phenomena and mysteries

Fibonacci Numbers in Nature

2008-07-10T06:36:00.002+08:00

The sequence, in which each number is the sum of the two preceding numbers is known as the Fibonacci series: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, 377, 610, 987, 1597, 2584, 4181, ... (each number is the sum of the previous two).

The ratio of successive pairs tends to the so-called golden section
(GS) - 1.618033989 . . . . . whose reciprocal is 0.618033989 . . . . . so that we have 1/GS = 1 + GS.

The Fibonacci sequence, generated by the rule f1 = f2 = 1 , fn+1 = fn + fn-1,
is well known in many different areas of mathematics and science.
However, it is quite amazing that the Fibonacci number patterns occur so frequently in nature ( flowers, shells, plants, leaves, to name a few) that this phenomenon appears to be one of the principal "laws of nature".

History of Fibonacci Number

Fibonacci was known in his time and is still recognized today as the "greatest European mathematician of the middle ages." He was born in the 1170's and died in the 1240's and there is now a statue commemorating him located at the Leaning Tower end of the cemetery next to the Cathedral in Pisa. Fibonacci's name is also perpetuated in two streetsthe quayside Lungarno Fibonacci in Pisa and the Via Fibonacci in Florence.
His full name was Leonardo of Pisa, or Leonardo Pisano in Italian since he was born in Pisa. He called himself Fibonacci which was short for Filius Bonacci, standing for "son of Bonacci", which was his father's name. Leonardo's father( Guglielmo Bonacci) was a kind of customs officer in the North African town of Bugia, now called Bougie. So Fibonacci grew up with a North African education under the Moors and later travelled extensively around the Mediterranean coast. He then met with many merchants and learned of their systems of doing arithmetic. He soon realized the many advantages of the "Hindu-Arabic" system over all the others. He was one of the first people to introduce the Hindu-Arabic number system into Europe-the system we now use today- based of ten digits with its decimal point and a symbol for zero: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9. and 0
His book on how to do arithmetic in the decimal system, called Liber abbaci (meaning Book of the Abacus or Book of calculating) completed in 1202 persuaded many of the European mathematicians of his day to use his "new" system. The book goes into detail (in Latin) with the rules we all now learn in elementary school for adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing numbers altogether with many problems to illustrate the methods in detail.
( http://www.mcs.surrey.ac.uk/Personal/R.Knott/Fibonacci/fibnat.html#Rabbits )

Pascal's Triangle and Fibonacci Numbers

The triangle was studied by B. Pascal, although it had been described centuries earlier by Chinese mathematician Yanghui (about 500 years earlier, in fact) and the Persian astronomer-poet Omar Khayyám.

Pascal's Triangle is described by the following formula:

where is a binomial coefficient.

The "shallow diagonals" of Pascal's triangle
sum to Fibonacci numbers.

Fibonacci and Nature

Flower Patterns and Fibonacci Numbers

Why is it that the number of petals in a flower is often one of the following numbers: 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34 or 55? For example, the lily has three petals, buttercups have five of them, the chicory has 21 of them, the daisy has often 34 or 55 petals, etc. Furthermore, when one observes the heads of sunflowers, one notices two series of curves, one winding in one sense and one in another; the number of spirals not being the same in each sense. Why is the number of spirals in general either 21 and 34, either 34 and 55, either 55 and 89, or 89 and 144? The same for pinecones : why do they have either 8 spirals from one side and 13 from the other, or either 5 spirals from one side and 8 from the other? Finally, why is the number of diagonals of a pineapple also 8 in one direction and 13 in the other?

Passion Fruit
© All rights reserved Image Source >>

Are these numbers the product of chance? No! They all belong to the Fibonacci sequence: 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, etc. (where each number is obtained from the sum of the two preceding). A more abstract way of putting it is that the Fibonacci numbers fn are given by the formula f1 = 1, f2 = 2, f3 = 3, f4 = 5 and generally f n+2 = fn+1 + fn . For a long time, it had been noticed that these numbers were important in nature, but only relatively recently that one understands why. It is a question of efficiency during the growth process of plants.

The explanation is linked to another famous number, the golden mean, itself intimately linked to the spiral form of certain types of shell. Let's mention also that in the case of the sunflower, the pineapple and of the pinecone, the correspondence with the Fibonacci numbers is very exact, while in the case of the number of flower petals, it is only verified on average (and in certain cases, the number is doubled since the petals are arranged on two levels).

Let's underline also that although Fibonacci historically introduced these numbers in 1202 in attempting to model the growth of populations of rabbits, this does not at all correspond to reality! On the contrary, as we have just seen, his numbers play really a fundamental role in the context of the growth of plants

THE EFFECTIVENESS OF THE GOLDEN MEAN

The explanation which follows is very succinct. For a much more detailed explanation, with very interesting animations, see the web site in the reference.

In many cases, the head of a flower is made up of small seeds which are produced at the centre, and then migrate towards the outside to fill eventually all the space (as for the sunflower but on a much smaller level). Each new seed appears at a certain angle in relation to the preceeding one. For example, if the angle is 90 degrees, that is 1/4 of a turn, the result after several generations is that represented by figure 1.

Of course, this is not the most efficient way of filling space. In fact, if the angle between the appearance of each seed is a portion of a turn which corresponds to a simple fraction, 1/3, 1/4, 3/4, 2/5, 3/7, etc (that is a simple rational number), one always obtains a series of straight lines. If one wants to avoid this rectilinear pattern, it is necessary to choose a portion of the circle which is an irrational number (or a nonsimple fraction). If this latter is well approximated by a simple fraction, one obtains a series of curved lines (spiral arms) which even then do not fill out the space perfectly (figure 2).

In order to optimize the filling, it is necessary to choose the most irrational number there is, that is to say, the one the least well approximated by a fraction. This number is exactly the golden mean. The corresponding angle, the golden angle, is 137.5 degrees. (It is obtained by multiplying the non-whole part of the golden mean by 360 degrees and, since one obtains an angle greater than 180 degrees, by taking its complement). With this angle, one obtains the optimal filling, that is, the same spacing between all the seeds (figure 3).

This angle has to be chosen very precisely: variations of 1/10 of a degree destroy completely the optimization. (In fig 2, the angle is 137.6 degrees!) When the angle is exactly the golden mean, and only this one, two families of spirals (one in each direction) are then visible: their numbers correspond to the numerator and denominator of one of the fractions which approximates the golden mean : 2/3, 3/5, 5/8, 8/13, 13/21, etc.

These numbers are precisely those of the Fibonacci sequence (the bigger the numbers, the better the approximation) and the choice of the fraction depends on the time laps between the appearance of each of the seeds at the center of the flower.

This is why the number of spirals in the centers of sunflowers, and in the centers of flowers in general, correspond to a Fibonacci number. Moreover, generally the petals of flowers are formed at the extremity of one of the families of spiral. This then is also why the number of petals corresponds on average to a Fibonacci number.

REFERENCES:

An excellent Internet site of Ron Knot's at the University of Surrey on this and related topics.
S. Douady et Y. Couder, La physique des spirales végétales, La Recherche, janvier 1993, p. 26 (In French).

Human Hand

Every human has two hands, each one of these has five fingers, each finger has three parts which are separated by two knuckles. All of these numbers fit into the sequence. However keep in mind, this could simply be coincidence.

Human Face

Knowledge of the golden section, ratio and rectangle goes back to the Greeks, who based their most famous work of art on them: the Parthenon is full of golden rectangles. The Greek followers of the mathematician and mystic Pythagoras even thought of the golden ratio as divine.

Later, Leonardo da Vinci painted Mona Lisa's face to fit perfectly into a golden rectangle, and structured the rest of the painting around similar rectangles.

Mozart divided a striking number of his sonatas into two parts whose lengths reflect the golden ratio, though there is much debate about whether he was conscious of this. In more modern times, Hungarian composer Bela Bartok and French architect Le Corbusier purposefully incorporated the golden ratio into their work.

Even today, the golden ratio is in human-made objects all around us. Look at almost any Christian cross; the ratio of the vertical part to the horizontal is the golden ratio. To find a golden rectangle, you need to look no further than the credit cards in your wallet.

Despite these numerous appearances in works of art throughout the ages, there is an ongoing debate among psychologists about whether people really do perceive the golden shapes, particularly the golden rectangle, as more beautiful than other shapes. In a 1995 article in the journal Perception, professor Christopher Green,
of York University in Toronto, discusses several experiments over the years that have shown no measurable preference for the golden rectangle, but notes that several others have provided evidence suggesting such a preference exists.

Regardless of the science, the golden ratio retains a mystique, partly because excellent approximations of it turn up in many unexpected places in nature. The spiral inside a nautilus shell is remarkably close to the golden section, and the ratio of the lengths of the thorax and abdomen in most bees is nearly the golden ratio. Even a cross section of the most common form of human DNA fits nicely into a golden decagon. The golden ratio and its relatives also appear in many unexpected contexts in mathematics, and they continue to spark interest in the mathematical community.

Dr. Stephen Marquardt, a former plastic surgeon, has used the golden section, that enigmatic number that has long stood for beauty, and some of its relatives to make a mask that he claims is the most beautiful shape a human face can have.

The Mask of a perfect human face

Egyptian Queen Nefertiti (1400 B.C.)

Fibonacci's Rabbits

The original problem that Fibonacci investigated, in the year 1202, was about how fast rabbits could breed in ideal circumstances. "A pair of rabbits, one month old, is too young to reproduce. Suppose that in their second month, and every month thereafter, they produce a new pair. If each new pair of rabbits does the same, and none of the rabbits dies, how many pairs of rabbits will there be at the beginning of each month?"

At the end of the first month, they mate, but there is still one only 1 pair.
At the end of the second month the female produces a new pair, so now there are 2 pairs of rabbits in the field.
At the end of the third month, the original female produces a second pair, making 3 pairs in all in the field.
At the end of the fourth month, the original female has produced yet another new pair, the female born two months ago produces her first pair also, making 5 pairs. (http://www.mcs.surrey.ac.uk/Personal/R.Knott/Fibonacci/fibBio.html)

The number of pairs of rabbits in the field at the start of each month is 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, etc.

The Fibonacci Rectangles and Shell Spirals

We can make another picture showing the Fibonacci numbers 1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,.. if we start with two small squares of size 1 next to each other. On top of both of these draw a square of size 2 (=1+1).

Phi pendant gold - a Powerful Tool for Finding Harmony and Beauty

We can now draw a new square - touching both a unit square and the latest square of side 2 - so having sides 3 units long; and then another touching both the 2-square and the 3-square (which has sides of 5 units). We can continue adding squares around the picture, each new square having a side which is as long as the sum of the latest two square's sides. This set of rectangles whose sides are two successive Fibonacci numbers in length and which are composed of squares with sides which are Fibonacci numbers, we will call the Fibonacci Rectangles.

The next diagram shows that we can draw a spiral by putting together quarter circles, one in each new square. This is a spiral (the Fibonacci Spiral). A similar curve to this occurs in nature as the shape of a snail shell or some sea shells. Whereas the Fibonacci Rectangles spiral increases in size by a factor of Phi (1.618..) in a quarter of a turn (i.e. a point a further quarter of a turn round the curve is 1.618... times as far from the centre, and this applies to all points on the curve), the Nautilus spiral curve takes a whole turn before points move a factor of 1.618... from the centre.

A slice through a Nautilus shell

These spiral shapes are called Equiangular or Logarithmic spirals. The links from these terms contain much more information on these curves and pictures of computer-generated shells.

Here is a curve which crosses the X-axis at the Fibonacci numbers

The spiral part crosses at 1 2 5 13 etc on the positive axis, and 0 1 3 8 etc on the negative axis. The oscillatory part crosses at 0 1 1 2 3 5 8 13 etc on the positive axis. The curve is strangely reminiscent of the shells of Nautilus and snails. This is not surprising, as the curve tends to a logarithmic spiral as it expands.

Mystery The Curse of Tutankhamun

2008-07-10T06:06:00.004+08:00

Death Shall Come on Swift Wings To Him Who Disturbs the Peace of the King... -Supposedly engraved on the exterior of King Tutankhamen's Tomb

The king was only nineteen when he died, perhaps murdered by his enemies. His tomb, in comparison with his contemporaries, was modest. After his death, his successors made an attempt to expunge his memory by removing his name from all the official records. Even those carved in stone. As it turns out, his enemy's efforts only ensured his eventual fame. His name was Tutankhamen: King Tut.

The ancient Egyptians revered their Pharaohs as Gods. Upon their deaths the King's bodies were carefully preserved by embalming. The mummified corpses were interned in elaborate tombs (like the Great Pyramid) and surrounded with all the riches the royals would need in the next life. The tombs were then carefully sealed. Egypt's best architects designed the structures to resist thieves. In some cases heavy, hard-granite plugs were used to block passageways. In others, false doorways and hidden rooms were designed to fool intruders. Finally, in a few cases, a curse was placed on the entrance.

Most of these precautions failed. In ancient times grave robbers found their way into the tombs. They unsealed the doors, chiseled their way around the plugs and found the secrets of the hidden rooms. They stripped the dead Kings of their valuables. We will never know if any of the thieves suffered the wrath of a curse.

Archaeologists from Europe became very interested in Egypt in the 19th century. They uncovered the old tombs and explored their deep recesses always hoping to find that one forgotten crypt that had not been plundered in antiquity. They knew that the Pharaohs had been buried with untold treasures that would be of immense artistic, scientific, and monetary value. Always the archaeologists were disappointed.

The Search for the Missing King

In 1891 a young Englishman named Howard Carter arrived in Egypt. Over the years he became convinced that there was at least one undiscovered tomb. That of the almost unknown King Tutankhamen. Carter found a backer for his tomb search in the wealthy Lord Carnarvon. For five years Carter dug looking for the missing Pharaoh and found nothing.

Carter and Carnarvon

Carnarvon summonded Carter to England in1922 to tell him he was was calling off the search. Carter managed to talk the lord into supporting him for one more season of digging. Returning to Egypt the archaeologist brought with him a yellow canary.

A Few Authentic Curses from Mummy Tombs

As for anybody who shall enter this tomb in his impurity: I shall ring his neck as a bird's.

As for any man who shall destroy these, it is the god Thoth who shall destroy him.

As for him who shall destroy this inscription: He shall not reach his home. He shall not embrace his children. He shall not see success.

"A golden bird!" Carter's foreman, Reis Ahmed, exclaimed. "It will lead us to the tomb!"

Perhaps it did. On November 4th, 1922 Carter's workmen discovered a step cut into the rock that had been hidden by debris left over from the building of the tomb of Ramesses IV.. Digging further they found fifteen more leading to an ancient doorway that appeared to be still sealed. On the doorway was the name Tutankhamen.

When Carter arrived home that night his servant met him at the door. In his hand he clutched a few yellow feathers. His eyes large with fear, he reported that the canary had been killed by a cobra. Carter, a practical man, told the servant to make sure the snake was out of the house. The man grabbed Carter by the sleeve.

"The pharaoh's serpent ate the bird because it led us to the hidden tomb! You must not disturb the tomb!"

Scoffing at such superstitious nonsense, Carter sent the man home.

Carter immediately sent a telegram to Carnarvon in England and waited anxiously for his arrival. Carnarvon made it to Egypt by November 26th and watched as Carter made a hole in the door. Carter leaned in, holding a candle, to take a look. Behind him Lord Carnarvon asked, "Can you see anything?"

Carter answered, "Yes, wonderful things."

The day the tomb was opened was one of joy and celebration for all those involved. Nobody seemed to be concerned about any curse. Rumors later circulated that Carter had found a tablet with the curse inscribed on it, but hid it immediately so it would not alarm his workers. Carter denied doing so.

