THOTH A Catastrophics Newsletter VOL III, No. 16 Dec 1, 1999 EDITOR: Amy Acheson PUBLISHER: Michael Armstrong LIST MANAGER: Brian Stewart CONTENTS CLOSING THE GAP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . by Amy Acheson MYTHIC ROOTS OF LANGUAGE part III . . . . . . . . by Dave Talbott CATASTROPHIC WORD ORIGINS . . . . . . . . . Kroniatalk Discussion THE ABSURDITY OF NEUTRON STARS . . . . . . . . . by Wal Thornhill ---------------------------------------------- CLOSING THE GAP By Amy Acheson When Immanuel Velikovsky's Worlds in Collision was published, in 1950, the mention of catastrophism in any form was anathema to science. Ideas have changed rapidly since then. Plate tectonics and the Spokane floods have crept into geology. Punctuated equilibrium and mass extinctions by asteroid impact have become fashionable. It's no longer beyond the scope of science to see the destruction of Atlantis in a Mediterranean volcano or Noah's deluge in the sudden filling of the Black Sea. A fast-growing contingent of astronomers are concerned with the perils of Earth- crossing asteroids. Galactic collisions and pole flips, albeit billions-of-years-ago, are common threads in modern science. But the gap between Velikovsky and orthodox science still looks formidable. After all, Velikovsky said that planets moved in different orbits within the memory of humanity. Surely orthodox science will never reconsider a hypothesis that absurd. Let's not be so hasty. Here's part of a press release dated Nov. 19, 1999: "Jupiter's fiery moon Io is providing scientists with a window on volcanic activity and colossal lava flows similar to those that raged on Earth eons ago, thanks to new pictures and data gathered by NASA's Galileo spacecraft... ... Dr. Torrence Johnson, Galileo project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, CA [said], "Io is the next best thing to traveling back in time to Earth's earlier years. It gives us an opportunity to watch, in action, phenomena long dead in the rest of the solar system". By conventional dating, the press release defined the term "eons ago" with this phrase: "The last comparable lava eruption on Earth occurred 15 million years ago." Any catastrophic event of global proportions could drastically shorten that date. They're talking about very recent history in terms of planet Earth, about lava flows in which North American rhinoceroses were trapped. The activity on Jupiter's fiery moon Io is due to its unusual orbit, in close proximity to the electrical and gravitational fields of the gas giant, Jupiter. The convergent mythical record of human cultures around the world remembers the gas giants Saturn as dominating the Earth's sky before it fled or was driven away. Has the time come to consider the possibility that there is a connection between these two statements, one the latest scientific observation and the other the oldest story known? Amy Acheson thoth at whidbey.com ---------------------------------------------- MYTHIC ROOTS OF LANGUAGE part III By Dave Talbott More than once I've expressed the belief that the echoes of an original unity pervade our language. The patterns, however, will not be recognized until one sees the true source of the unity in a planetary configuration. My contention has been that this configuration was an obsessive focus of human attention in the crucial phase of language formulation. To illustrate the point it may be useful to go back to the "first condition", the earliest-remembered time and the concepts which it inspired. These integrated concepts were reflected in written language at its inception and, as a whole, they cannot be understood apart from the Saturn model. Prior assumptions of historians, anthropologists, and etymologists cannot account for the complex of meanings attached to those ancient words describing the primeval condition, the age of Saturn. Keeping to the most fundamental concepts, here are some of the archetypal themes one might explore in relation to the language of the First Time: Chaos, Water, Seed, Sky, Formlessness, One, All, Unity, Conjunction, Rest, Peace, Whole, Holy, Universe, Wheel, Cycle, Becoming, Turning, Time, Heaven, High, Hollow, Void, Chasm, Yawning. This may look like a rather long list, and yet the underlying principles are both simple and unified. The age of Saturn means the transition from primeval chaos to order, from non-differentiation to diversity, from formlessness to form, from inactivity to activity, from no-time to time, from a pre-dawn glow to a cycle of day and night. That is what the archetypal "creation" myth is about, and Saturn is the creator- king. But the meanings of the ancient words need to be clarified. What does "formless" mean, for example? What does "chaos", or its "yawning" aspect, mean? Present experience offers no basis for visualizing any of these concepts in terms of the archaic STORY itself. As interpreted by the Saturn model, these concepts are vitally connected, and it is only to be expected that the concepts would be embedded in the meanings of ancient words--even the building blocks of language itself--and carried forward to retain at least some of the archaic nuances even into modern times. Where this has occurred the observed patterns will appear anomalous. That doesn't mean that you can decipher the connections by simply tracking down the roots of the English words. In fact, some of the root meanings behind the English words listed here would immediately mislead you. Our words "heaven" and "high", for example, will trace to more archaic words relating to the "heaping up" of a "hill" or "mountain", and that could be confusing if you are not already quite familiar with the model. So too, our word "sky" will trace to ancient concepts of a watery "cloud" which is extremely significant to the model but can leave one confused if the model is not clear. Instead of taking on the whole list in one shot, I'll start with a few of the basics. CHAOS AND THE RISE OF NEGATIVES. The earliest-remembered condition is the state of "not". That is the most fundamental meaning behind the words that are translated as "chaos", and it provides the first tier in an evolving ancient language of negatives. It means the condition out of which an exemplary order, the model for all sacred order, arose. The negative state of chaos must be interpreted specifically in terms of the contrast between that state and what followed. It is the condition before motion, activity, differentiation, time, order, form. The Saturn model defines this as an EXPERIENCED condition of the world, not a primitive speculation on "how it all began". Hence, if language arose from these experiences in the direct and literal sense we are claiming, the root meanings of negatives should reveal the remarkable nuances of this earliest condition- though we certainly would not expect these embedded meanings under the normal theories of language formation. There is no malice, evil, or suffering implied by this original state of chaos, just an "absence of", in contrast to the distinct attributes of the revered order emerging from chaos. In the Egyptian creation accounts, this negative condition is applied to both the creator and the primeval "waters" of chaos. The god emerges from the waters, and the waters from which he appears are his own essence. The creator (Atum, Re, Khepera) recalls his original "state of inactivity" and the "inert watery mass" of his "father" Nu (with which he himself was closely identified). He was "alone" in these cosmic waters. He "had no companion" to work with him. And in this state of "not" he had "no resting place". There is a great deal of meaning in these images of the cosmic waters, and perhaps we can return to certain details later. The relationship of Atum to this original state of "not" is emphasized by the fact that the hieroglyphs used for his name, _tem_ mean (among other things) "not". You see this relationship most prominently in the use of the n- sound (secondarily, the m-sound) in the hieroglyphic system. The essence of the formless god is "water", which appears in both a singular and a plural sense. The waters are the undifferentiated "plurality" of the unified state, the primeval condition of "not". These are, in fact, the core meanings of the hieroglyph for the n-sound, which is a simple wavy line. The meanings are expressed explicitly through all of the common n-roots in the hieroglyphic system-n, ni, an, nu, nun, na, enen, nini, and a large number of variants: primeval waters, undifferentiated plurality, negative state prior to "creation".. PRIMAL UNITY: THE "ONE" AND THE "ALL". The creator-god personifies the state of undifferentiated "chaos", but emerges from that state in an event called "creation". Originally, he appears as a solitary god, called "the god One" in the Egyptian texts. He is the "all-containing" god, though other powers are clearly present within him as latent potential. "I came into being of myself in the midst of the Primeval Waters", states the god in the Book of the Dead. More than once the Coffin Texts recall the time when Atum "was alone, before he had repeated himself" (referring to the process of subsequent differentiation). He "was alone in the Primeval Waters", the texts say. "I was the Primeval Waters, he who had no companion when my name came into existence". (As I will note in a subsequent post, the "name" coming into existence is nothing else than the gods created "form", and only this celebrated form will make sense of the statement that the god was previously "without form" and without a visible "name".) Atum can thus be translated (and IS often translated) as "the All" in the fundamental sense of the original Unity holding all that was later differentiated in the creation. The Greek Ouranos is "all-containing heaven", as is his counterpart, the Hindu Varuna. The name of the Sumerian creator An (Akkadian Anu) is translated "heaven", but An contains within himself the divine male and female powers which are subsequently highly active as independent powers. It would be absurd, therefore, to separate the Egyptian concept of the "god One" from the related idea of "the All", and we should expect any language tracing to these concepts to reflect the underlying equation. The original condition of "heaven" (when "heaven was close to the earth") means literally the visible sphere of the universal sovereign in the beginning. The Saturn model interprets this as the gas giant looming huge in the sky, extremely close to the Earth. The planetary system moved through a gaseous, highly electrified environment, viewed imaginatively as cosmic "waters". Insofar as this environment reflected ambient light of the Sun, it was experienced only as a diffuse and benign glow--a shimmering, water-like cloud from which the gas giant appeared to emerge. CREATION. All myths relating to what arose from chaos are "creation" myths, perhaps the most misunderstood concept in all of world mythology. It is the creation that produces the First Time or "beginning" of time, form, and motion--events which occur in direct relationship to the emergence of secondary powers from the unified god. Atum, the All, spits out or exhales