There have been, and will be again, many destructions of mankind arising out of many causes; the greatest have been brought about by the agencies of fire and water, and other lesser ones by innumerable other causes. . . . Just when you and other nations are beginning to be provided with letters and the other requisites of civilized life, after the usual interval, the stream from heaven, like a pestilence, comes pouring down, and leaves only those of you who are destitute of letters and education; and so you have to begin all over again like children, and know nothing of what happened in ancient times, either among us or among yourselves.
I'm friendly to the notion that environmental catastrophes have wiped out technologically advanced human civilizations. But I have a hard time believing tongues of plasma from the sun caused stone vitrifications. To say it happened "locally" is quite an understatement. With adjacent stone unaffected, I might go for hyper hyper hyper locally. There seems to be too much precision and purpose. I think the best explanation is that people deliberately concentrated ordinary sunshine onto stone targets for construction purposes. Softening the stones would allow them to sag under their own weight, resulting in the tight joints between them that so impress modern masons. Incan drawings depict people with brilliant headdresses, possibly mirrors worn atop the head. Acting in concert, large numbers of people could generate extremely high temperatures. I'm going to try to replicate this in my backyard with a solar, parabolic concentrator. If all goes well, I'll build a stone house. :)
The ever inaccurate National Geographic channel has a show stupidly called "The First Alaskans". The name implies that they hold the lone position of having arrived into Alaska before anyone else.
The show should be more accurately named , the latest Alaskans. Everyone in the Americas in 1600, and there were over a million, came through Alaska but kept heading south. The current Alaskans are those who never ventured any further south. At least not yet. And please stop referring to any people as indigenous, as though they were some unique class of humans.
We are all indigenous.
Go far enough back in history and all of us looked into the same fathers eyes.
Josh a beautifully written article even for the lay(wo)man. The idea of underground cities is intriguing, but not a future I would want to experience - Perhaps it will be time for the evolutionary wheel to spin again minus humanity and see what wonderful conscious creation appeared!
Interesting article and I would also worry more about temperature downside rather than upside.
Still, thousand miles long telegraph wires would have been the worst for inductive pickup. It's no wonder the operators got shocked. Nowadays, circuits have a lot more shielding and protection. The only long conducting cables left are for power transmission and designed for high voltage.
I think ozone blocks UV light, but for cosmic rays it's like any other gas. Rays are just high energy particles that are deflected by atomic nuclei. It doesn't matter if the nuclei are in O2 or O3 molecules. Nitrogen gas also has stopping power.
I'm friendly to the notion that environmental catastrophes have wiped out technologically advanced human civilizations. But I have a hard time believing tongues of plasma from the sun caused stone vitrifications. To say it happened "locally" is quite an understatement. With adjacent stone unaffected, I might go for hyper hyper hyper locally. There seems to be too much precision and purpose. I think the best explanation is that people deliberately concentrated ordinary sunshine onto stone targets for construction purposes. Softening the stones would allow them to sag under their own weight, resulting in the tight joints between them that so impress modern masons. Incan drawings depict people with brilliant headdresses, possibly mirrors worn atop the head. Acting in concert, large numbers of people could generate extremely high temperatures. I'm going to try to replicate this in my backyard with a solar, parabolic concentrator. If all goes well, I'll build a stone house. :)
Your left-handed musings are always a joy to read.
The ever inaccurate National Geographic channel has a show stupidly called "The First Alaskans". The name implies that they hold the lone position of having arrived into Alaska before anyone else.
The show should be more accurately named , the latest Alaskans. Everyone in the Americas in 1600, and there were over a million, came through Alaska but kept heading south. The current Alaskans are those who never ventured any further south. At least not yet. And please stop referring to any people as indigenous, as though they were some unique class of humans.
We are all indigenous.
Go far enough back in history and all of us looked into the same fathers eyes.
Josh a beautifully written article even for the lay(wo)man. The idea of underground cities is intriguing, but not a future I would want to experience - Perhaps it will be time for the evolutionary wheel to spin again minus humanity and see what wonderful conscious creation appeared!
Anatomically modern humanity may well be older than 300,000 years. Michael Cremo in Forbidden Archeology has some fascinating finds.
Interesting article and I would also worry more about temperature downside rather than upside.
Still, thousand miles long telegraph wires would have been the worst for inductive pickup. It's no wonder the operators got shocked. Nowadays, circuits have a lot more shielding and protection. The only long conducting cables left are for power transmission and designed for high voltage.
I think ozone blocks UV light, but for cosmic rays it's like any other gas. Rays are just high energy particles that are deflected by atomic nuclei. It doesn't matter if the nuclei are in O2 or O3 molecules. Nitrogen gas also has stopping power.