The tomb was intact and contained an amazing collection of treasures including a stone sarcophagus. The sarcophagus contained three gold coffins nested within each other. Inside the final one was the mummy of the boy-king, Pharaoh Tutankhamen.

The Curse Strikes?

A few months after the tomb's opening tragedy struck. Lord Carnarvon, 57, was taken ill and rushed to Cairo. He died a few days later. The exact cause of death was not known, but it seemed to be from an infection started by an insect bite. Legend has it that when he died there was a short power failure and all the lights throughout Cairo went out. His son reported that back on his estate in England his favorite dog howled and suddenly dropped dead.

Even more strange, when the mummy of Tutankhamun was unwrapped in 1925, it was found to have a wound on the left cheek in the same exact position as the insect bite on Carnarvon that lead to his death.

By 1929 eleven people connected with the discovery of the Tomb had died early and of unnatural causes. This included two of Carnarvon's relatives, Carter's personal secretary, Richard Bethell, and Bethell's father, Lord Westbury. Westbury killed himself by jumping from a building. He left a note that read, "I really cannot stand any more horrors and hardly see what good I am going to do here, so I am making my exit."

Outside the tomb before it was opened.

What horrors did Westbury refer to?

The press followed the deaths carefully attributing each new one to the "Mummy's Curse" By 1935 they had credited 21 victims to King Tut. Was there really a curse? Or was it all just the ravings of a sensational press?

Herbert E. Winlock, the director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, made his own calculations about the effectiveness of the curse. According to to Winlock's figures of the 22 people present when the tomb was opened in 1922, only 6 had died by 1934. Of the 22 people present at the opening of the sarcophagus in 1924, only 2 died in the following ten years. Also ten people were there when the mummy was unwrapped in 1925, and all survived until at least 1934.

In 2002 a medicine scholar at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, named Mark Nelson, completed a study which purportedly showed that the curse of King Tut never really existed. Nelson selected 44 Westerners in Egypt at the time the tomb was discovered. Of those, twenty-five of the group were people potentially exposed to the curse either because they were at the breaking of the sacred seals in the tomb, or at the opening of the sarcophagus, or at the opening of the coffins, or the unwrapping of the mummy. The study showed that these exposures had no effect on the length of their survival when compared to those not exposed.

Perhaps, the power of a curse is in the mind of the person who believes in it. Howard Carter, the man who actually opened the tomb, never believed in the curse and lived to a reasonably old age of 66 before dying of entirely natural causes.

A Rational Explaination?

Several people have suggested that illnesses associated with the ancient Egyptian tombs may have a rational explanation based in biology. Dr. Ezzeddin Taha, of Cairo University, examined the health records of museum workers and noticed that many of them had been exposed to Aspergillus niger, a fungus that causes fever, fatigue and rashes. He suggested that the fungus might have been able to survive in the tombs for thousands of years and then was picked up by archaeologists when they entered.

Dr. Nicola Di Paolo, a Italian physician identified another possible fungus, Aspergillus ochraceus, at Egyptian archaeological sites suggesting it might also have made visitors to the tomb, or even those that just handled artifacts from the tombs, sick. Aspergillus ochraceus has not been shown to be fatal, however.

In 1999 a German microbiologist, Gotthard Kramer, from the University of Leipzig, analyzed 40 mummies and identified several potentially dangerous mold spores on each. Mold spores are tough and can survive thousands of years even in a dark, dry tomb. Although most are harmless, a few can be toxic.

Kramer thinks that when tombs were first opened and fresh air gusted inside, these spores could have been blown up into the air. "When spores enter the body through the nose, mouth or eye mucous membranes, " he adds, "they can lead to organ failure or even death, particularly in individuals with weakened immune systems."

For this reason archaeologists now wear protective gear (such as masks and gloves) when unwrapping a mummy, something explorers from the days of Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon didn't do.

So was the curse of the mummy a mold spore named Aspergillus flavus or Cephalosporium? Or was it all media hype? Or is there another explaination?

from UnMuseum.org

THE GOLDEN SECTION

2008-07-10T05:57:00.002+08:00

The Greek letter phi (φ) signifies the golden section, also known as the divine proportion of 1.618 to one. The mathematical formula for φ is the square root of five plus one, divided by two. If a line is divided with the ratio of φ between the longer segment and the shorter segment, the ratio between the whole line and the longer segment is also φ. Given a length of one for the shorter segment, the length of the longer segment is φ and the length of the entire segment is φ plus one. φ plus one is also equal to φ²:

1.618 + 1 = 2.618 and
1.618 x 1.618 = 2.618

Given a length of one for the longer segment, the shorter segment is 1/φ (.618) and the length of the entire segment is φ. 1/φ is also equal to φ minus one:

1 ÷ 1.618 = .618 and
1.618 minus 1 = .618

There is also an extremely close mathematical relationship between φ and π expressed as φ² x 6 = π x 5 (2.618 times 6, divided by 5, equals 3.1416). There is an ongoing dispute about whether or not there was an ancient awareness of φ and π. In the ancient world, φ existed naturally in the proportions and growth rates of plant and animal species, as well as spirals ranging from microscopic to flowering plants and seashells to the spiral arms of the galaxy. The π ratio between the diameter and the circumference of a circle also existed naturally in the ancient world. It has also been shown that φ and π existed in many man-made ancient buildings, including the great pyramid of Giza.

The ancient Egyptian royal cubit, equal to 20.625 English inches, was used to build the great pyramid. The height of the pyramid is 280 cubits and the baselength of the sides at ground level is 440 cubits. The ratio between the height and two baselengths of the pyramid is an accurate expression of π (880/280 = 3.1428). The slant height of the pyramid is 356 cubits. The ratio between the baselength of the pyramid and the two slant heights that form the pyramid triangle is an accurate expression of φ (712/440 = 1.618).

Angkor Wat is 4,745 miles from the Great Pyramid and the Great Pyramid is 7,677 miles from Nazca. This is a precise expression of φ:

4,745 x 1.618 = 7,677

Ninety miles northeast of Angkor Wat are the Angkor temples at Prassat Preah Vihear. Preah Vihear is 4754 miles from the Great Pyramid. The line of ancient sites crosses over the Great Pyramid and Angkor Vihear.

Angkor Prassat Preah Vihear

Twenty five miles northwest of the city of Nazca is a figure known as the Hummingbird. The Hummingbird is 7,692 miles from the Great Pyramid. The line of ancient sites also crosses over the Hummingbird.

The Hummingbird

The relationship between the distances from Angkor Vihear to the Great Pyramid and from the Great Pyramid to the Nazcan Hummingbird is also a precise expression of φ:

4,754 x 1.618 = 7,692

Because the Hummingbird and Angkor Vihear are antipodal sites, with a distance between them of one-half of the circumference of the earth, two Golden Section relationships between these three sites are shown by the circumference of the earth along the line of ancient sites:

4,754 x 1.618 = 7,692

4,754 + 7,692 = 12,446, and

7,692 x 1.618 = 12,446

These Golden Section relationships may also be diagramed on a straight line:

The line of ancient sites is a line, from the perspective of the first illustration in Part One, and it is a circle, from the perspective of the azimuthal projection above. The line and the circle are found in the greek letter φ and the number 10. Zero and one are also the first two numbers and the only two numbers in the binary code.

The φ relationships between these sites are reflected repeatedly in the first 500 Fibonacci numbers. The first three prime numbers, 2, 3 and 5, approximate the intervals along the circumference of 20%, 30% and 50%, between these three sites. This same percentage of the circumference relationship, accurate to three digits, is found in Fibonacci numbers 137-139:

Percentage of circumference:	First three digits of Fibonacci numbers:
Angkor to Giza: 19.1%	#137: 191... (Prime)
Giza to Nazca: 30.9%	#138: 309...
Nazca to Angkor: 50.0%	#139: 500...

The next prime Fibonacci number after #137 is #359. The distances between these sites, in miles, is reflected by Fibocacci numbers 359-361, accurately to five digits:

Distance between sites:	First five digits of Fibonacci numbers:
Angkor to Giza: 4,754 miles	#359: 47542... (Prime)
Giza to Nazca: 7,692 miles	#360: 76924...
Nazca to Angkor: 12,446 miles	#361: 12446...

The Lost Continent : ATLANTIS

2008-07-10T05:51:00.000+08:00

The capital of Atlantis as described by Plato. (Copyright Lee Krystek 2006)

The idea of a lost, but highly advanced civilization has captured the interest of people for centuries. Perhaps the most compelling of these tales is the story of Atlantis. The story appears again and again in books, television shows and movies. Where did the story originate and is any of it true?

Plato's Atlantis

The story of the lost continent of Atlantis starts in 355 B.C. with the Greek philosopher Plato. Plato had planned to write a trilogy of books discussing the nature of man, the creation of the world, and the story of Atlantis, as well as other subjects. Only the first book was ever completed. The second book was abandoned part way through, and the final book was never even started.

Plato used dialogues to express his ideas. In this type of writing, the author's thoughts are explored in a series of arguments and debates between various characters in the story. Plato often used real people in his dialogues, such as his teacher, Socrates, but the words he gave them were his own.

In Plato's book, Timaeus, a character named Kritias tells an account of Atlantis that has been in his family for generations. According to the character, the story was originally told to his ancestor, Solon, by a priest during Solon's visit to Egypt.

There had been a powerful empire located to the west of the "Pillars of Hercules" (what we now call the Straight of Gibraltar) on an island in the Atlantic Ocean. The nation there had been established by Poseidon, the God of the Sea. Poseidon fathered five sets of twins on the island. The firstborn, Atlas, had the continent and the surrounding ocean named for him. Poseidon divided the land into ten sections, each to be ruled by a son, or his heirs.

The capital city of Atlantis was a marvel of architecture and engineering. The city was composed of a series of concentric walls and canals. At the very center was a hill, and on top of the hill a temple to Poseidon. Inside was a gold statue of the God of the Sea showing him driving six winged horses.

About 9000 years before the time of Plato, after the people of Atlantis became corrupt and greedy, the gods decided to destroy them. A violent earthquake shook the land, giant waves rolled over the shores, and the island sank into the sea, never to be seen again.

So, is the story of Atlantis just a fable used by Plato to make a point? Or is there some reason to think he was referring to a real place? Well, at numerous points in the dialogues, Plato's characters refer to the story of Atlantis as "genuine history" and it being within "the realm of fact." Plato also seems to put into the story a lot of detail about Atlantis that would be unnecessary if he had intended to use it only as a literary device.

On the other hand according to the writings of the historian Strabo, Plato's student Aristotle remarked that Atlantis was simply created by Plato to illustrate a point. Unfortunately, Aristotle's writings on this subject, which might have cleared the mystery up, have been lost eons ago.

Location, Location, Location

If we make the assumption that Atlantis was a real place, it seems logical that it could be found west of the Straight of Gibraltar near the Azores Islands. In 1882 a man named Ignatius Donnelly published a book titled Atlantis, the Antediluvian World. Donnelly, an American politician, had come to the belief that Plato's story represented actual historical fact. He located Atlantis in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, suggesting the Azores Islands represented what remained of the highest mountain peaks. Donnelly said he had studied zoology and geology and had come to the conclusion that civilization itself had begun with the Atlantians and had spread out throughout the world as the Atlantians established colonies in places like ancient Egypt and Peru. Donnelly's book became a world-wide best seller, but researchers could not take Donnelly's theories seriously as he offered no proof for his ideas.

As time when on it became obvious that Donnelly's theories were faulty. Modern scientific surveys of the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean shows it is covered with a blanket of sediment that must have taken millions of years to accumulate. There is no sign of a sunken island continent.

Are there any other candidates for the location of Atlantis? People have made cases for places as diverse as Switzerland, in the middle of Europe, and New Zealand, in the Pacific Ocean. The explorer, Percy Fawcett, thought that it might be located in Brazil. One of the most convincing arguments, though, came from K.T. Frost, a professor of history at the Queen's University in Belfast. Later, Spyridon Marinatos, an archaeologist, and A.G. Galanopoulos, a seismologist, added evidence to Frost's ideas.

The Minoan Connection

Frost suggested that instead of being west of the Pillars of Hercules, Atlantis was east. He also thought that the catastrophic end of the island had come not 9000 years before Plato's time, but only 900. If this was true, the land of Atlantis might already be a well-known place even in Plato's time: the island of Crete.

Crete is now a part of modern Greece and lies just south of Athens across part of the Mediterranean Sea. Before 1500 B.C. it was the seat of the Minoan Empire. The Minoans dominated the eastern Mediterranean with a powerful navy and probably extracted tribute from other surrounding nations. Archaeological excavations have shown that Minoan Crete was probably one of the most sophisticated cultures of its time. It had splendid architecture and art. A code of laws gave women equal legal status to men. Agriculture was highly developed and an extensive irrigation system existed.

Then, seemingly in a blink of an eye, the Minoan Civilization disappeared. Geological studies have shown that on an island we now know as Santorinas, located just ten miles to the north of Crete, a disaster occurred that was very capable of toppling the Minoan state.

Santorinas today is a lush Mediterranean paradise consisting of several islands in a ring shape. Twenty-five hundred years ago, though, it was a single large island with a volcano in the center. The volcano blew itself apart in a massive explosion around 1500 B.C.

To understand the effect of such an explosion, scientists have compared it with the most powerful volcanic explosion in historic times. This occurred on the Island of Krakatoa in 1883. There a giant wave, or tsunami, 120 feet high raced across the sea and hit neighboring islands, killing 36,000 people. Ash thrown up into the air blackened the skies for three days. The sound of the explosion was heard as far away as 3,000 miles.

The explosion at Santorinas was four times as powerful as Krakatoa.

The tsunami that hit Crete must have traveled inland for over half a mile, destroying any coastal towns or cities. The great Minoan fleet of ships were all sunk in a few seconds. Overnight the powerful Minoan Empire was crushed and Crete changed to a political backwater. One can hardly imagine a catastrophe more like Plato's description of Atlantis' fate than the destruction of Crete.

Many of the details of the Atlantis story fit with what is now known about Crete. Women had a relatively high political status, both cultures were peaceful, and both enjoyed the unusual sport of ritualistic bullfighting (where an unarmed man wrestled and jumped over a bull).

If the fall of the Minoans is the story of Atlantis, how did Plato get the location and time wrong? Galanopoulos suggested there was a mistake during translation of some of the figures from Egyptian to Greek and an extra zero added. This would mean 900 years ago became 9000, and the distance from Egypt to "Atlantis" went from 250 miles to 2,500. If this is true, Plato (knowing the layout of the Mediterranean Sea) would have been forced to assume the location of the island continent to be squarely in the Atlantic Ocean.

Not everyone accepts the Minoan Crete theory of the story of Atlantis, but until a convincing case can be made for some other place, it, perhaps, remains science's best guess.

THE GREAT CIRCLE : THE PREHISTORIC ALIGNMENT OF WORLD WONDERS

2008-07-10T05:28:00.000+08:00

Great circles are straight lines that go all the way around the center of the earth. The equator is a great circle. Meridians of longitude that cross over the north and south poles are also great circles. For every location on a great circle, it's antipodal location is also on the circle. Other than the equator itself, any great circle crosses the equator at two antipodal locations, 180° apart. Other than the equator and meridians of longitude that run due north and south, any great circle reaches it's maximum latitudes at two locations that are 90° of longitude east and west of the two locations where the great circle crosses the equator.

Easter Island, Nazca, Ollantaytambo, Paratoari, Tassili n'Ajjer and Giza are all aligned on a single great circle. Additional ancient sites that are located within one tenth of one degree of this great circle include Petra; Perseopolis; Khajuraho; Pyay, Sukothai and Anatom Island.