the female power Tefnut and the masculine power Shu--"and from one god I became three", he says. (This is the specific meaning of the reference above to when the god "repeated himself".) The "three" are Atum-Re (the archaic "sun" god, whom we now know to be Saturn), the god Shu (first form of the warrior-hero, identifiable astronomically with Mars) and the goddess Tefnut (first form of the divine mother, the planet Venus). For the concepts listed above to begin to make sense, we only need to understand the idea which underlies Saturn's identity as the primeval "Unity"-- CONJUNCTION. Here again we have a fundamental concept that is either misunderstood or completely overlooked in common treatments of the creation legend. The "unity" of the creator- king cannot be separated from the principle of conjunction. In his original unified state Atum has a single, central eye, which means the goddess prior to differentiation. The eye has a "pupil" which is the unborn warrior hero. But the experts have not considered the principle of conjunction because they are seeing neither the ancient concepts nor the language in the concrete terms explicitly given by the ancient texts themselves. [For an illustration of the planetary conjunction in one of its most prominent phases, go to: www.kronia.com and click on the "Saturn theory" on the left menu.] The primeval conjunction means first and foremost the visible alignment of celestial powers (Saturn, Venus, Mars, extremely close to the earth) producing the image of a unified, "all- containing" power in the sky, a god standing "alone" in the cosmic waters. Even after differentiation of these powers, they continue to stand in conjunction, though the alignment is then more dynamic, the activity of goddess and hero revealing a marked contrast to the more passive, "resting" quality of the sovereign himself. The primary powers, together with a company of lesser lights, "gather" or stand "together" in the sky--a "congregation" of gods, or divine "assembly". As such they are attributes or aspects of the unified creator-king, remembered as his own radiant "limbs". Apart from the principle of conjunction or "standing together", the concepts are entirely meaningless. Since there are so many lines of potential linguistic inquiry we might pursue, I'll limit my initial comments to the five core ideas listed below, which I believe are still evident in our language today: Before we take up some of the related words, it will be helpful to be sure that the archaic concepts we claim to be still reflected in modern language are clear: 1. ONE. Original relationship of the number one to the concept "the whole" rather than to the counting of separate items or units of anything. 2. ALL. Relationship of the root concept "all" to "one" and "unity". 3. NO, NOT. Foundation of the negative in the original unity. 4. CONJUNCTION. Relationship of the original unity to "gathered" or "joined" powers, subsequently differentiated. (Again, the mythical "Great Conjunction" of Saturn's golden age IS the unity of the sovereign god.) 5. PRIMEVAL CONDITION. The subject is a former world. The universally-remembered condition no longer exists. We also need to put an exclamation point to the contrast between the principles suggested here and all conventional suppositions. It is commonly assumed, for example, that one of the primary catalysts for language development was the act of counting. In contrast, I will suggest that the language of numbers possesses such a direct relationship to imagery of an evolving planetary configuration as to entirely discredit the common view. Moreover, once discerned, the original pattern will leap out from our own language today, despite the millennia of evolution and fragmentation which preceded it. Consider these English words and roots, and the five-fold pattern suggested above should become quite obvious to you-- The English indefinite article _a_ is a phonetic variant of _an_ derived from the Old English _an_ meaning "one", German _ein_, Latin _unus_, Greek _oine_ Our word _unity_ comes from the Latin _un(us)_, "one", "together", "joined". As a general rule the language of the number "one" appears to be derived from the language of "the all" or the whole, not from the counting of separate "things". Our word _unit_ is said to be a back formation from _unity_; _integer_ comes from the Latin word meaning "whole" (as seen in our word _integral_, "belonging to the whole"). I am also quite confident that our words _single_ and _number_ both trace back to concepts relating to the undifferentiated "all" rather than to any primitive idea of counting--"one of this and two of that", etc. The word _alone_ is derived from Middle English _al one_, "all (whole) one". (I'll take up our word "sole" shortly and suggest a similar relationship. The archaic reference, I believe, will be the primeval, unified power who "stands alone".) The English prefix _an-_ is borrowed from Latin and means "not", "without", "lacking". Our prefix _un_, is akin to Latin _in_ Greek _an_ meaning "not". _Un_ is also a prefix meaning to reverse, remove, or deprive, akin to the Old English _and_, Latin _ante_, Greek _anti_, and Sanskrit _anti_, "opposite of", "against". Thus, the meanings include both a negative condition and a "return" to a negative condition from something that is "ordered", as in "un-do" (As I said above, the original state of formlessness, prior to the emergence of the created "order", is negative, but with no sense of violence or catastrophe. The un- doing of creation, the "return to chaos", is invariably catastrophic. But