-clockwise.

So much has been written about what happened after the Big Bang but I cannot see a plausible explanation anywhere about what caused the Big Bang. It is actually simple.

The following two paragraphs is the brief abstract that I use to introduce the theory.

My cosmological theory has the universe as not-quite-parallel strings of matter aligned mostly in one direction in four-dimensional space, although there could be many more than these four dimensions. The direction in which these strings of matter are primarily aligned is the one that we perceive as time, along which our consciousnesses move at what we perceive as the speed of light. We can only see perpendicular to the bundles of strings of matter comprising our bodies and brains. The original two-dimensional sheet of space, amidst the multi-dimensional background space, disintegrated in one of it's two dimensions as one pair of it's opposite sides came into contact. Due to charge migration, to seek a lower energy state, one side was positive in charge and the other was negative. This brought about the matter-antimatter mutual annihilation that we perceive as the Big Bang. The energy in the disintegrating dimension, from the tension between adjacent opposite electric charges, was released. The remaining dimension then consisted of very long strings of infinitesimal cross-section, that we perceive as the particles of matter today. Some of the energy released by the disintegrating dimension went into "welding" the charges of the remaining dimension together as strings of matter. We perceive these strings as particles because our consciousnesses are moving along the bundles of strings composing our bodies and brains, at what we perceive as the speed of light, and we can only see at right angles to our strings.

So, the basics of my theory is a two-dimensional sheet of space, which formed amidst the multi-dimensional background space by the same kind of opposite charge induction, disintegrating in one of it's two dimensions as one pair of it's opposite sides came into contact to create the matter-antimatter explosive mutual annihilation that we perceive as the Big Bang, which began the universe, and which scattered the remaining one-dimensional strings of matter out across space to form the universe that we see today. The strings of matter from the original two-dimensional sheet were scattered across four dimensions of the background space. We perceive these strings as particles, such as electrons, because we can only see in three of the four dimensions.

So how can I show that this version of the Big Bang is correct, aside from how much sense it makes? 

Here is one of those things about the universe that we cannot seem to explain. It may not seem very important to most people but there must be something about the universe that we are not getting if we can't explain it.

Particles of matter, such as electrons, have their corresponding antiparticles of antimatter. There is nothing mysterious about antimatter. There are two electric charges in the universe, negative and positive. In atoms of matter the negatively-charged electrons are in orbitals around the positively-charged nucleus.

But there is nothing written in stone that the positive charge has to be on the inside of the nucleus, and the negative charge on the outside. It can just as easily be the other way around. If the charges of the atom are reversed it is known as antimatter. Of course matter and antimatter cannot exist together in the same neighborhood of the universe because they mutually annihilate on contact. But matter and antimatter would handle light in the same way and I don't think we could tell matter from antimatter just by observation.

Now here is what is interesting but cannot be explained. There are particles called neutrinos, which usually easily pass through matter. We don't have to fully explain neutrinos for our purpose here but there are also antineutrinos, the antimatter version of the neutrino.

What cannot be explained is this. Neutrinos and antineutrinos spin as they move rapidly through space. But, relative to the direction that they are moving, neutrinos spin to their left while antineutrinos spin to their right. 

The question is WHY? There must be something about the universe that we don't understand that is causing this.

Fortunately the answer is simple but I cannot see it explained anywhere else. In my cosmology theory space consists of an alternating checkerboard of negative and positive electric charges, in multiple dimensions. It began with a single electric charge. The number one rule of the universe is that electric charges always have to balance out. The universe must contain an equal number of negative and positive charges. 

This means that the original electric charge had to induce an opposite charge on either side of it, but that still left an imbalance and the process of charge induction continued indefinitely. This is what created space, which is a checkerboard of alternating negative and positive electric charges in multiple dimensions. The charges usually perfectly balance out. We refer to energized waves in this space as "electromagnetic radiation" because it disturbs the usual balance.

What created the matter, and antimatter, of our universe is that an "orphan" two- dimensional sheet of space got started that was within, but not contiguous with, the background space. This means that the electric charges of the two blocks of space did not align. This was a higher- energy state so some charge migration took place in one dimension of the two-dimensional sheet, negative charges to one side and positive charges to the other.

Not being contiguous with the background space, the negative and positive sides of the sheet came into contact. This is what produced the great matter-antimatter explosion that we refer to as the Big Bang. One of the two dimensions of the sheet disintegrated into energy. The other dimension became the strings of matter that we perceive as charged particles, such as electrons, because we can only see in three of the four dimensions, the other dimension we perceive as time.