Near Ollantaytambo, Machupicchu and Cuzco are within one quarter of a degree. The Oracle at Siwa in the western Egyptian desert is within one quarter of a degree. In the Indus Valley, Mohenjo Daro and Ganweriwala are within one quarter of a degree. The ancient Sumerian city of Ur and Angkor temples in Cambodia and Thailand are within one degree of the great circle. The Angkor temple at Preah Vihear is within one quarter of a degree.

This circle crosses over the source and the mouth of the Amazon, the dividing line between upper and lower Egypt, the mouth of the Tigris-Euphrates, the Indus River and the Bay of Bengal near the mouth of the Ganges. The circle also crosses over a number of areas of the world that are largely unexplored, including the Sahara Desert, the Brazilian Rainforest, the highlands of New Guinea, and underwater areas of the North Atlantic Ocean, the South Pacific Ocean and the South China Sea.

The alignment of these sites is easily observable on a globe of the earth with a horizon ring. Aligning any two of these sites on the horizon ring will align all of these sites on the ring. 3-D world atlas software programs will also draw this great circle around the earth. The four images below are centered on the two locations where the great circle crosses the equator and the two locations where the great circle reaches it's maximum latitudes. The circle crosses over the equator at 48° 36' west longitude and 131° 24' east longitude. The maximum latitude of the circle is 30° 22' north latitude at 41° 24' east longitude and 30° 22' south latitude at 138° 36' west longitude.

All great circles have two antipodal axis points. The two axis points for the equator are the north and south poles. Every point along the equator is equally distant at 90°, or one quarter of the circumference of the earth, from the north and south poles. For any great circle, the distance from the axis points to any point along the circle is one quarter of the circumference of the earth. For any great circle other than the equator, the longitude of the axis points are 90° east and west of the two points where the great circle crosses the equator.

Great circles that run due north-south along meridians of longitude have their axis points on the equator, 90° of longitude east and west of the points where the meridian circle crosses the equator and 90° of latitude from the poles where meridian circles reach their maximum latitudes. The distance from the axis points to any point along a meridian circle is one quarter of the circumference of the earth, but 90° of longitude from the axis point to the point where the meridian circle crosses the equator is 6,225 miles, while 90° of latitude from the axis point to the maximum latitude of the meridian circle at the poles is 6,215 miles. This is because the polar circumference of the earth is 24,860 miles, while the equatorial circumference is 24,901 miles, due to the bulge of the earth at the equator and the flattening of the earth at the poles.

Our modern system of calculating degrees of latitude from the equator to the poles is based on the north-south angular change along the surface of the earth. As a result, degrees of latitude are slightly longer at the poles, where the earth is flatter, and slightly shorter at the bulge of the equator. For great circles other than the equator and other than meridian circles, the north-south distance from the axis points to the great circle crosses over the pole in one direction, while it crosses over the equator in the other direction. As a result, the latitude of the axis points must be adjusted slightly to compensate for the longer distance of degrees of latitude at the poles and the shorter distance of degrees of latitude at the equator.

The two axis points for the great circle illustrated above are located at 59° 53' north latitude and 138° 36' west longitude and at 59° 53' south latitude and 41° 24' east longitude. The southern axis point is in deep water approximately 500 miles from the coast of Antarctica. The northern axis point is in the northwestern corner of Canadian British Columbia on a glaciated ridge line approximately 6,500 feet above sea level. The circumference of this great circle is 24,892 miles. This is slightly less than the equatorial circumference of the earth, but closer to the equatorial than the polar circumference because the maximum latitude of the great circle is closer to the equator than the poles, and because most of the shortening of the polar circumference is due to the flattening of the earth near the poles.

The chart below lists the distance of each site from the great circle and the distance of each site from the northern axis point. There are slight variations in the distance from the axis point to the great circle depending on whether the route from the axis point to different locations along the great circle crosses over the equator or polar regions. The mean distance from the axis point to the great circle is 6,218 miles.

	Latitude	Longitude	To Great Circle:	To Axis Point:
Giza	29° 59' N	31° 09' E	0 miles	6.219 miles
Siwa	29° 14' N	25° 31' E	10 miles	6,231 miles
Tassili n'Ajjer	26° 32' N	9° 50' E	0 miles	6,218 miles
Paratoari	12° 48' S	71° 25' W	0 miles	6,219 miles
Ollantaytambo	13° 15' S	72° 16' W	0 miles	6,220 miles
Machupicchu	13° 06' S	72° 35' W	15 miles	6,206 miles
Nazca	14° 42' S	75° 06' W	0 miles	6,221 miles
Easter Island	27° 06' S	109° 20' W	0 miles	6,221 miles
Aneityum Island	20° 10' S	169° 48' E	8 miles	6,230 miles
Preah Vihear	14° 24' N	104° 40' E	25 miles	6,241 miles
Sukhothai	17° 01' N	99° 42' E	5 miles	6,226 miles
Pyay	19° 15' N	95° 05' E	5 miles	6,213 miles
Khajuraho	24° 51' N	79° 56' E	12 miles	6,206 miles
Mohenjo Daro	27° 15' N	68° 17' E	20 miles	6,243 miles
Persepolis	29° 56' N	52° 55' E	5 miles	6,215 miles
Ur	30° 57' N	46° 07' E	40 miles	6,173 miles
Petra	30° 19' N	35° 28' E	6 miles	6,213 miles

The sites listed above are shown clockwise from Giza on the equal azimuthal projection below. The projection is centered on the axis point in southeastern Alaska. Distances to any location from the center of an equal azimuthal projection are equally scaled. Since all of the sites on the great circle alignment are equally distant from the axis point at one quarter of the circumference of the earth, the alignment forms a perfect circle halfway between the center and the outer edge of the projection.

UFO, A Mysteries Thing

2008-07-10T02:05:00.002+08:00

What's a UFO?

Since man first started looking up into the skies he saw things he couldn't explain. For the last fifty years or so these things have taken on the label "UFOs." Originally an abbreviation for the Air Force term "Unidentified Flying Object", it has become a synonym to most people for "Alien Spaceship." For the Air Force, though, it is simply a term to refer to something in the skies that the observer can see but not recognize. Usually the explanation is less extraordinary than a flying saucer manned by visitors from other worlds. Often a weather balloon or natural phenomenon is the cause. However, there are cases on record where no good common explanation was ever found.

Photo from the cover of
Ufo Mysteries: A Reporter Seeks the Truth
by Curt Sutherly

Dr. J. Allen Hynek, astronomer, foremost proponent of UFOs, and the one who came up with the expression "close encounters of the third kind," defines a UFO as:

The reported perception of an object or light seen in the sky or upon land the appearance, trajectory, and general dynamic and luminescent behaviour of which do not suggest a logical, conventional explanation and which is not only mystifying to the original percipients but remains unidentified after close scrutiny of all available evidence by persons who are technically capable of making a common sense identification, if one is possible.

What Hynek considers to be "all available evidence" may be much less than what a skeptic would require. For example, the evidence appealed to by UFOlogists consists of (1) the testimony of people who claim to have seen aliens and/or alien spacecraft; (2) facts about the type of people who give the testimony; (3) the lack of contrary testimony or physical evidence that would either explain the sighting by conventional means (weather balloon, prank, meteor shower, reflection of light, etc.) or discredit the reliability of the eyewitness; and, (4) alleged weaknesses in the arguments of skeptics against the UFOlogists. The last item is irrelevant to the issue, yet it plays a disproportionately large role in UFOlogy.

It seems reasonable to believe that the only reason we cannot explain these sightings by conventional means is because we do not have all the evidence - not because these sightings are probably due to alien visitations. If we had all the evidence, we would probably be able to explain the sightings by some conventional means. The fact that we cannot prove that Mr. and Mrs. Barney Hill were not abducted by aliens, does not support the hypothesis that they were abducted by aliens.

Many UFOlogists think that if eyewitnesses such as Whitley Strieber, Betty and Barney Hill, or other alleged alien abductees are not insane or evil, then they cannot be deluded and are to be trusted with giving accurate accounts of alien abduction. Yet, it seems obvious that most sane, good, normal people are deluded about many things and not to be trusted about certain things.

UFOlogists would rather follow their faulty logic than accept the conclusions of Project Blue Book, the U.S. Air Force report which states that "after twenty-two years of investigation...none of the unidentified objects reported and evaluated posed a threat to our national security." (It was in this Blue Book that Edward Ruppelt coined the term "UFO.") UFOlogists are unimpressed with the Condon Report, as well. Edward U. Condon was the head of a scientific research team which was contracted to the University of Colorado to examine the UFO issue. His report concluded that "nothing has come from the study of UFOs in the past 21 years that has added to scientific knowledge...further extensive study of UFOs probably cannot be justified in the expectation that science will be advanced thereby."

It is assumed by UFOlogists that the government, especially the CIA, is lying and covering up alien landings and communication. However, there is no evidence for this other than a general distrust of the government and the fact that many government officials have lied, distorted the truth and been mistaken when reporting to the general public. The CIA, however, has shown little interest in UFOs since about 1950, except to encourage UFOlogists to believe that reconnaissance flights might be alien craft. UFOlogists prefer another kind of lie to the government lie. They support the work of NBC, for example, which produced two dozen programs called "Project UFO," said to be based on Project Blue Book. However, unlike the Air Force, NBC suggested that there were documented cases of alien spacecraft sightings. The programs, produced by Jack Webb of Dragnet fame, distorted and falsified information to make the presentation look more believable. No UFOlogist took NBC to task for lying. To the skeptic, NBC was pandering to the taste of the viewing audience. Government agents lie for all sorts of reasons, but covering up alien landings does not seem to be one of them.

Most unidentified flying objects are eventually identified as hoaxes or astronomical events, aircraft, satellites, weather balloons, or other natural phenomena. In studies done by the Air Force, less than 2% of UFO sightings remain unidentifiable. It is more probable that with more information those 2% would be identified as meteors, aircraft, etc., than that they are alien spacecraft.

The reason no logical explanation seems credible to UFOlogists is probably because those making and hearing the reports either do not want to hear a logical explanation or they make little or no effort to find one. In any case, the fact that some pilots or scientists claim they cannot think of any logical explanations for some perceptual observations is hardly proof that they have observed alien spacecraft.

If They are Out There, Where?

If we do assume there is intelligent life in places other than Earth, where might they be? Though scientists last century thought the planet Mars might be a good candidate, and some even thought they detected a huge canal system stretching across the planet, recent probes sent to Mars have failed to detect even bacteria-like creatures, let alone a civilization capable of producing a flying saucer. With the rest of the planets in our solar system seemingly too hot or cold, the best hope for intelligent life seems to be across the void of interstellar space in other parts of our galaxy.

In an attempt to detect intelligent life beyond our solar system researchers have conducted a number of SETI programs trying to use radio waves to detect the existence of other civilizations. So far no SETI program has been successful in finding intelligent life, but there are millions of stars in our galaxy alone that might have planets that could harbor life and carefully looking at each one of them will take a long time.

Is there intelligent life on other planets? Have they visited us on Earth? Are some UFOs alien spaceships? Or are there other explanations for saucers in the sky? Nobody has final proof one way or another. We need to keep open eyes and open minds.

Finally, it should be noted that UFOs are usually observed by untrained skywatchers and almost never by professional or amateur astronomers, people who spend inordinate amounts of time observing the heavens above. One would think that astronomers would have spotted some of these alien craft. Perhaps the crafty aliens know that good scientists are skeptical and inquisitive. Such beings might pose a threat to the security of a story well-told.

'From more sources'

The Great Mystery : The Extinction of Dinosaurs

2008-07-08T18:09:00.003+08:00

One of the great mysteries in science is the extinction of the dinosaurs at the end of the Mesozoic era some 65 million years ago. Who (or more likely what) caused it is unknown and a subject of great debate.

Dinosaurs appeared at the beginning of the Mesozoic era and were the dominant form of life for the next 140 million years. They lived almost everywhere there was land including Antarctica. We can see their bones in the geological record laid down over time. The lower stratum of rock contains the earliest and most primitive species of dinosaur, and the upper stratum contains the newer species.

There have been many mass extinctions throughout the history of the Earth. Probably the most famous is the extinction that finally saw the end of the dinosaurs reign on the Earth, 65 million years ago. It wasn't just the dinosaurs that died out in this extinction. Whatever caused the death of the dinosaurs also caused the death of around 70% of all of the species on the Earth. Although the dinosaurs had been in a period of decline, it is thought that their recovery was prevented by some sort of catastrophic event. There are many theories about why the dinosaurs finally became extinct, some of which are more than a little outlandish.

Then, suddenly, at a geological strata line called the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary (often referred to as the K-T Boundary), the dinosaurs disappear.

The K-T Boundary and Iridium

In the late 1970's Luis and Walter Alvarez (father and son) along with a team of scientists from the University of California were making a study of the rocks around the K-T boundary in Gubbio, Italy. In particular they were looking at an unusual layer of clay at the boundary point which contained an unusual spike in the amounts of the rare element iridium. This spike revealed that the levels of iridium contained in the clay were roughly 30 times the normal levels. In parts per million iridium is present in the following amounts,

Crustal Average - 0.001
Granite - 0.00001
Diabase - 0.003

(The term diabase is used to describe certain types of gabbro.) From these figures it can be seen that iridium is an extremely rare element, so it's discovery in 'large' amounts indicates that something serious happened. There are 2 sources of iridium, the main source comes from outer space in the form of cosmic dust which is constantly showering the planet. A second source is the Earth's core when there are eruptions of certain types of volcano. It is believed that the iridium, plus many other rare elements, were carried down and concentrated in to the Earth's core while the Earth was still largely molten. During this time certain types of primitive chondritic meteorites were formed where no concentration could have taken place due to rapid cooling. This means that it is possible that within the primitive chondritic meteorites there could be reasonable levels of iridium. From this information it can be seen that there are only two possible theories to explain the increased presence of iridium in the clay layer either an asteroid strike or a massive volcanic eruption.

Asteroid Signature

Tunguska Fireball

On June 30, 1908, the area near the Tunguska River in Siberia was the site of a remarkable explosion. The explosion, which took place at an altitude of roughly 8 km, had a force that was roughly equivalent to a 10-megaton atomic bomb. The explosion caused a shock-wave that flattened forests covering an area of more than 1000 square kilometers and killed herds of reindeer and other animals. No crater was formed, and aside from some microscopic nodules extracted from the soil, no recognizable fragments of the object remain. Scientists generally believe that the explosion was caused by an object with an approximate weight of 100,000 tons.

The Asteroid Theory

The Barringer Meteor Cater in Arizona though impressive, is only about a mile wide. Just a fraction of the 130 mile wide crater left by the asteroid that ended the Mesozoic Era. (Copyright Lee Krystek, 2008).

The first people to suggest the asteroid theory were the team lead by Luis and Walter Alvarez. It has been calculated that a chondritic asteroid approximately 10km in diameter would contain enough iridium to account for the iridium spike contained in the clay layer. Since the original discovery of the iridium spike other evidence has come to light to support the asteroid theory. Analysis of the clay layer has revealed the presence of soot within the layer. It is thought that the presence of the soot comes from the very large global fires that would have been the result of the large temperatures caused by an impact. Something else that was found within the clay were quartz crystals that had been physically altered. This alteration only occurs under conditions of extreme temperature and pressure and quartz of this type is known as shocked quartz. Despite all of this evidence many geologists did not believe in this theory and many were saying 'show us the crater'.

Blasted Rock

The parallel lines on this sample of quartz show what happens when this particular mineral is subjected to extremely high temperatures and pressures such as those obtained from meteorite impacts or nuclear explosions. (Courtesy of United States Geological Survey)

In 1990 a scientist called Alan Hildebrand was looking over some old geophysical data that had been recorded by a group of geophysicists searching for oil in the Yucatan region of Mexico. Within the data he found evidence of what could have been an impact site. What he 'found' was a ring structure 180km in diameter which was called Chicxulub. The location of this structure was just off the northwest tip of the Yucatan Peninsula. The crater has been dated (using the 40Ar/39Ar method) as being 65 million years old. The size of the crater is comparable to that which would have been caused by an impacting body with a diameter of roughly 10km.So we now have some of the proof of the asteroid theory. We know that a chondritic meteorite with a diameter of 10km contains enough iridium to cause a spike. We also know that about 65 million years ago there was an impact of a large object. The big question is what were the results, and how did they effect the dinosaurs.

The Yucatan Peninsuka

A map showing the probable location of the crater formed by the impact of the K-T meteorite.

Chicxulub, Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico

This three-dimensional map of local gravity and magnetic field variations shows a multi-ringed structure called Chicxulub named after a village located near its center. The impact basin is buried by several hundred meters of sediment, hiding it from view. This image shows the basin viewed obliquely from approximately 60° above the surface looking north, with artificial lighting from the south. (Courtesy of V. L. Sharpton, LPI)

If a 10km diameter object impacted at the point at which it struck it would have a velocity of roughly 100,000 km/h. At this velocity there would have been an initial blast (with an estimated force of many millions of tons of TNT) which would have destroyed everything within a radius of between 400 and 500km, including the object. At the same time large fires would have been started by the intense shock wave which would have traveled long distances. Trillions of tons of debris (dust, gases and water vapour) would have been thrown into the atmosphere when the object vaporized. Many enormous tidal waves would be started causing even more damage, the evidence of such waves has been found all the way round the Gulf of Mexico. Along with the tidal waves the blast would also start a chain reaction of earthquakes and volcanic activity there would have also been very high winds caused by the blast. In the days and weeks following the impact the cloud of debris would have been carried over large distances by the post blast high winds. This will have caused months of darkness and a decrease in global temperatures. After this there would have been an increase in temperatures caused by the large amounts of CO2 released by what would have been global fires. Eventually this would cause chemical reactions that would result in the formation of acid rains.

Dino Killer?

The Double Whammy Theory

It may be that the dinosaurs were not just the victim of a single event, but a string of bad luck. Professor Arens has carefully looked at this idea and has attempted to measure the extinction rate of species during periods when there were major asteroid impacts, periods of massive volcanic eruptions and periods when neither were happening. Surprisingly, the rate of extinction for each type of period is about the same. What she discovered, however, is that during periods when both massive volcanic eruptions and impacts were taking place at the same time extinction rate climbs. This suggests that no single disaster event might cause mass extinctions, but a combination of two or more are needed for it to happen, hitting life on earth with a "double whammy."

The fossil record shows that the mass extinction that killed the dinosaurs wasn't the only one that has occurred in our planet's history. The earth has suffered a number of such traumatic events over its life. In fact the K-T extinction wasn't even the largest. The Permian-Triassic (P-Tr) extinction event, sometimes referred to as the Great Dying, occurred about 250 million years ago and eliminated 90 percent of known species from the planet. As with the K-T extinction, nobody is quite sure what caused this disaster.

Are They All Dead?

Did any of the dinosaurs survive the extinction? Scientists have very rarely found bones of dinosaurs buried above the K-T Boundary. A single Hadrosaur leg bone found in the San Juan Basin, New Mexico, might suggest that a small population of these dinosaurs survived as long as a half a million years into the following Paleocene era. However, it is also possible that the fossils in question, which are very few in number, were unearthed by some geologic event, then reburied at a higher level.

Occasionally stories still appear about dinosaurs being found still alive today in some remote location of the world (for example, the legend of mok'ele-mbembe in Africa). While there are several famous fictional books like Arthur Conan-Doyle's The Lost World on this subject, there is no hard evidence that any dinosaur, other than the birds, their avian decedents, have survived into modern times.

It is likely scientists will continue to puzzle over the death of the dinosaurs for many years to come. Part of the mystery of K-T extinction is why certain species died out while others survived. Mososaurs went extinct while other marine reptiles, like crocodiles, are still around. If climate change is responsible why did the dinosaurs, hearty creatures that lived in all kinds of conditions all over the planet, die when frogs, who are much more sensitive to temperature change, still survive today?

3-D Supercomputer Solves Mystery of the Great 1908 Siberian Explosion

2008-07-08T17:49:00.001+08:00

The awesome explosion and devastation at Tunguska a century ago in Siberia -the largest impact event in recent history- may have been caused by an asteroid only a fraction as large as previously published estimates. The Sandia National Laboratories supercomputer simulations run counter to prior theories of a mini black hole or comet as the cause.

The energy of the blast was estimated to be between 10 and 20 megatons of TNT — 1,000 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan. The explosion felled an estimated 80 million trees over 2,150 square kilometers, and measured 5.0 on the Richter scale.

“The asteroid that caused the extensive damage was much smaller than we had thought,” says Sandia principal investigator Mark Boslough of the impact that occurred June 30, 1908. “That such a small object can do this kind of destruction suggests that smaller asteroids are something to consider. Their smaller size indicates such collisions are not as improbable as we had believed.”

Because smaller asteroids approach Earth statistically more frequently than larger ones, he says, “We should be making more efforts at detecting the smaller ones than we have till now.”

The new 3-D simulation — which more closely matches the widely known facts of destruction than earlier models — shows that the center of mass of an asteroid exploding above the ground is transported downward at speeds faster than sound. It takes the form of a high-temperature fireball of expanding gas, which causes stronger blast waves and thermal radiation pulses at the surface than would be predicted by an explosion limited to the height at which the blast was initiated.

“Our understanding was oversimplified,” says Boslough, “We no longer have to make the same simplifying assumptions, because present-day supercomputers allow us to do things with high resolution in 3-D. Everything gets clearer as you look at things with more refined tools.”

The new interpretation also accounts for the fact that winds were amplified above ridgelines where trees tended to be blown down, and that the forest at the time of the explosion, according to foresters, was not healthy. Thus previous scientific estimates had overstated the devastation caused by the asteroid, since topographic and ecologic factors contributing to the result had not been taken into account.

“There’s actually less devastation than previously thought,” says Boslough, “but it was caused by a far smaller asteroid. Unfortunately, it’s not a complete wash in terms of the potential hazard, because there are more smaller asteroids than larger ones.”

Boslough and colleagues achieved fame more than a decade ago by accurately predicting that that the fireball caused by the intersection of the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 with Jupiter would be observable from Earth.

Simulations show that the material of an incoming asteroid is compressed by the increasing resistance of Earth’s atmosphere. As it penetrates deeper, the more and more resistant atmospheric wall causes it to explode as an airburst that precipitates the downward flow of heated gas.

Because of the additional energy transported toward the surface by the fireball, what scientists had thought to be an explosion between 10 and 20 megatons was more likely only three to five megatons. The physical size of the asteroid, says Boslough, depends upon its speed and whether it is porous or nonporous, icy or waterless, and other material characteristics. “Any strategy for defense or deflection should take into consideration this revised understanding of the mechanism of explosion,” says Boslough.

Extraterrestrial fragments from the impact event have yet to be recovered. A team of Italian scientists believes that a hunk of asteroid may be in a nearby lake, buried deep within a submerged impact crater.

Although Sandia's report doesn't specify the likely size of the Tunguska asteroid, it demonstrates the threat of relatively small near-earth objects. And hard as it is to spot the massive rocks hurtling in Earth's general direction, such as the 1150-ft. asteroid Apophis, smaller asteroids are far more numerous, and even more difficult to track.

Source : dailygalaxy.com

The Legend of Count Dracula

2008-07-08T12:02:00.011+08:00

About The Dracul

Vlad Dracul was the father of Vlad The Impaler (1430 - 1477), the person who has been identified as the historical Dracula. He was the illegitimate son of Prince Mircea, the ruler of Wallachia, the area of present-day Romania south of the Carpathian Mountains. His Mother might have been Princess Mara of the Tomaj family of Hungary. He possibly spent a period of his youth at the court of Sigismund I of Luxembourg, the king of Hungary, as a token of faithfulness of Mircea's alliance with Sigismund. Thus, Vlad might have grown up in Buda and in locations in Germany. He married and had a son, also named Mircea.

In 1430 Vlad appeared in Transylvania as an official in charge of securing the Transylvanian border with Wallachia. He resided in Sighisoara, where toward the end of the year his second son, Vlad (later called Vlad the Impaler or Dracula) was born. Shortly after the child's birth, it became known that Sigismund had selected Vlad as his candidate to rule Wallachia. Vlad was invited to Nuremberg to be invested by the Order Of The Dragon.

Now bearing the title of prince of Wallachia, he was unable to secure the throne. He eventually created a powerful alliance by marrying Eupraxia, the sister of the ruler of Muldavia, as a second wife. In 1436 he was finally able to secure the Wallachian throne, and in the winter of 1436-37 he moved to Tirgoviste, the Wallachian capital. He had three other children : Radu, a second son also named Vlad (commonly referred to as Vlad the Monk), and a second son named Mircea.

In 1437, following the death of Sigismund, Vlad Dracul signed an alliance with the Turks, In March 1442 he allowed Mezid-Bey to pass through Wallachia and attack Transylvania. However, the Turkish army was defeated and the Hungarian army pursued Mezid-Bey back through Wallachia and drove Vlad Dracul from the throne in the process. He took refuge among the Turks, with whose help he regained the throne the following year. To secure the new relationship, Vlad Dracul left two sons, Vlad and Radu, in Turkish hands. Then, in 1444, Hungary moved against the Turks. Vlad Dracul, attempting to keep his pledge to the sultan but also aware of his obligations to the Christian Community, sent a small contingent to assist the Hungarian forces. They met with a resounding defeat, which Vlad Dracul and his son Mircea blamed on John Hunyadi, the governor of Hungary. In 1447 Hunyadi led a war against Vlad. The decisive battle was fought near Tirgoviste, and as a result Vlad was killed and Mircea captured by the Romanian boyars (the ruling elite) and tortured and killed.

The year after Vlad Dracul's death his son Vlad Dracula ("son of Dracul") attempted to assume his throne. He was unable to do so until 1456. Soon after becoming prince of Wallachia, he avenged the death of his father and brother.

About The Dracula

Vlad the Impaler
(1431 - 1476)

Vlad Dracula was born around the year 1431 in Sighisoara, Transylvanea.

The name Dracula was applied to Vlad during his lifetime. It was derived from Drac, a Romanian word that can be interpreted variously as "devil" or "dragon". Vlad's father had joined the Order of the Dragon, a Christian brotherhood dedicated to fighting the Turks, in 1431, shortly after Vlad's birth. The oath of the order required, among other things, wearing the order's insignia at all times. The name Dracula means son of Dracul or son of the dragon or devil.

In December 1447 Vlad's father was murdered and brother burned alive under the orders of Hungarian governor John Hunyadi with the assistance of the boyars, the ruling elite families of Wallachia. The death of Mircea made Vlad the successor, but with Hunyadi's backing.

Vladislav II, a member of another branch of the family, assumed the Wallachian throne. Vlad tried to claim the throne in 1448, but his reign lasted only a couple of months before he was forced to flee to the neighboring kingdom of Moldavia. In 1451, while he was at Suceava, the Moldavian capital, the ruler was assassinated. For whatever reasons, Vlad then went to Transylvania and placed himself at the mercy of Hunyadi. The alliance between Hunyadi and Vlad may have been possible by Vladislav II's adoption of pro-Turkish policy which alienated Hunyadi. Vlad fought beside Hunyadi, who in the end acknowledged Vlad's claim to the Wallachian throne.

Hunyadi dies of the plague at Belgrade on August 11, 1456. Immediately after that event, Vlad left Transylvania for Wallachia. He defeated Vladislav II and on August 20 caught up with the fleeing prince and killed him. Vlad then began his six year reign, during with his reputation was established. In September he took both a formal oath to Hungarian King Ladislaus V and, a few days later, an oath of vassalage to the Turkish sultan.

Vlad's brutal manner of terrorizing his enemies and the seemingly arbitrary manner in which he had people punished earned him the nickname "Tepes" or "the Impaler" the common name by which he is known today.

At Castle Dracula he was faced with overwhelming odds, his army having melted away. He chose to survive by escaping through a secret tunnel and then over the Carpathians into Transylvania. His wife according to local legend, committed suicide before the Turks overran the castle. In Transylvania he presented himself to the new king of Hungary, Matthias Corvinus, who arrested him. At this time the first publications of stories of Vlad's cruelties were circulating through Europe. Vlad was imprisoned at the Hungarian capital, by 1475 events had shifted to the point that he emerged as the best candidate to retake the Wallachian throne. In the summer of 1475 he was again recognized as the prince of Wallachia. His end came at the hand of an assassin at some point toward the end of December 1476 or early January 1477.

What About Blood Drinking?

Even though Romanian tales of Dracula do not label him a vampire, Radu r. Florescu and Raymond T. McNally have found mention of Dracula drinking the blook of his victims. Dracula often had dinner wile he watched the execution he had ordered, and on one documented occasion, he included the blood of one of the executed in his meal(it is believed that he dipped his bread into it). However, there is not enough available evidence to show that he drank blood at any other time in his life.

If Dracula really did drink blood, it might have been to show his tltimate power over his subjects. Because of the lack of other evidence, Dracula is the least likely candidate for a true mortal blood drinker. Unlike some of those whose descriptions follow, Dracula did not seem to thrive on the act of drinking blood, but rather on tis shedding. He is included in here to show how Stoker's model for a fictional vampire acutally did drink blood, at aleast once. However, Dracula provides another mystery that warrants his inclusion in this book.

Stoker said in his novel(through the medium of Dr. Van Helsing) that Dracula possessed such willpower that combined with the strange occult forces of the land from which he came, he was able to return from the dead as a vampire. That willpower, Stoker mentions, certainly was a trait of the real Prince Dracula, and as for returning from the dead, there is a mystery surrounding Vlad Dracula's death and burial.

Dracula and Other Vampire Beliefs

Belief in vampires and the power of blood is as old as mankind. Early man smeared himself in blood and sometimes drank it. The ancient Chinese, Egyptians, Babylonians, Greeks, and Romans all believed in vampires. The Jewish Talmud tells of Lilith, Adam's disobedient first wife, who was transformed into a monster roaming the night.

In the Americas, the early Indians of Peru believed in devil worshippers who sucked blood from sleeping youths to get their life, while the Aztecs sacrificed victims to ensure the sun would continue to rise, removing the beating hearts from their victims and holding them high in the air.

In Transylvania, with its blend of Hungarian, Romanian, and Gypsy beliefs, belief in vampires has been particularly strong. Orthodox Christians believe the soul does not leave the body for the afterlife until 40 days after burial. When an Orthodox Christian is excommunicated, or converts to another faith, it is said that the earth will not receive his body, forcing him to wander.

Some Mongolian peoples of Central Asia believe in the vampire and a bat god. Since Hungarians migrated to Europe from the steppes of Asia, it is probable they shared this belief. However, vampire bats, which fly at night and suck blood from animals, primarily oxen, are only found in parts of Mexico and Central America.

About Castle of Dracula

As described in the famous novel by Bram Stoker, the castle was near the Borgo Pass. It was reached from Pasul Tihuts, a point near the summit of the crossing, on a road way leading south into the high mountains. The castle sat on a great rock overlooking the surrounding forest which was sliced by several rivers.

The castle was built so that attack was impossible. The large windows were placed above the level that arrows and other objects could not reach.