All matter in our universe originated with that sheet, and the "ghost" of the sheet is still with matter. Now imagine the strings of matter that originated from the negative side and from the positive side of the sheet. They would have different concepts of left and right, just like two people walking in opposite directions.

Hold your hands with the palms facing earth other. Now curl the fingers of each hand. Each hand represents one side of the two-dimensional sheet, one the positive side and the other the negative side. The fingers of each hand curl in opposite directions. One represents the spin of the neutrino and the other the antineutrino. 

The following diagram shows how this happened. In A we see how the "orphan" two-dimensional sheet of space (red line) was not contiguous with the perpendicular dimensions of the four dimensions of background space (black lines). I put it at a 45 degree angle because, being halfway between the perpendicular dimensions, would be at the lowest information state. 

In B we see how charge migration took place in the sheet, with more positive charges to one side and more negative to the other, because that would be a lower information state since the charges of the non-contiguous dimensions of background space were still acting on the charges of the sheet, by opposite-charge attraction and like-charge repulsion. 

In C we see how the opposite sides of the two-dimensional sheet are attracted to each other, by opposite-charge attraction. When the two sides contact the result is a tremendous matter-antimatter explosion of the two-dimensional sheet that we perceive as the Big Bang. The dimension of the sheet that contacts disintegrates into the energy in the universe and the intact dimension becomes the strings that make up matter. Since we experience one of the four dimensions of the background space as time we perceive the strings of matter as charged particles, such as electrons.

Notice the two green arrows, one on the positive side and the other on the negative side. The two arrows are pointing in opposite directions. This is the same as the above example of having your palms facing each other and curling the fingers of both hands.

That explains why neutrinos and antineutrinos spin in opposite directions. It means that my version of the Big Bang, and the rest of the cosmology theory, must be correct. 

With that background, we have a neat explanation of why the rotation of galaxies seems to favor one direction over the other.

In the universe that we see there is a lot more matter than antimatter. But it would be a lower information state, and thus preferred, if there was an equal amount of each. My cosmology theory explains this in how one side of the primordial sheet of space became more positive, and the other side more negative. 

What we perceive as time is actually the fourth dimension of the background space. This means that the Big Bang is actually a place. If we could go back in the space that we perceive as time to the Big Bang, and then kept on going, we would come to the other side of the universe where antimatter prevails as does the rotation of galaxies in the direction that is opposite to our galaxy. 

Wasn't that simple?

Here is a link to the abbreviated version of the cosmology theory.

www.markmeeksideas.blogspot.com/2024/01/cosmology-theory-in-diagrams.html?m=0

Canada's Hudson's Bay Company

I am sorry to read that Canada's Hudson's Bay Company has filed for bankruptcy. In a way, this company was the beginning of Canada. It was founded in 1640, nearly two centuries before Canada became a nation.

I have one of the Hudson's Bay blankets. These blankets were once used as a kind of currency in the cold north of Canada. I have had this blanket since I was a child on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls. It hasn't been used since I was a child but was saved because it was valuable. 

The black lines on the blanket are so handlers know the dimensions of the blanket without unfolding it. 

I have a feeling that Bay Street, Toronto's financial district, is really named for Canada's original corporation but that couldn't be declared because it would look like the government was favoring The Bay over nearby Eaton's. Image from Google Street View.

Henry Hudson, who didn't have anything to do with starting the company, might have been a few centuries ahead of his time. He was an English explorer who first sailed for the Netherlands. He sailed up the Hudson River, which he got named for him. The result was the beginning of New York City, which might also have been named for him. What he was hoping to find was a way that led through to Asia. 

He later sailed for England, further north, and still looking for a way through to Asia. Hudson came to a vast bay and spent a winter in the southern part of the bay. When Spring came he was set to continue searching for a passage to the east. 

But his crew had had enough of it. They mutinied and put Hudson, and his few supporters, in a small boat. They gave them a few supplies and then cut them loose. The crew then sailed back to England. Not a trace of Henry Hudson has ever been found but he did get the vast bay, like the river, named for him. The company was later named for the bay.

Henry Hudson couldn't have known it but in a few centuries a thing called global warming would come along. Hudson hadn't been searching in exactly the right place but, further north, there was a frozen route through that would be partially opened by global warming. It is what we now call the Northwest Passage. 