The most common place to look for the castle would be by the Borgo Pass and in fact there are two castles in that area. The first was built in the 13th century, by the 15th century most of the castle was removed, because of lack of use.

(Looking down from inside Castle Dracula)

Of the two castles that Dacula found, the Castle of Arges was in the more strategic position, possibly the major reason for his choice to rebuild it instead of settling at Poenari. It was located on a precipice overlooking the River Arges.

Vlad's Castle was quite small when compared to either Bran Castle or Hundoara. To the north were the mountains dividing Transylvania and Wallachia, and to the south, a commanding view of the countryside. There were three towers and walls thick enough to resist Turkish cannon fire, with room for 300 people. According to legend, a secret staircase led into the mountain to a tunnel, which in turn, led to a grotto that opened on the bank of the river below the castle.

The Turks attacked and captured the castle in 1462. Vlad escaped north through the mountains, but his castle was severly damaged. It was used by some of his successors as a mountain retreat but it was gradually abandoned.

In 1912 the towers of the castle still stood. On January 13 1913 an earthquake caused the main tower to fall into the river. A second earthquake in 1940 did further damage. In 1970 with a growing interest in Dracula, the Romanian government carried out a partial reconstruction and built a walkway up the mountain side to the entrance of the castle. Castle Dracula can be reached by car and a 45 min walk up the walkway to the entrance.

Bran Castle has often been touted, especially by the Romanian tourist board, as the real Castle Dracula. It is possible that Vlad Dracula visited the castle on occasion in the early 1450's. It has an inner courtyard and a secret underground passageway. A steep winding staircase could take a person to a secret escape route deep inside the mountain. Dracula may have drawn, in part, from his knowledge of Bran Castle when he built his own mountain retreat.
A must see for tourists, Bran Castle is much larger and in much better shape then Castle Dracula. Complete with kitchen, eating area, prison and good security from the courtyard, Bran Castle still stands majestic as it did so many years ago.

Source : Geocities, Factmonster.com

Black Holes and Time Machines

2008-07-07T23:37:00.000+08:00

If we are to get to travel to distant regions of space and time then first we need to get to grips with that most exotic of phenomena…the Black Hole…

Ever since the beginning, gravity has been making our universe less and less uniform and building up ever-larger contrasts of density and temperature. In the end, gravity overwhelms all the other forces in stars, and in anything larger, even though the effects of rotation and nuclear energy delay its final victory.

There are some entities in which gravity has already triumphed over all other forces. These are black holes - objects that have collapsed so far that no light or any other signal can escape them, but that nonetheless leave imprints, distortions of space and time, frozen in the space they've left.

An Astronaut who ventured too close to a black hole would pass into a region from which there is no return and from where no light signals can be transmitted to the external world; it is as though space itself were being sucked inward faster than light moves through it. An external observer would never witness the falling astronaut's final fate: any clock would appear to run slower and slower as it fell inward, into the hole, so the astronaut would appear impaled at a horizon, frozen in time.

The Russian theorists Yakov Zeldovich and Igor Novikov, who studied how time was distorted near collapsed objects, coined the term 'frozen star' for such objects. Zeldovich, one of the last polymaths of physics, holds a prominent place in modern cosmology. He was a dynamic and charismatic personality; from the 1960s onward, his research school in Moscow spearheaded many key discoveries (even though cosmology and relativity had previously been ideologically tainted in the USSR). The term 'black hole' itself was not coined until 1968, when John Wheeler described how an infalling object 'becomes dimmer millisecond by millisecond…light and particles incident from outside …go down the black hole only to add to its mass and increase its gravitational attraction."

Artists impression of a Black Hole - Possibly as heavy as 2.6 million Suns!

Black holes, the most remarkable consequences of Einstein's theory, are not just theoretical constructs. There are huge numbers of them in our Galaxy and in every other galaxy, each being the remnant of a star and weighing several times as much as the Sun. There are much larger ones, too, in the centres of galaxies. Near our own galactic centre, stars are orbiting ten times faster than their normal speeds within a galaxy. They are feeling, close up, the gravity of a dark object, presumably a black hole, as heavy as 2.6 million suns. Yet our Galaxy is poorly endowed compared to some others, in whose centres lurk holes more massive than a billion suns, betraying their presence by the high speed motions of surrounding stars and gas, induced by their gravitational pull.

Black holes are among the most exotic entities in the cosmos. But they are actually among the best understood. They are constructed from the fabric of space itself and are as simple in structure as elementary particles. A newly formed black hole quickly settles down to a standardised stationary state characterised stationary state characterised by just two numbers: those that measure its mass and its spin. (In principle, electric charge is a third such number, but stars can never acquire enough electric charge for this factor to be relevant to real collapse). The distorted space and time around black holes is described exactly by a solution of Einstein's general relativity equations that was first discovered in 1963 by Roy Kerr, a mathematician who later forsook research to become an internationally recognised bridge player. In general, macroscopic objects seem more and more complicated as we view them closer up, and we can't expect to explain their every detail; but black holes are an exception to this rule.

Viewed from outside, no traces remain that distinguish how a particular hole formed, nor what kind of object it swallowed. The great Indian astrophysicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar was deeply impressed by this realisation, aesthetically as well as scientifically: " In my entire scientific life," he wrote, "the most shattering experience has been the realisation that an exact solution of Einstein's equations of general relativity, discovered by the New Zealand mathematician Roy Kerr, provides the absolutely exact representation of untold numbers of massive black holes that populate the Universe." Roger Penrose, the theorist who perhaps did most of to stimulate the renaissance in relativity theory that occurred in the 1960s, has remarked. "It is ironic that the astrophysical object which is strangest and least familiar, the black hole, should be the one for which our theoretical picture is most complete". The discovery of black holes thus opened the way to testing the most remarkable consequences of Einstein's theory.

Black Holes interest astronomers because the flow patterns and magnetic fields around them generate some of the most spectacular pyrotechnics in the universe. But they challenge basic physics as well. Around any black holes is a horizon, a surface shrouding from view an interior from which not even light can escape. A hole's size is proportional to its mass: if the sun became a black hole, its radius would be 3 kilometres, but some of the supermassive holes in galactic centres are as big as our whole solar system. If you fell inside one of these monster holes, you would be treated to several hours of leisurely observation before you approach the centre, where increasingly violent tidal forces would shred you apart. Right at the centre, you, or your remains, would encounter the singularity where the physics transcends what we yet understand. The new physics that we'll need is the same that governs the initial instants of the Big Bang.

Fast-Forward and Backward in Time?

Good science fiction should respect the fundamental constraints of physical law. In that sprit, it is worth mentioning that an observer could, in principle, observe the far future in what, subjectively, seemed quiet a short time. According to Einstein, the speed of a clock depends on where you are and how you're moving. If your subjective clock ran very slowly compared to the cosmic clock, you could travel "fast forward" into the future. This would happen if you were moving at a velocity close to the speed of light. Furthermore, strong gravity would distort time; clocks on a neutron star would run 20 or 30 percent slower. Near a black hole, the distortions would be even greater. If you were to fall into one, your future would be finite; you would be ripped apart - spaghettified - by ever more violent gravitational forces. However, a more prudent astronaut who managed to get into the closest possible orbit around a rapidly spinning hole without falling into it would also have interesting experiences, space-time is so distorted there that his clock would run arbitrarily slow and he could, therefore, in a subjectively short period, view an immensely long future timespan in the external universe.

This elasticity in the rate of passage of time may seem counter to our intuition. But such intuition is acquired from our everyday environment (and perhaps, even more, that of our remote ancestors), which has offered us no experience of such effects. Few of us have travelled faster than a millionth of the speed of light (the speed of a jet airliner); we live on a planet where the pull of gravity is 1000 billion times weaker than on a neutron star. But time dilation entails no inconsistency or paradox.

More problematic, of course, would be time travel back into the past. More than fifty years ago, the great logician Kurt Godel discovered that the theory of general relativity did not in itself preclude a time machine. He discovered a valid solution of Einstein's equations that described a bizarre universe where some of the worldlines were close loops - in other words, you could come back into your own past. But Godel's solution was not realistic: it described a universe that was rotating and not expanding.

Other theoretical examples of systems that seem to obey the laws of physics but which allow closed loops in time have been proposed. For example, Princeton theorist Richard Gott showed that a time machine could be constructed from two so called cosmic strings - long microscopically thin tubes of hyperdense material, heavy enough to distort space. Gott and his colleague Li-Xin Li also devised a cosmological model even stranger than Godel's in which an entire universe, with a finite life cycle, traces out a loop in time so that its end is also its beginning.

One much-discussed design for a time machine involves a "wormhole": two black holes linked together by a tunnel or "spacewarp". The tunnel could exist only if it were made of a substance that has very large negative pressure (or tension). Theorists speculate that exotic stuff of this kind did exist in the early universe, but even if such material still existed, the mass needed in order to make a wormhole wide enough to be comfortably traversed by a human would be 10,000 times that of the Sun!

Wormhole Travel?

Godel's discovery and its aftermath opened up a debate. Is there a future law of physics, more restrictive than Einstein's equations that rule out such effects? One might call it a "chronology protection law". Or could a time machine in principle exist? Such an artefact plainly still lies in the hypothetical reaches of science fiction, but we can still ask whether the barriers to constructing a time machine are merely technological, or whether there is a fundamental physical law that prohibit them. (To clarify the distinction, most physicists would say that a large spaceship travelling at 99.99 percent of the speed of light is in the first category, but one that travels faster than light is in the second.)

The events on the time loop must close up self-consistently, as in a movie whose last scene recapitulates its first. Paradoxes arise if you come back into the past and undo something that was a precondition of your existence: for instance, murdering your grandmother in her cradle would raise issues of logical consistency, not just of ethics. Time travel makes sense only if some law of nature precludes inconsistency of this kind. The implication that there must be "time police" to constrain our free will might seem paradoxical. But I am convinced by the robust retort of Igor Novikov, a leading physicist who has explored these ideas, that physical laws already constrain our choices: we cannot, for instance, exercise our free will by walking on the ceiling. The prohibition on violating the consistency of a time loop is, in a sense, analogous.

Even if a time machine could be built, it would not enable us to travel back prior to the date of its construction. So the fact that we have not been invaded by tourists from the future may tell us only that no time machine has yet been made, not that it is impossible.

What is the Loch Ness Monster?

2008-07-07T23:31:00.000+08:00

As far back as the 7th Century, people have reported seeing a Loch Ness monster in Scotland. Can science explain these mysterious sightings?

The Loch Ness is a lake in Scotland that holds the largest volume of freshwater in the United Kingdom. But rather than being known for its size, it is famous for the mysterious legend of the Loch Ness monster. For hundreds of years, people have reported catching a glimpse of a huge creature in the lake while others have shared photos they claim to have taken of this sea creature. The legend is so great that even scientists have been intrigued and many have conducted experiments and come up with theories to try and explain what people could be witnessing.

Credit: Heinrich Harder, 1916

Painting of plesiosaurs, creatures thought to be most similar to people's descriptions of the Loch Ness monster.

A real creature in Loch Ness?

It has been proposed that Nessie ï¿½ as the Loch Ness monster is commonly called ï¿½ could be a prehistoric creature called a plesiosaur, an animal that spanned up to ten meters in length and has long been considered to be extinct. Adrian Shine, the leader of a British team called the Loch Ness Project, has spent over 30 years trying to rationally explain the monster sightings by researching the ecology of the region. If in fact a large creature was living in the lake, there would have to be evidence of a food chain for it to survive. A creature like the Loch Ness monster would most likely eat fish, which in turn would live off large quantities of microscopic animals called zooplankton. There would have to be enough zooplankton in the lake to support populations of larger animals.

A way of estimating the amount of zooplankton in the lake is to examine the quantities of green algae ï¿½ the bottom rung of the food chain - that zooplankton feed from. Green algae needs some light to thrive, and so by examining how deep down in the lake sunlight can penetrate, researchers can estimate the amount of green algae and following from this, the type of population that could be sustained.

Scientists have calculated that a maximum of 17 to 24 tons of fish live in the Loch Ness. For a lake of its size, it is a small amount, and would be able to keep alive about ten creatures weighing 226 kg each. According to Richard Forrest, an expert on plesiosaurs, ten creatures would not be enough to keep a colony going. ï¿½Thirty to forty creatures would be the minimum size of a breeding population,ï¿½ he says.

In addition, if creatures similar to plesiosaurs lived in the waters of the Loch Ness, they would be seen very frequently as they would have to surface several times a day to breathe. Eye witnesses have often mentioned seeing an animal throwing back its long neck from the water, but Forrest claims that plesiosaurs couldnï¿½t do that. ï¿½The simple fact is that a plesiosaurï¿½s neck is too stiff. The bones of the neck interlock and there are tall spines on top of them so the neck canï¿½t go straight out of the water,ï¿½ he says.

SONAR investigations

But it is not impossible for prehistoric creatures to still be around today. In 1938, South African fishermen caught a gigantic fish that turned out to be a Coelacanth, a prehistoric fish thought to be extinct for the past 80 million years. Because of murky water filled with peat, it has been hard for divers to properly investigate the depths of the Loch Ness and the life that exists there. The advent of SONAR ï¿½ a measuring instrument that sends sound waves into water and measures distance by calculating the time it takes for an echo to travel back to the source ï¿½ has proved to be useful for probing the mystery since the waves can detect any objects that come in their way.

In 1987, Operation Deepscan took place - the biggest SONAR exploration of Loch Ness. Boats equipped with SONAR were deployed across the whole width of the lake and they simultaneously sent out acoustic waves. BBC News reported that the scientists had made sonar contact with a large unidentified object of unusual size and strength. The researchers decided to return to the same spot and re-scan the area.

After analysing the SONAR images, it seemed to point to debris at the bottom of the lake, although three of the pictures were of moving debris. Shine speculates that they could be seals that got into the lake, since they would be of about the same magnitude as the objects detected. But no one has been able to confirm their identity.

The Surgeon's Photo: Famous picture that for a long time was considered to be the most trusted photo of the monster.

Similarly, many people have captured photos of monster-like creatures that have never been explained. Many have been dismissed as forgeries, but the most trusted one was called the Surgeonï¿½s Photo, since it was supposed to be have been taken by well-respected surgeon Robert Wilson. For about 50 years, the true story behind the picture was a mystery, but it was finally revealed to be a hoax started by a man called Marmaduke Wetherall. Attempting to prove to the world that Nessie exists, Wetherall had already claimed to have found monster-sized footprints near the Loch, but when the casts he sent to the Natural History Museum in London were analysed, they were found to be hippopotamus tracks! As revenge, he made a model of the monster and photographed it on Loch Ness. He managed to persuade Wilson to pass it off as his own, since he knew that no one would believe him after his hippo prank.

Monster earthquakes?

Although many sightings could be hoaxes, there could also be a geological interpretation: seismic activity in the lake could cause disturbances on its surface that could be mistaken for Nessie. Loch Ness is situated on the Great Glen fault line that was created by the collision of continents that formed Scotland 400 million years ago. Over 200 years ago, a major earthquake with its epicentre in Lisbon, Portugal caused water disturbances in the Loch more than 1500 km away. ï¿½Reports state that a wave about two or three feet high was seen travelling up and down Loch Ness,ï¿½ says Robert Musson, the principal seismologist at the British Geological Survey. But he claims that generally there is little seismic activity in the area and doesnï¿½t think that earthquakes can account for the repeated sightings.

Dr Luigi Piccardi, an Italian specialist in Mediterranean geology, disagrees. Currently studying events depicted in Greek mythology, he says that many of the effects described can be related to real effects during strong earthquakes. Similarly, he thinks that the same theory applies to Nessie and claims that there are recurring tremors around the town of Inverness just 16 kms away that could spread to the Loch. He plans to test his theory by conducting a detailed seismic survey in the area.

But should geological explanations fail, psychology may be able to provide some insight. Helen Ross, a psychologist and expert on illusions, thinks that myth is so powerful that people can convince themselves that an ordinary object floating in the water is a monster. ï¿½When something really ambiguous is there, people often donï¿½t know what theyï¿½re seeing and they can see all sorts of strange things,ï¿½ she says. ï¿½Itï¿½s a bit like seeing faces in the fire or ink blots appearing as all sorts of creatures.ï¿½

Until physical evidence of the Loch Ness monster is found ï¿½ like the creature itself or its skeleton ï¿½ it may be hard to convince most scientists that it exists. Perhaps the sightings are simply an example of the human fascination for mystery and intrigue, and the awe that many people have for the natural world.

The Mystery of the Bermuda Triangle

2008-07-07T23:23:00.000+08:00

Over the past century, hundreds of ships and planes have gone missing in a mysterious stretch of water in the Atlantic Ocean called the Bermuda Triangle. Is there a scientific explanation for these disappearances?

Five Avengers (USN Photo)

Miami, Puerto Rico and Bermuda are prime holiday destinations boasting sun, beaches and coral seas. But between these idyllic settings, there is a dark side: countless ships and planes have mysteriously gone missing in the one and a half million square miles of ocean separating them. About 60 years ago, the area was claiming about five planes every day and was nicknamed the Bermuda Triangle by a magazine in 1964. Today, about that many planes disappear in the region each year and there are a number of theories explaining what could be happening.

The Bermuda Triangle, a stretch of water between Puerto Rico, Bermuda and Florida, has been the site of many plane and ship disappearances.

Twins George and David Rothschild are among the first passengers to have experienced bizarre effects in the Bermuda Triangle. In 1952, when they were 19 years old, the two naval men had to make an emergency trip home on a navy light aircraft, north over the Florida Keys, to attend their fatherï¿½s funeral. ï¿½We had been flying for probably 20 or 30 minutes when all of a sudden the pilot yelled out that the instruments were dead and he became very frantic,ï¿½ says George Rothschild. He had lost his bearings, and not only did he not know where he was, he also had no idea how much gas was left in the fuel tanks. After what seemed like hours, they landed safely in Norfolk, on the Florida coast.

Some speculate that it had nothing to do with the location, but rather the instruments that were available at the time. Pilot Robert Grant says that back in the 1940s, navigating a plane involved a lot of guesswork since they relied completely on a magnetic compass to guide them. ï¿½Dead reckoningï¿½ was used, which means that pilots would trust their compass and then estimate how the wind would influence their planned flight path to remain on track. ï¿½No matter what your mind tells you, you must stay on that course,ï¿½ says Grant. ï¿½If you donï¿½t, and you start turning to wherever you think you should be going, then youï¿½re toast.ï¿½

The landscape of the island of Bermuda is quite unique: it is a remote coral reef precariously perched on a massive extinct volcano. Fisherman Sloan Wakefield, who knows the waters of the Bermuda Triangle very well, thinks that the weather could be responsible for some of the disappearances. ï¿½Because the island is a dot in the Atlantic Ocean, it gets weather from everywhere and it can change in a heartbeat. One minute, you can be looking at good weather, and the next moment youï¿½ve got a low front coming through,ï¿½ he says. He has already seen 15 to 20 foot (4.6m to 6m) waves on the sea.

Credit: NASA

An image of Tropical Storm Harvey, which hit Bermuda in August 2005.

Hurricanes are common in the Bermuda Triangle area. In the Atlantic Ocean, they typically originate off the African coast and thrive off the moisture of the warm, tropical waters. Hurricane records from the past 100 years have shown that they often head west for the United States but swerve into the waters of the Bermuda Triangle at the last minute. Jim Lushine, a meteorologist at the National Hurricane Centre in Miami, Florida studies the weather in the Bermuda Triangle and says that there are more hurricanes in that particular area than in any other in the Atlantic basin.

But thunderstorms in the area can be just as dangerous. In 1986, a historic ship called the Pride of Baltimore vanished from radar screens while it was in the Bermuda Triangle, making a trip from the Caribbean to Baltimore. About four and a half days later, the wreckage and eight survivors were found and they revealed that the ship had been hit by a microburst: 80 mile per hour winds emanating from a freak thunderstorm. It happened so quickly that the crew didnï¿½t have time to make a distress call. ï¿½The ship was sunk in the downburst, unfortunately with a great loss of life,ï¿½ says Lushine. ï¿½Similar downbursts are probably responsible for some of the sunken ships in the Bermuda Triangle.ï¿½

Even more unpredictable than thunderstorms are waterspouts. These can be caused by tornadoes that move out to sea or rotating columns of air that drop from thunderstorms, creating a vortex of spray. When the moisture condenses, it forms a twisting column that connects the sea to the clouds. Jim Edds, an amateur fisherman who chases and films waterspouts for fun, says that if you are out at night and a tornado-like waterspout develops - the really big, strong ones with high velocity - it can flip your vessel over.

Bubbling methane

Seismic activity at the bottom of the ocean can also be an explanation for disappearing ships. Scientists have discovered that huge bubbles of methane gas can violently erupt without warning from the ocean floor and at least one oil rig is thought to have sunk because of this phenomenon. Ralph Richardson, the director of the Bermuda Underwater Exploration Institute, claims that a large pocket of gas could surround a ship, causing it to lose buoyancy and disappear without warning.

At the U.S. Navyï¿½s research centre in California, Bruce Denardo, an expert in fluid dynamics, has proved that bubbles from methane gas eruptions could be responsible for vanishing ships in the open ocean. Water pressure causes objects to float, and the deeper the water, the greater the pressure exerted to keep the object floating at the surface. If bubbles from methane are introduced, they lower the density of the water. They take up space, but the volume of water stays the same, causing the buoyant force to decrease. In an experiment with a ball in water, Denardo can demonstrate that the ball sinks deeper and deeper down in water as the amount of bubbles increases, until it reaches a critical point where it sinks completely. ï¿½If a ship were to take on enough water, it would sink to the bottom and stay there,ï¿½ says Denardo.

Credit: Les Bossinas, NASA

An artist's representation of a spaceship entering a wormhole.

A mysterious time warp?

Others have more far out explanations for the Bermuda Triangle disappearances. Property developer Bruce Gernon claims that on December 4th 1970, when he flew from the island of Andross in the Bahamas to Florida, he experienced a distortion in space time. He had made the same trip on many occasions, but he claims that his journey that day was much faster than usual. ï¿½I noticed a huge U-shaped opening in the clouds, but as I approached it, the top of the opening closed and it became a horizontal tunnel that appeared to be 10 to 15 miles long,ï¿½ he says. ï¿½When the aircraft entered the tunnel, some lines, which I call time lines, appeared which were rotating counter-clockwise. It was difficult to keep it level and concentrate on the other end of the tunnel which was aiming directly for Miami.ï¿½

Gernon claims that when he came out of the tunnel, it closed fast behind him and he was surrounded by a strange fog. His instruments had stopped working and Air Traffic Control had no radar trace of his plane ï¿½ until they realized that it was actually over Miami beach. Given the time they had been flying, they should still have been about 45 minutes away from Miami. After researching what could have happened, Genon is now writing a book about his experience. ï¿½I have come to the conclusion that we experienced a space time warp of a hundred miles in thirty minutes,ï¿½ he says.

Is this scientifically feasible? About 80 years ago, Einstein proposed his general theory of relativity which claimed that huge spinning objects could distort space and time in their surroundings. Although NASA researchers have now found signs that black holes and neutron stars appear to warp space time, it is still a far cry from concepts introduced by science fiction like wormholes, or tunnels in space time that provide travellers with an express route between different dimensions and great distances.

Explanations for the vanishings in the Bermuda Triangle are all still theories. But especially for people who have witnessed bizarre events in this area, there is a strong desire to find some answers. One author, Gian Quasar, has been investigating every single plane and ship disappearance in the Bermuda Triangle and has listed every case on a massive internet database at http://www.bermuda-triangle.org/. With initiatives like this and further research, perhaps the mystery will come to a conclusion.

Titanic Mystery Ship Unveiled

2008-07-07T23:17:00.000+08:00

In the fateful night of April 15, 1912, Titanic, the unsinkable ship, sunk in the frozen waters of North Atlantic. This magnificent steam ship carried more than 2.000 souls, leaving Southampton and entering in the history.

Misteries and coincidences are a common place in this shipwrecking that is nearing a hundred years old. The history is told more or less that way.......

Olympic at left and Titanic to the right

Titanic and its twin, Olympic, were the flagships of White Star Company. At this time the route UK - New York was a great business and it was the main link to european migration to America. In US rail and steel tycoons made a strange mix with poor europeans that looked for a new life in a new country. J. P. Morgan, the financial tycoon, was the ultimate owner of White Star and, as a consequence, of Titanic. Destiny saved him from the fateful trip to New York.

The ship was making his maiden trip and was considered unsinkable. She was designed with watertight sections. The ship would resist flood in two adjacent sectors or in the first four. The night of April 14th was a perfect night. The sea remained still reflecting perfectly thousands of stars above. The moon was not in the sky and a profound dark was embedded in every soul. Several warnings were dispatched to Titanic alerting presence of icebergs. The latitude of 40N is not a sufficient high latitude to have iceberg presence. But this location, southeastern of Newfoundland, is in the corridor of icebergs that came from northern Canada when spring came. April is the worst time for icebergs in the region. Near the Titanic position the small steamer Californian stopped their engines to avoid a night collision with an iceberg. Commander Lord prefered to wait until the morning comes as the sea was cluttered with ice.

Commander E.J. Smith RNR, in his last trip before retirement, crossed the sea at a high speed of 24 knots. Nobody will ever know but, it seems reasonable that B. Ismay,Whitestar CEO, suggested Smith to go at full speed in order to beat a record in time between England and NY. At 11:40 pm, local time, the lookout F.Fleet, who had not binoculars available, detected an iceberg in front of the ship. He rang the bell, that can be seen in the Titanic Exhibition nowadays, and cried "Iceberg right ahead". Official Murdoch tried to avoid collision but it was too late.

Some moments later Mr. Thomas Andrews, the main Titanic designer has gone downstairs to do an assessment of the damage. At this time water was invading five sections and mail was floating. The fate of Titanic was sealed by destiny. Andrews warned Smith that Titanic would last at most two hours before sinking to the deep ocean. At this precise moment happens a mistery that is the main reason why a Titanic article is in an amateur astronomer page. While Bride was sending CQDs and SOS signals using a Marconi telegraph Murdoch believed that a ship was visible near the horizon. After some moments rocket were fired to warn this mystery ship. And the ship had gone away, disappearing below the horizon. Because these facts and some other testimonies, Captain Lord, of steamer California, was blamed to be responsible to not help Titanic survivors in the cold, fateful, 15th April 1912, night. In the morning of 15th steamer Carpathia rescued Titanic survivors and, with Californian and Mount Temple, scanned the whole region. Californian arrived in New York port with Titanic survivors.

Steamer Carpathia, the ship that rescued Titanic survivors to New York

Let's now explore the possibility that the mistery ship was, in fact, a celestial object. To begin to analyse this hypothesis we will see the full starry sky of that fateful night..

When Titanic hit the iceberg Ursa Major dominated the starry sky. Vega was rising and Procyon and Capela setting. Mars was about 11.5 degrees high. Jupiter was only 5.1 degrees above the horizon and rising. On this night Mars was setting exactly ar 00:54 April 15th. With a brightening of a 1.5 mag star, the planet deep red hue was very similar to a distant ship's light. Procyon, white, was setting at 00:45, azimuth 280, mag 0.4. No milky Way, no Moon was available in this still and dark night. Let's see what was happening at this time in the ship...

BoxHall Testimonial

"At 12.45 a.m. Boxhall and quartermaster George Arthur Rowe began to fire rockets from an angled rail attached to the bridge. Rowe continued to do so until the rockets ran out around 1.25. Whilst Rowe was thus engaged Boxhall scanned the horizon, he spotted a steamer in the distance, he and Rowe attempted to contact the vessel with a morse lamp but they were unsuccessful. At one point Boxhall sought reassurance from the Captain and asked if he felt the situation was really serious, Smith replied that the ship would sink within an hour to an hour and a half."

"Senator FLETCHER. I understood you to say that you saw a steamer almost ahead of you, or saw a light that night, about the time of the collision?

Mr. BOXHALL. Shortly afterwards; yes, sir.

Senator FLETCHER. Did you describe that light? What was the character of the light you saw; and did you see more than one?

Mr. BOXHALL. At first I saw two masthead lights of a steamer, just slightly opened, and later she got closer to us, until, eventually, I could see her side lights with my naked eye.

Senator FLETCHER. Was she approaching you?

Mr. BOXHALL. Evidently she was, because I was stopped.

Senator FLETCHER. And how far away was she?

Mr. BOXHALL. I considered she was about 5 miles away.

Senator FLETCHER. In which direction?

Mr. BOXHALL. She was headed toward us, meeting us.

Senator FLETCHER. Was she a little toward your port bow?

Mr. BOXHALL. Just about half a point off our port bow.

Senator FLETCHER. And apparently coming toward you?

Mr. BOXHALL. Yes.

Senator FLETCHER. And how soon after the collision?

Mr. BOXHALL. I can not say about that. It was shortly after the order was given to clear the boats.

Senator FLETCHER. Did you continue to see that steamer?

Mr. BOXHALL. I saw that light, saw all the lights of course, before I got into my boat, and just before I got into the boat she seemed as if she had turned around. I saw just one single bright light then, which I took to be her stern light.

Senator FLETCHER. She apparently turned around within 5 miles of you?

Mr. BOXHALL. Yes, sir.

Senator FLETCHER. Had the rockets then gone off on the Titanic?

Mr. BOXHALL. Yes, sir. I had been firing off rockets before I saw her side lights. I fired off the rockets and then she got so close I could see her side lights and starboard light."

"Senator BURTON: You are very positive you saw that ship ahead on the port bow, are you?

Mr. BOXHALL: Yes, sir, quite positive.

Senator BURTON: Did you see the green or red light?

Mr. BOXHALL: Yes; I saw the side lights with my naked eye.

Senator BURTON: When did you see them?

Mr. BOXHALL: From our ship, before I left the ship. I saw this steamer's stern light before I went into my boat, which indicated that the ship had turned around. I saw a white light, and I could not see any of the masthead lights that I had seen previously and I took it for a stern light.

Senator BURTON: Which light did you see first?

Mr. BOXHALL: I saw the masthead lights first, the two steaming lights; and then, as she drew up closer, I saw her side lights through my glasses, and eventually I saw the red light. I had seen the green, but I saw the red most of the time. I saw the red light with my naked eye.

Senator BURTON: Did she pull away from you?

Mr. BOXHALL: I do not know when she turned; I can not say when I missed the lights, because I was leaving the bridge to go and fire off some more of those distress rockets and attend to other duties.

Senator BURTON: Then your idea is that she was coming toward you on the port side?

Mr. BOXHALL: Yes.

Senator BURTON: Because you saw the red light and the masthead lights?

Mr. BOXHALL: Yes, sir.

Senator BURTON: Afterward you saw the green light, which showed that she had turned?

Mr. BOXHALL: I think I saw the green light before I saw the red light, as a matter of fact. But the ship was meeting us. I am covering the whole thing by saying the ship was meeting us.

Senator BURTON: Your impression is she turned away, or turned on a different course?

Mr. BOXHALL: That is my impression.

Senator BURTON. At a later time, when you were in the boat after it had been lowered, what light did you see?