In the center of the following image, from Google Earth, is the vast Hudson Bay. The yellow dot is approximately where Hudson's ship is believed to have spent the winter. The southern extension of Hudson Bay is called James Bay. The two red dots are at either end of the Northwest Passage.

The Rapture

So what will happen to Christians during the Apocalypse? God has a history of providing an escape for His true followers when sending judgement on the world, from Noah's Ark to the escape of Lot from the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.

The first three Gospels each has a chapter that is primarily about the Apocalypse, as explained by Jesus (Matthew 24, Mark 13 and, Luke 21). It is not necessary to go into detail here because this is explained in the posting "The End Of The World As We Know It". But these chapters describe how, at the End of the World, "two people will be working, one will be taken and the other left". 

Chapter 4 of the First Book of Thessalonians, verses 13-17, describes Jesus returning and meeting His believers in the clouds, without coming all the way to the ground. The "dead in Christ", the believers that have already died, will rise first and then the believers that are still alive. They will leave with Jesus.

The second chapter of the Second Book of Thessalonians is about the emergence of the Antichrist. Before he can attain full power the Holy Spirit must first be removed. Since the Holy Spirit dwells within Christians, that must mean that the Christians must be removed prior to the emergence of the Antichrist.

The Antichrist will be allowed to reign for seven years. The Antichrist will be amazing, having all of the answers to everything, and the first half of the seven years will be the best time that the world has ever seen. But it will all fall apart and the second half of the seven years will be the worst time that the world has ever seen, or ever will see. In those Gospel chapters Jesus makes it clear that, had He not returned to set up His Kingdom and end the Tribulation Period, no one would be left alive on earth.

The Book of Revelation is all about the Apocalypse. What is interesting is that, other than the first three chapters, the church or the Christians are not mentioned while the judgements of the Tribulation Period are going on. But, near the end of the book, Jesus returns with an army of His saints to end the Tribulation and set up His Kingdom.

But who are these great number of saints returning with Jesus? They are the Christians that Jesus removed from the world before the Tribulation Period began. They will have spent the seven years of the Tribulation Period in Heaven.

This taking away of the true Christians, so that they will miss the horrors of the Tribulation Period, is known as the Rapture, although that is a general term that is not in the Bible.

By far the best thing is to be in the Rapture. You will spend the seven years in Heaven and then return with Jesus to set up His Kingdom on earth. The world will then be the godly paradise that it was always intended to be. If you miss the Rapture you can certainly still be saved but will probably be killed in the Apocalypse. The vast number of people who will realize what is happening and turn to Jesus during the Tribulation are referred to as the Tribulation Saints.

The Beginning Of Being Cool

This is being reposted because more has been added to it. 

I first heard of people, trends or, cars being described as "cool" when I landed in America at age 8. The word was very often used then and now it has spread everywhere, although it is not as often used. There was also "groovy", which I thought was superior even to being "cool", but that seems to have gotten left in the Sixties.

There is no exact definition of what "cool" means, and it certainly changes over time. In the Sixties, bright colors were cool especially in clothes. Bright bell-bottom pants and tie-dyed t-shirts were popular. The Chevrolet Corvette and the Ford Mustang were cool cars. 

Pollution and the Vietnam War were not cool, but wearing a peace sign and protesting against the war was. Leftward politics was cooler than rightward. Many people thought that LSD was the cool drug, at least until their friends began dying because of it. The "establishment" generally wasn't cool but being anti-establishment often was. 

Nothing was more cool than going to the music festival at Woodstock, in 1969. We do have to admire their philosophy of peace. About 400,000 young people got together for three days, and there was not a single reported act of violence.

Surreal psychedelic art was cool, and there was psychedelic rock music to go with it. The following image is from the Wikipedia article "Psychedelic Art". 

What I now don't like about being cool is that it has a strong "fit in" element to it. The majority decides what is "cool", and what is not. Another term, which was a little bit before my time, was "with it". There was one person who used to say whether or not something was "in". 

I don't like the idea of being a follower. I am glad to learn from people but never just "follow" them. When you blindly follow someone you deserve whatever you get.

The Bible does not tell us to "fit in", or to follow the crowd, or to be "with it". It tells us to "Come out from among them and be separate", Second Book of Corinthians 6:17. Going with the crowd is generally the way to Hell, not to Heaven. 

Although it wasn't a major part of the Sixties, there was a "Jesus Movement" within it. Some Hippies saw Jesus as having been pretty cool. A lot of people had given up their uncool lives and followed Him. He told the establishment and the religious authorities how corrupt they were and how meaningless their empty rituals were. He got himself crucified basically because they resented His popularity. There was actually a Christian version of Woodstock, Explo 72 in Dallas. 