Mr. BOXHALL. I saw this single light, which I took to be her stern light, just before I went away in the boat, as near as I can say.

Senator BURTON. How long did you see this stern light?

Mr. BOXHALL. I saw it until I pulled around the ship's stern. I had laid off a little while on the port side, on which side I was lowered, and then I afterwards pulled around the ship's stern, and, of course, then I lost the light, and I never saw it anymore.

Senator BURTON. Her course, as she came on, would have been nearer to your course; that is, your course was ahead, there, and she was coming in toward your course?

Mr. BOXHALL. Yes, sir; she was slightly crossing it, evidently. I suppose she was turning around slowly.

Senator BURTON. Is it your idea that she turned away?

Mr. BOXHALL: That is my idea, sir.

Senator BURTON: She kept on a general course toward the east, and then bore away from you, or what?"

Rowe Testimonial

"About 45 minutes later Rowe telephoned the bridge, Fourth Officer Boxhall replied. Rowe told him he had just seen a lifeboat (No.7) in the water. Boxhall was surprised as he had heard no order to lower boats. He instructed Rowe to bring some rockets to the bridge. Boxhall had seen the lights of a vessel in the distance and Captain Smith had given permission for rockets to be sent up as a signal of distress. Boxhall and Rowe sent up the first rocket at about 12.45 a.m., and then fired them at five or six minute intervals according to Captain Smith's instructions. Between firing rockets Rowe and Boxhall attempted to signal the vessel using a morse lamp.

Rowe later stated that he was convinced that it was a sailing vessel that he observed, two points off the port bow at a distance of about five miles. Gradually the light diminished and finally disappeared. As the Titanic was stationary the mystery vessel was clearly moving away."

Conclusions

The direction of lights stated by testimonies was near what we expected was the Californian position. It is necessary to remeber that after hit the iceberg, Titanic positioned toward north. What it is clear is that Mars was setting at azimuth 305 exactly at the time Titanic was firing rockets. This awesome coincidence may be more than a coincidence. From above testimonial, Rowe said that the mistery ship was moving away. But Californian was stopped in the icefield and Titanic also was totally stopped. This is the most important aspect of testimonial. From our best positions Californian was away the 9.5 miles visibility range of Titanic deck and well away the 5 miles distance stated by Titanic crew. Californian was at azimuth 340 or so. Before hit the iceberg Titanic was traveling at full speed of some 24 knots and at azimuth 266. The graph below states the situation. The best position that we have of Californian was stated by the Carpathia in the morning of 15th, and it was about 10 miles.

It seems possible that, with the turmoil generated by situation on the sinking ship, some Titanic crew could have made a fatal mistake of seeing a mystery ship were the red planet was setting. For some time I've followed some UFO believers and saw clearly how strange are our perceptions in case of danger.

We can see Californian position at top, at left the original Titanic position as related by Titanic crew, at right the actual site were Titanic remains were found. Top right we can see the direction Mars was setting at 00:54.

Many books were written about the theme. This article was inspired in a beautiful one presented in October 1993 Sky and Telescope magazine. In this article was stated that Captain Smith had observed to Rowe that it was a planet. I also believe in that...

Some interesting links....

http://www.titanichistoricalsociety.org

http://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/index.php

http://titanica.de

http://home.interlynx.net/~dclarke/Titanic.html

http://titanic-model.com/

" In the deep of ocean, an infinite silence, untold misteries, dreams, adventure and fate. And stars are the lonely witnesses of the great human adventure."

"Not to be forgotten"

The Mystery of Jack the Ripper

2008-07-07T23:10:00.000+08:00

The identity of the killer of five women in the East End of London in 1888 has remained a mystery, but the case has continued to horrify and fascinate.

Between August and November 1888 the Whitechapel area of London was the scene of five brutal murders. The killer was dubbed 'Jack the Ripper'. All the women murdered were prostitutes, and all except for one - Elizabeth Stride - were horribly mutilated.

The first murder, of Mary Ann Nicholls, took place on 31 August. Annie Chapman was killed on 8 September. Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddoweson were murdered 30 September and Mary Jane Kelly on 9 November.

There has been much speculation as to the identity of the killer. It has been suggested that he or she was a doctor or butcher, based on the evidence of weapons and the mutilations that occurred, which showed a knowledge of human anatomy. Many theories have been put forward suggesting individuals who might be responsible. One theory links the murders with Queen Victoria's grandson, Prince Albert Victor, also known as the Duke of Clarence, although the evidence for this is insubstantial.

Violence to prostitutes was not uncommon and there were many instances of women being brutalised but the nature of these murders does seem to suggest a link between the perpetrators.

A quarter of a mile from the scene of Catherine Eddowes' murder, the words 'The Juwes [sic] are not the men to be blamed for nothing,' were found scrawled on a wall in chalk, and it was suggested this was written by the killer. A police officer ordered the words to be removed, fearing an anti-Semitic backlash in an area with a large Jewish population. The murderer is also sometimes thought to have made contact by letter with several public figures: these letters, however, like the chalk message, have never been proved to be authentic, and may have been hoaxes.

Jack the Ripper was never caught and he is not thought to have killed again after November 1888.

James Maybrick is one of the top suspects who believed to have been disguised as Jack the Ripper. After Michael Baratt found a diary allegedly written by Maybrick, the attitude given to the familiar serial killer has never been the same. Though it has been over a century since his killings, the Ripper’s true identity remains a mind-boggling mystery.
The identity of “Jack the Ripper” was one of the first great murder mysteries in a time when the media was becoming a major influence in people’s lives. Though it’s been over a century, Jack the Ripper continues to be a familiar name in forensic science. The name was given to a serial killer who murdered at least 5 women in London, England in 1888. While no one was ever proven to be the perpetrator for these crimes, approximately 20 people have been suspected of the murders. The most controversial suspect is a man named James Maybrick.
James Maybrick was one of the top suspects for the murders by Jack the Ripper. Maybrick, a cotton merchant in the 1800s, lived in Liverpool with his wife Florence. Brian Maybrick, a descendant of James described him as “the black sheep of the family” (Sengupta). Maybrick died in 1889 after consuming too much arsenic. Though it was known that he was a frequent arsenic user, his wife was accused of murder and spent 15 years in jail (Bardsley). In 1992, a man named Michael Barrett supposedly found a diary in James Maybrick’s old house in Liverpool. The diary, written by Maybrick, had entries in which he confessed to being Jack the Ripper. Although it seemed like a believable case, many were skeptical.
While one side argues that a case with such questionable findings should not be dismissed, the other insists that “it is not difficult at all” (Scheib) to fake a diary. Handwriting and document examinations done on the diary have either been in favor of a hoax or have been inconclusive. The handwriting analysis used samples from James Maybrick’s signature on his marriage agreement, letters that Jack the Ripper wrote to his boss, and the diary. While the three handwritings were completely different from each other, some argue that it is common for a serial killer to have Multiple Personality Disorder (Scheib). To counter that dispute, however, Scheib brings up the fact that “Maybrick’s handwriting does not change within the course of the diary.”
One of the greatest arguments against the diary’s authenticity is the confession of Michael Barrett. In a confession on January 25, 1995, he writes, “I know its old hat and I am sick of trying to convince people about it but the truth is I wrote the Diary of Jack the Ripper and my wife Anne Barrett transcribed it onto the old photograph Album” (Barrett). While this directly demonstrates that the diary was forged, Barrett has taken back what he said on several occasions. Shirley Harrison, the author of The Diary of Jack the Ripper, writes, “Michael Barrett’s unpredictable imagination has tired many a knicker in a twist and wasted hours and hours of time” (Harrison).
The arguments the claim the diary to be authentic are weak but not altogether unreasonable. Had the diary been authentic, it would explain much about why the murders stopped (Bardsley). The last murder occurred in November of 1888 and James Maybrick died in 1889. These events could have been coincidental but it does clarify an otherwise unknown justification as to why the murders came to an end. While the diary uses a comparable tone as that found in letters written by Jack the Ripper, a hoaxer could
have easily familiarized himself with the publicized letters and forged the entries. One part of a letter to “The Boss” received on September 27, 1888 states, “I am down on whores and I shant quit ripping them till I do get buckled. Grand work the last job was. I gave the lady no time to squeal. How can they catch me now” (Ripper). Similarly, the believed Maybrick writes, “The whore like all the rest was only too willing…her nose annoyed me so I cut it off…” (Stratmann) in the diary.
From the information that has been gathered from several articles, I have found very little to support the argument that James Maybrick is in fact Jack the Ripper, and a great deal that suggests the contrary. Although arguments made by both sides were logical, there was much more proof of the diary being a fraud than not. While the believers of the diary being a hoax backed their points of view with real evidence, the opposite side only defends themselves using complicated reasoning. Though it would have been easy to accept the idealistic diary as genuine, James Maybrick was not Jack the Ripper.

Ancient Roman Life Preserved at Pompeii

2008-07-07T16:25:00.001+08:00

By James Owens

On a fateful summer morning in A.D. 79 Mount Vesuvius buried the vibrant Roman city of Pompeii—and many of its citizens—beneath tons of volcanic ash and debris.

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Cast of victim of the Vesuvius eruption in Pompeii, Italy

Photograph by Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images

"Darkness fell, not the dark of a moonless or cloudy night, but as if the lamp had been put out in a dark room," wrote Pliny the Younger, who witnessed the cataclysm from across the Bay of Naples.

The darkness Pliny described drew the final curtain on an era in Pompeii. But the disaster also preserved a slice of Roman life. The buildings, art, artifacts, and bodies forever frozen offer a unique window on the ancient world.

Since its rediscovery in the mid-18th century the site has hosted a tireless succession of treasure hunters and archaeologists.

"Pompeii as an archaeological site is the longest continually excavated site in the world," says Steven Ellis, a classics professor at the University of Cincinnati and the co-director of the Pompeii Archaeological Research Project: Porta Stabia.

"Because of this, what we find in Pompeii is that every step in the development in the science of archaeology was tested out in Pompeii—with mixed results," he says.

For early archaeologists the disaster of the city's final days was the primary draw, unearthing buildings and streets as they stood at the time of the eruption.

"Today we are interested in the development of the city," Ellis explains. "What was there first and how did it get to the point it was when it was destroyed?"

The People's Pompeii

Ellis's team is particularly interested in a corner of the city near the Porta Stabia gate that is a bit off the beaten archaeological path.

"It's kind of a lost neighborhood of the city. When they first cleared it of debris in the 1870s they left this block for ruin (because it had no large villas) and it was covered over with a terrible jungle of vegetation," he says.

Much research has centered on public buildings and breathtaking villas that portray the artistic and opulent lifestyle enjoyed by the city's wealthy elite.

"We're trying to see how the other 98 percent of people lived in Pompeii," Ellis says. "It's a humble town block with houses, shops, and all the bits and pieces that make up the life of an ancient city."

But while his quest is knowledge of the living Pompeii, Stanford University's Gary Devore, the project's co-director, notes that the eruption still resonates because of the intimate connection it created between past and present.

"We're digging in an area where a lot of Pompeians died during the eruption," he says. "I remind myself all the time that I can investigate in such detail this ancient Roman culture as a direct result of a great human disaster.

"At the end of a day of intense mental processing and physical labor, when the tools are being packed up and put away for the night, I often take a moment to remind myself of that connection with the individuals whose homes and workshops we're digging up," he says.

Preserving Pompeii's Past for the Future

Even after hundreds of years of work, about a third of the city still lies buried. Yet there is no rush to unearth these hidden Pompeii neighborhoods.

Today's great challenge is preservation of what has been uncovered.

Volcanic ash long protected Pompeii, but much of it has now been exposed to the elements for many years. The combined wear of weather, pollution, and tourists has created a real danger of losing much of what was luckily found preserved.

Yet Devore is hopeful for Pompeii's future.

"The current administration of Pompeii [under Pietro Giovanni Guzzo] has been incredibly diligent in focusing on preservation," he says.

Over his 13 seasons at Pompeii, Devore has witnessed great improvements in conservation and preservation of the priceless site.

"As an archaeologist, I'm part of that process in the way that I document what gets dug out of the ground," he adds. "Since archaeology is destruction, we destroy bits of Pompeii as we go along. So it's incredibly important that we record in great detail, with the ability to recreate what we've taken away afterward. That's how we're part of the conservation of Pompeii."

source : national geographic

"Mummy's Curse" Legend Won't Die

2008-07-07T16:22:00.000+08:00

By Brian Handwerk

Movie mummies are known for two things: fabulous riches and a nasty curse that brings treasure hunters to a bad end. But Hollywood didn't invent the curse concept.

Enlarge

Mummy of King Tutankhamun

Photograph by Kenneth Garrett

The "mummy's curse" first enjoyed a worldwide vogue after the 1922 discovery of King Tutankhamun's tomb in the Valley of the Kings near Luxor, Egypt.

When Howard Carter opened a small hole to peer inside the tomb at treasures hidden for 3,000 years, he also unleashed a global passion for ancient Egypt.

Tut's glittering treasures made great headlines—and so did sensationalistic accounts of the subsequent death of expedition sponsor Lord Carnarvon.

In reality, Carnarvon died of blood poisoning and only six of the 26 people present when the tomb was opened died within a decade. Carter, surely any curse's prime target, lived until 1939.

But while the pharaoh's curse may lack bite, it hasn't lost the ability to fascinate audiences—which may be how it originated in the first place.

Birth of the Curse

The late Egyptologist Dominic Montserrat conducted a comprehensive search and concluded that the concept began with a strange "striptease" in 19th-century London.

"My work shows quite clearly that the mummy's curse concept predates Carnarvon's Tutankhamen discovery and his death by a hundred years," Montserrat told the Independent (U.K.) in an interview some years before his own death.

Montserrat believed that a lively stage show in which real Egyptian mummies were unwrapped inspired first one writer, and subsequently several others, to pen tales of mummy revenge.

The thread was even picked up by Little Women author Louisa May Alcott in her nearly unknown volume Lost in a Pyramid; or, The Mummy's Curse.

"My research has not only confirmed that there is, of course, no ancient Egyptian origin of the mummy's curse concept, but, more importantly, it also reveals that it didn't originate in the 1923 press publicity about the discovery of Tutankhamen's tomb either," Montserrat stressed to the Independent.

But Salima Ikram, an Egyptologist at the American University in Cairo and a National Geographic Society grantee, believes the curse concept did exist in ancient Egypt as part of a primitive security system.

She notes that some mastaba (early non-pyramid tomb) walls in Giza and Saqqara were actually inscribed with "curses" meant to terrify those who would desecrate or rob the royal resting place.

Enlarge

King Tutankhamun's coffin

Photograph by Kenneth Garrett

"They tend to threaten desecrators with divine retribution by the council of the gods," Ikram said. "Or a death by crocodiles, or lions, or scorpions, or snakes."

Tomb Toxin Threat?

In recent years some have suggested that the pharaoh's curse was biological in nature.

Could sealed tombs house pathogens that can be dangerous or even deadly to those who open them after thousands of years—especially people like Lord Carnarvon with weakened immune systems?

The mausoleums house not only the dead bodies of humans and animals but foods to provision them for the afterlife.

Lab studies have shown some ancient mummies carried mold, including Aspergillus niger and Aspergillus flavus, which can cause congestion or bleeding in the lungs. Lung-assaulting bacteria such as Pseudomonas and Staphylococcus may also grow on tomb walls.

These substances may make tombs sound dangerous, but scientists seem to agree that they are not.

F. DeWolfe Miller, professor of epidemiology at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, concurs with Howard Carter's original opinion: Given the local conditions, Lord Carnarvon was probably safer inside Tut's tomb than outside.

"Upper Egypt in the 1920s was hardly what you'd call sanitary," Miller said. "The idea that an underground tomb, after 3,000 years, would have some kind of bizarre microorganism in it that's going to kill somebody six weeks later and make it look exactly like [blood poisoning] is very hard to believe."

In fact, Miller said, he knows of no archaeologist—or a single tourist, for that matter—who has experienced any afflictions caused by tomb toxins.

But like the movie mummies who invoke the malediction, the legend of the mummy's curse seems destined never to die.

source : national geographic

Crystal Skulls Fuel Controversy, Fascination

2008-07-07T16:21:00.000+08:00

By Richard A. Lovett and Scot Hoffman

Crystal skulls are not uncommon or terribly mysterious. Thousands are produced every year in Brazil, China, and Germany. But there are a handful of these rather macabre objects that have fueled intense interest and controversy among archaeologists, scientists, spiritualists, and museum officials for more than a century.

Enlarge

Counterfeit crystal skull in the British Museum

Photograph by AFP/Getty Images

There are perhaps a dozen of these rare crystal skulls in private and public collections. Some are crystal clear, others of smoky or colored quartz. Some are actual human size and of very fine detail, while others are smaller and less refined. All are believed to originate from Mexico and Central America.

Many believe these skulls were carved thousands or even tens of thousands of years ago by an ancient Mesoamerican civilization. Others think they may be relics from the legendary island of Atlantis or proof that extraterrestrials visited the Aztec sometime before the Spanish conquest.

Supernatural Fascination

Stories about the skulls focus heavily on their perceived supernatural powers.

Joshua Shapiro, coauthor of Mysteries of the Crystal Skulls Revealed, on his Web site cites claims of healings and expanded psychic abilities from people who have been in the presence of such skulls.

"We believe the Crystal Skulls are a form of computer which are able to record energy and vibration that occur around them," he writes. " The skull will pictorially replay all events or images of the people who have come into contact with them (i.e. they contain the history of our world)."

Most archaeologists and scientists are skeptical, to say the least.

Skulls were prominent in ancient Mesoamerican artwork, particularly among the Aztec, so the connection between these artifacts and these civilizations is apt.

"[I]t was a symbol of regeneration," says Michael Smith, a professor of anthropology at Arizona State University. "There were several Aztec gods that were represented by skulls, so they were probably invoking these gods. I don't think they were supposed to have specific powers or anything like that."

All Fakes?

In addition, recent electron microscope analyses of skulls by the British Museum and the Smithsonian Institution revealed markings that could only have been made with modern carving implements. Both museums estimate that their skulls date to sometime in the mid- to late 1800s, a time when public interest in ancient cultures was high and museums were eager for pieces to display.

Its examinations and the fact that no such skull has ever been uncovered at an official archaeological excavation led the British Museum to extrapolate that all of the famed crystal skulls are likely fakes.

There is passion on both sides of the issue, and the fact remains that no one knows for sure who made these skulls and when. And since there is currently no way to accurately determine the age of such inorganic objects, the mystery will likely continue. In fact, it's sure to get a boost in 2008 with the release of the action-adventure sequel Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

source : national geographic

Valley of the Kings—Gateway to Afterlife Provides Window on the Past

2008-07-07T16:20:00.001+08:00

By Brian Handwerk

The ancient Egyptians built massive public monuments to their pharaohs. But they also spent time and treasure creating hidden underground mausoleums that no one was ever meant to see.

Enlarge

Valley of the Kings, Egypt

Photograph by Kenneth Garrett

The most famed collection of such elaborate tombs—the Valley of the Kings—lies on the Nile's west bank near Luxor.

During Egypt's New Kingdom (1539-1075 B.C.) the valley became a royal burial ground for pharaohs such as Tutankhamun, Seti I, and Ramses II, as well as queens, high priests, and other elites of the 18th, 19th, and 20th dynasties.

The tombs evidence elaborate preparations for the next world, in which humans were promised continuing life and pharaohs were expected to become one with the gods. Mummification was used to preserve the body so that the deceased's eternal soul would be able to reanimate it in the afterlife.

The underground tombs were also well stocked with all the material goods a ruler might need in the next world. Treasures—like the golden masks found with King Tut—are dazzling, but the tombs also contained the more mundane.

"They included furniture, clothes (even underwear), and jewelry [though] it's curious that we have no books—from Tut at least," says Salima Ikram, a professor of Egyptology at American University in Cairo and a National Geographic grantee.

Tombs were also well provisioned with enough food and drink, including wine and beer, for royal feasting in the next world, as well as sacred objects meant to help the deceased achieve eternal life, even favored companions.

"[We find] pets buried nearby," Ikram says. "Hunting dogs, pet baboons, and gazelles."

Enlarge

Ramses II's tomb in the Valley of the Kings, Egypt

Photograph by O. Louis Mazzatenta

More Mysteries Await?

Tomb robbers, treasure hunters, and archaeologists have been combing the Valley of the Kings for centuries—yet it continues to yield surprises.

Many thought that the 62 tombs discovered before 1922 represented all that would be found in the valley—until Howard Carter discovered the resting place of a boy king called King Tutankhamun.

In 2005 a team led by archaeologist Otto Schaden discovered the valley's first unknown tomb since Tutankhamun's. The site, dubbed KV 63, was found only about 50 feet (15 meters) from the walls of Tut's resting place.

KV 63 had no mummy but housed sarcophagi, pottery, linens, flowers, and other materials. Some believe it heralds the presence of another as yet undiscovered tomb.

"KV 63 is an embalming cache; there must be a tomb to go with it," Ikram says.

At least one late Ramesside pharaoh's tomb (Ramses VIII) is still undiscovered, and many believe it may be found within the valley.

Clues to such discoveries may be found in period Egyptian writings that mention notables who likely rated tombs but have not been identified.

"You try to find out what hasn't been discovered, and figure out where they might possibly be, and then look in those areas," said David P. Silverman, an Egyptologist at the University of Pennsylvania. "You never know what you are going to find."

But if more tombs are found, will they be as relatively unmolested as Tut's? The odds are against it.

Though their entrances were well hidden, nearly all of the valley's known royal tombs were likely robbed before the end of the 20th dynasty—Egyptian records testify to robbers' trials and to the harsh punishments handed down.

By the time the Greek writer Diodorus Siculus visited the valley's tombs (circa 60 B.C.) he wrote, "We found nothing there except the results of pillage and destruction."

It's possible, perhaps, that any tomb yet to be found was so well hidden that it also escaped the notice of ancient thieves. Only time will tell.

source : national geographic

Atlantis—True Story or Cautionary Tale?

2008-07-07T16:18:00.000+08:00

By Willie Drye

If the writing of the ancient Greek philosopher Plato had not contained so much truth about the human condition, his name would have been forgotten centuries ago.

Enlarge

Illustration of a cove on the mythical island of Atlantis

Photograph by Mary Evans Picture Library/Everett Collection

But one of his most famous stories—the cataclysmic destruction of the ancient civilization of Atlantis—is almost certainly false. So why is this story still repeated more than 2,300 years after Plato's death?

"It's a story that captures the imagination," says James Romm, a professor of classics at Bard College in Annandale, New York. "It's a great myth. It has a lot of elements that people love to fantasize about."

Plato told the story of Atlantis around 360 B.C. The founders of Atlantis, he said, were half god and half human. They created a utopian civilization and became a great naval power. Their home was made up of concentric islands separated by wide moats and linked by a canal that penetrated to the center. The lush islands contained gold, silver, and other precious metals and supported an abundance of rare, exotic wildlife. There was a great capital city on the central island.

There are many theories about where Atlantis was—in the Mediterranean, off the coast of Spain, even under what is now Antarctica. "Pick a spot on the map, and someone has said that Atlantis was there," says Charles Orser, curator of history at the New York State Museum in Albany. "Every place you can imagine."

Plato said Atlantis existed about 9,000 years before his own time, and that its story had been passed down by poets, priests, and others. But Plato's writings about Atlantis are the only known records of its existence.

Possibly Based on Real Events?

Few, if any, scientists think Atlantis actually existed. Ocean explorer Robert Ballard, the National Geographic explorer-in-residence who discovered the wreck of the Titanic in 1985, notes that "no Nobel laureates" have said that what Plato wrote about Atlantis is true.

Still, Ballard says, the legend of Atlantis is a "logical" one since cataclysmic floods and volcanic explosions have happened throughout history, including one event that had some similarities to the story of the destruction of Atlantis. About 3,600 years ago, a massive volcanic eruption devastated the island of Santorini in the Aegean Sea near Greece. At the time, a highly advanced society of Minoans lived on Santorini. The Minoan civilization disappeared suddenly at about the same time as the volcanic eruption.

But Ballard doesn't think Santorini was Atlantis, because the time of the eruption on that island doesn't coincide with when Plato said Atlantis was destroyed.

Romm believes Plato created the story of Atlantis to convey some of his philosophical theories. "He was dealing with a number of issues, themes that run throughout his work," he says. "His ideas about divine versus human nature, ideal societies, the gradual corruption of human society—these ideas are all found in many of his works. Atlantis was a different vehicle to get at some of his favorite themes."

The legend of Atlantis is a story about a moral, spiritual people who lived in a highly advanced, utopian civilization. But they became greedy, petty, and "morally bankrupt," and the gods "became angry because the people had lost their way and turned to immoral pursuits," Orser says.

As punishment, he says, the gods sent "one terrible night of fire and earthquakes" that caused Atlantis to sink into the sea.

source : national geographic

Holy Grail Legend

2008-07-07T16:17:00.001+08:00

Holy Grail Legend Endures for Centuries

By Richard A. Lovett

In the Bible, the cup used by Jesus Christ at the Last Supper is little more than a prop, given no particular prominence. But over the centuries, the fate of this now legendary vessel, the so-called Holy Grail, has come to haunt stories ranging from Arthurian legend to Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

Enlarge

Painting of Sir Galahad discovering the Holy Grail

Photograph by Burstein Collection/CORBIS

Because Jesus used the cup during the Last Supper in what became the basis for the Christian Eucharist, the Grail has for many taken on the aura of an extremely holy relic.

The Grail takes on even greater significance from tales that Joseph of Arimathea, in whose tomb Jesus was placed prior to his resurrection, used the cup to collect Jesus' blood while he was being crucified.

Theories abound as to where the cup eventually went. One says the Knights Templar, a medieval military order that persisted for more than 200 years, took it from Jerusalem during the Crusades.

There's also a story in which Joseph carries the Grail to Glastonbury, England, a Roman outpost at the time of Christ's crucifixion. In 1906, in fact, a blue bowl claimed by some to be the Grail was found there, and since then at least four other cups have been proclaimed to be the Grail, two from England and Wales and two from the Middle East.

But the reality, says historian Richard Barber, author of The Holy Grail: Imagination and Belief, is that the Grail stories are just that—stories.

'Poet With a Remarkable Imagination'

"The whole thing is basically the imagination of a 12th-century poet," he says.

The poet, Chrétien de Troyes, created the initial, "fairly unspecific" story, Barber says, as a way of examining the theology of the Roman Catholic Mass.

"That may sound terribly obscure," he says, "but in the 12th century, the nearest you got to drama, theater, and spectacle, if you were an ordinary person, was the celebration of Mass."

In working through his story, Barber says, Chrétien worked backward from his own time to the time of Christ. "So you've got a poet with a remarkable imagination who invents the idea of the Grail."

In fact, Barber says, the most remarkable thing about the legend is simply the fact that the story appears to have originated with a single writer. "There are so many people out there looking for the thing," he says. "Actually it's more exciting that someone can imagine something in the 12th century ... that is still a hot concept 800 years later."

Not that this means there wasn't a cup. But even if it still exists, Barber asks, how would you know if you found it? "You are not going to come up with a cup with a neat label tied around it saying 'This is the cup of the Last Supper, guaranteed authentic.'"

Archaeologist Fred Hiebert, a National Geographic Society fellow, agrees. "I'm always interested in finding remains of ancient people, especially pottery or metal vessels," he says. But when it comes to linking any such object to a specific legend or biblical story? "We can't do it."

source: National Geographic

Siberian Mystery Blast "Solved"

2008-07-07T15:54:00.000+08:00

The scars on the landscape can still be seen today

By BBC News Online science editor Dr David Whitehouse

Astronomers may have solved the puzzle of what it was that brought so much devastation to a remote region of Siberia almost a century ago.

The asteroid was probably a pile of space rubble - like Mathilde

In the early morning of 30 June, 1908, witnesses told of a gigantic explosion and blinding flash. Thousands of square kilometres of trees were burned and flattened.

Scientists have always suspected that an incoming comet or asteroid lay behind the event - but no impact crater was ever discovered and no expedition to the area has ever found any large fragments of an extraterrestrial object.

Now, a team of Italian researchers believe they may have the definitive answer. After combining never-before translated eyewitness accounts with seismic data and a new survey of the impact zone, the scientists say the evidence points strongly to the object being a low-density asteroid.

They even think they know from where in the sky the object came.

Completely disintegrated

"We now have a good picture of what happened," Dr Luigi Foschini, one of the expedition's leaders, told BBC News Online.

The direction of the flattened trees is a vital clue

The explosion, equivalent to 10-15 million tonnes of TNT, occurred over the Siberian forest, near a place known as Tunguska.

Only a few hunters and trappers lived in the sparsely populated region, so it is likely that nobody was killed. Had the impact occurred over a European capital, hundreds of thousands would have perished.

A flash fire burned thousands of trees near the impact site. An atmospheric shock wave circled the Earth twice. And, for two days afterwards, there was so much fine dust in the atmosphere that newspapers could be read at night by scattered light in the streets of London, 10,000 km (6,213 miles) away.

But nobody was dispatched to see what had happened as the Czars had little interest in what befell the backward Tungus people in remote central Siberia.

Soil samples

The first expedition to reach the site arrived in 1930, led by Soviet geologist L A Kulik, who was amazed at the scale of the devastation and the absence of any impact crater. Whatever the object was that came from space, it had blown up in the atmosphere and completely disintegrated.

Nearly a century later, scientists are still debating what happened at that remote spot. Was it a comet or an asteroid? Some have even speculated that it was a mini-black hole, though there is no evidence of it emerging from the other side of the Earth, as it would have done.

What is more, none of the samples of soil, wood or water recovered from the impact zone have been able to cast any light on what the Tunguska object actually was.

Researchers from several Italian universities have visited Tunguska many times in the past few years. Now, in a pulling together of their data and information from several hitherto unused sources, the scientists offer an explanation about what happened in 1908.

Possible orbits

They analysed seismic records from several Siberian monitoring stations, which combined with data on the directions of flattened trees gives information about the object's trajectory. So far, over 60,000 fallen trees have been surveyed to determine the site of the blast wave.

Over 60,000 fallen trees have been surveyed to determine the site of the blast wave

"We performed a detailed analysis of all the available scientific literature, including unpublished eye-witness accounts that have never been translated from the Russian," said Dr Foschini. "This allowed us to calculate the orbit of the cosmic body that crashed."

The object appears to have approached Tunguska from the southeast at about 11 km per second (7 miles a second). Using this data, the researchers were able to plot a series of possible orbits for the object.

Of the 886 valid orbits that they calculated, over 80% of them were asteroid orbits with only a minority being orbits that are associated with comets. But if it was an asteroid why did it break up completely?

"Possibly because the object was like asteroid Mathilde, which was photographed by the passing Near-Shoemaker spaceprobe in 1997. Mathilde is a rubble pile with a density very close to that of water. This would mean it could explode and fragment in the atmosphere with only the shock wave reaching the ground."

The research will be published in a forthcoming edition of the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics.

source : BBC News

2008-06-16T16:35:00.001+08:00

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