Where did being "cool" get started? What happened in the Sixties was that the older generation had been the generation of world wars, genocide, terrible new weapons and, an economic collapse. The end of the Second World War had brought the Baby Boom, and the youth culture that the Sixties was about. But being "cool" is nothing new, even if the word itself wasn't used. 

THE EASTERN ORTHODOX ORIGIN OF BEING COOL 

I have concluded that being cool actually began with religion, specifically cathedrals. Brightness and brilliant light is part of being cool and the original cathedrals and churches are of what is now known as the Romanesque style. The stone walls had to be thick, and window space very limited, so that the walls could support the weight of the roof. 

In the year 1054 came the monumental split of the Eastern Orthodox Church from the Catholic Church, and the world has never been quite the same ever since. The split was primarily over the authority of the Pope. The new Eastern Orthodox Church had to do something to differentiate itself from the Catholics. What they did is to come up with their own form of colorful architecture. This made it "cool" to be Eastern Orthodox. 

The center of the Eastern Orthodox Church eventually moved from Constantinople to Kyiv to Moscow. Constantinople was eventually conquered by the Ottomans and Kyiv was still recovering from an attack by the Mongols. This is what made Moscow into a great city.

What resulted in the architectural incarnation of cool. It is the unique and colorful St. Basil's Cathedral, next to the Kremlin. This could be described as the birthplace of cool. The following image is from Google Street View. 

Well before the split in 1054, the eastern areas of the Catholic Church already had different rites from the west. They used the Byzantine Rites, as opposed to the Latin Rites. Vladimir the Great, the Grand Prince of the Kievan Rus, chose the Byzantine Rites when his country converted to Christianity allegedly because his emissaries were so impressed with the Hagia Sophia, in Constantinople. Kievan Rus was the medieval predecessor state of Russia, Ukraine and, Belarus.

These Byzantine Rites were the beginning of the Eastern Orthodox Church, before the formal split, so the Hagia Sophia had a role in the beginning of being cool.

The following image is from the Wikipedia article "Hagia Sophia".

We saw the Hagia Sophia in detail in the posting "The House Of Holy Wisdom, Where The Modern World Began", January 2016.

The eastern Catholics already had their own architecture before the split with the West. This can be seen in the St. Sophia Cathedral, in Kyiv, which was begun before the split with the West. The following image is from the Wikipedia article "Saint Sophia Cathedral, Kyiv".

THE CATHOLIC RESPONSE TO THE ORTHODOX SPLIT 

The western, or Latin, Catholic Church responded to the split by coming up with something to make it cool to be Catholic, even if the word wasn't used. Like the easterners, their approach would be architectural. 

The idea arose of supporting the weight of the roof of a cathedral in other ways so that the walls could have a lot of window space. This idea led to the Gothic style and made possible elaborate stained glass windows. The first fully Gothic cathedral is generally considered to be the Basilica of St. Denis, in Paris.

In the following image of Reims Cathedral, from Google Earth, you can see the buttresses outside the cathedral that support most of the weight of the roof. 

This makes possible the stained glass windows associated with Gothic cathedrals. The following image is from Google Street View.

In the following image of Mont St. Michel, from Google Earth, you can see both styles. On the left and in the foreground is the Romanesque style, with thick walls and very limited window space. On the upper right is the Gothic style, where large stained glass windows are possible because the buttresses support most of the weight of the roof.

THE MODERN WESTERN VERSION OF BEING COOL 

That set the historical precedent for being cool, the modern western version of which actually began with the Reformation. First, the Reformation had the anti-establishment and counterculture element of being cool going for it. The new Protestant philosophy was to break away from this corrupt, greedy and overarching establishment so that you can be free.

But I believe that it was the Catholic Church that really began the modern western version of cool, even if it was long before the word was used. After the Protestants had broken away in the Reformation, the Catholics launched the Counter-Reformation. 

The Counter-Reformation included the Catholic Church's new version of cool. It was the new Baroque style. Just as the Catholic Church had earlier launched the Gothic style when the Eastern Orthodox Church broke away, now it launched the Baroque style when the Protestants broke away.

Northern Europe, which had broken away in the Reformation, had the old Gothic cathedrals. Medieval Europeans built magnificent Gothic cathedrals but the knowledge of how to build large domes had been lost. It was rediscovered during the Renaissance and large domes became the central feature of Baroque cathedrals. 

Even if the word wasn't used yet, Baroque was the beginning of the modern western version of cool. St. Peter's Basilica, in Rome, was built in the Baroque style. Image from Google Earth.

The Protestants soon copied the Baroque style and built new cathedrals that were characterized by great domes, such as St. Paul's in London in this image from Google Earth.

St. Petersburg, in Russia, was especially built as the capital of the Romanov Dynasty and is known for it's Baroque cathedrals, having been built after the end of the Gothic era. Images from Google Street View. 

By the Sixties, when there was the special emphasis on being cool, times had become more secular. We can see how secularized religion affected the Sixties counterculture in the resemblance between rock songs and biblical Psalms, except that the rock music was usually about romance instead of God, and the resemblance between the pilgrimage to Woodstock and the pilgrimage to Mecca. 

Notice how the bright colors of this tie-dyed t-shirt, that was popular in the Sixties from the Wikipedia article "Tie-dye", compare with the bright artistry of Baroque, looking up at the inside of the dome of St. Paul's Cathedral in this image from Google Street View.

Can the brightly colored bell bottom pants from the Sixties be traced back to domes, such as the Duomo in Florence in this image from Google Earth, as well as the fit-in element of being cool with all roofs being of the same color? 

The Catholic Church had begun the modern western version of what it meant to be "cool", but then times had secularized and cool was exemplified by the counter-culture of the 1960s. The next thing we know is that the Church takes back the definition of cool.

Why couldn't the Pope be a celebrity like a rock or movie star? Pope Paul died in 1978 and the Archbishop of Venice was chosen as the next Pope. He took the name of John Paul, after his two predecessors. But he died in a month.

Then came the shocker. The new Pope chosen was the first non-Italian one in 450 years. He was from Poland and took the name John Paul II, after his predecessor. John Paul II would become a greater global celebrity than any rock or movie star. This shouldn't be surprising as it was the Catholic Church that invented the modern western version of cool. 

My observation is that another "being cool" technique of Catholicism is the emphasis on smiling. A religious person should walk around smiling. Protestants are a little bit more stern and Eastern Orthodox Christians don't seem to have this emphasis. This can be deceptive as many serial killers, con artists and cult leaders have had great smiles. Following anyone who is smiling is surely a way to trouble.

THE ISLAMIC VERSION OF BEING COOL 

The Islamic religion split into two major branches, over who should succeed Muhammad as the leader of the religion, or Caliph. Some said that the succession should be hereditary and that Ali, Muhammad's son-in-law, should be Caliph. Others said that the next leader should be chosen by consensus. The consensus side got their way and Abu Baker, Muhammad's father-in-law, became the next Caliph. Ali eventually became the fourth Caliph but by then the split had become permanent.

The consensus side became known as Sunni Moslems and the hereditary side as Shia, or Shiite, Moslems. This was far from the only split and both sides would further subdivide. Today the vast majority of Moslems are Sunni. The Shia proportion is 15% at most. 

But what Shiites can do is to be colorful and cool, with architecture and especially when electric lighting came along. When Ali became the fourth Caliph he moved the capital from Medina to Najaf, in what is now Iraq, and it is still considered as the most holy city of the Shiites. The following six images are of the Shrine of Imam Ali and the Mosque of Kufa, both in Najaf.

The following colorful images are from Qom, in Iran, another Shia holy city. 

This is the Imamzadeh Saleh Shrine, in Tehran.

This is the colorful Shrine of Imam Reza, in Mashad in Iran.

THE MODERN ARCHITECTURAL VERSION OF BEING COOL 

Just as with the colorful counterculture of the Sixties, there is another modern secular version of being cool and, like the original cathedrals, it is about architecture. In the modern era of skyscrapers, it is cool to have the tallest building in the world. It is up-and-coming countries that tend to have the tallest buildings in the world today. Countries that are really secure in their place in the world don't seem to need to have the tallest building.

When I was a boy the Empire State Building was the tallest building in the world, and I have a souvenir model of it here. It was built in 1929, when America was still an up-and-coming country. First image from Google Earth. 

The twin towers of the Petronas Building, in Kuala Lumpur, had it's reign as the world's tallest building. Image from Google Street View.

As did Taipei 101, in Taipei. Image from Google Earth.

For more about building, here is a link to "Observations About Building". 

www.markmeeksideas.blogspot.com/2023/08/observations-about-building.html?m=0