we'll get to that.) The roots _anti_ and _ante_ also mean "before", "prior". The word _conjunction_, Latin _conjunctus_, from the root _jungere_, means "to unite", "to be joined or yoked as one". We use the Latin word _ana_ for information placed "together", items constituting a coherent whole (as in Americana), i.e., the "conjunction" principle. Our word _and_ is the German _und_, the Sanskrit _anti_. We call the word a "conjunction", and the word itself MEANS "together with", or the conjunction of two or more parts of a whole. (Other words called "conjunctions"--but, or, nor, for, so, yet, while-- do indeed join thoughts in a sentence, but the words themselves do not MEAN a joining in the more direct sense of "and".) For the time being, at least, I do not propose to follow the various lineages backward to establish a more complete and definitive profile. It should be sufficient to note that there is simply no way to separate the meanings of these words and roots from the listed five principles relating to the "original condition". Obviously this fact does not require one to believe that the roots are all connected (though some of the connections would be beyond dispute, such as the kinship of our words _one_ and _unity_). What about the relationship of our word _one_ to the Latin roots _an_ and _in_, with the meaning "not"? Of the original kinship I am highly confident, but if anyone knows of verifiable facts which would discredit the proposed relationship I'd like to hear from them. The fact that the Sanskrit _anti_ mean "and", but also the negative, certainly provides a clue, The relationship to the Latin _anti_, _ante_, in reference to PRIOR conditions or events, or an undoing to return to a prior condition, should also be investigated. The point here is that patterns which will appear meaningless in the absence of the Saturn model may become highly meaningful as one explores the implications of the model. And if exploration lends support to common lineages, two crucial questions arise: 1) can you see anything in the familiar natural world which might have prompted the full complex of relationships? 2) if you grant the Saturn model, would you EXPECT such relationships? ---------------------------------------------- CATASTROPHIC WORD ORIGINS A Kroniatalk Discussion Roger Wescott said (previously): ... The word "comma" has a root "kop" ("to strike or mark"). So there is a semantic connection with "apostrophe" et al., even though that connection isn't morphological. All best! --Roger To which Mark Newbrook responded: WHY ARE SEMANTIC CONNECTIONS IMPORTANT IF WORDS ARE NOT COGNATE OR OTHERWISE MORPHOLOGICALLY CONNECTED? I SUPPOSE RW MEANS MERELY THAT THESE WORDS WERE AT SOME TIME IN THE SAME SEMANTIC FIELD (WHEN USED MORE 'LITERALLY'?) - WHICH IS NOT WITHOUT INTEREST. DAVE TALBOTT: >From the vantage point of the Saturn model, I suspect that semantic relationships were originally much broader and more complex than generally supposed, but progressively narrowed due to distance from the original celestial references. It was these original references which made the complexity meaningful. The respective fields would include a broad range of meanings linked to identifiable celestial forms and events which are no longer visible. This is a point that needs to be illustrated concretely, and a few days ago I offered an example with respect to the "omphalos/umbilicus" and the shadow effect on Mars. Here the integrated meanings include the center, navel, nave, knob or boss, shadow, dark, red. The connections as a whole are not prompted by natural experience familiar to us today, but they would be expected under the Saturn theory. Dave Talbott (previously): The meaning of the root _kop_ to strike, brings the _comma_ into alignment symbolically with the Great Star/Great Comet Venus, though I would add the sense of the "break" in a linear sequence, which is the effect of both the comma and the coma (comet). Mark Newbrook: IS THIS MEANT SERIOUSLY? A DOUBLE MEANING FOR comma (ON WHAT EVIDENCE) AND AN ETYMOLOGICAL LINK WITH coma/comet (DITTO)? Not a "double" meaning. A triple meaning (for starters), which I interpret as a reflection of broader semantic relationships than generally imagined. If my underlying assumption is correct we should find many instances in which, enigmatically, quite different roots carry forward the SAME complex of nuances. Here, the nuances would be: 1) to strike, 2) a break in a sequence, and 3) a spiraling or turning stroke or mark. In the symbolism of the Great Star/Great Comet these concepts are inseparably connected. I find it significant, therefore, that both the comet and comma reflect the same complex of ideas or functions, despite the fact that natural experience today seems to offer little or no support for the integrated meanings. I also SUSPECT an etymological connection of _kop_(comma) and _kom_ (coma, comet). I've suggested privately to others that we should look for the possibility of an archaic feminine and masculine relationship between the two roots, reflecting the relationship between the masculine and feminine aspects of the Great Star. Remember that the archetypal "star" represents the conjunction of Mars and Venus--the masculine is lodged within the feminine, then separates to become an independent power. Since both conjunction and separation (the famous "birth of the hero", for example) are so prominent in the symbolism of the hero and goddess, I simply cannot believe that language would fail to reflect this relationship in very fundamental ways. On this question I'll have a lot more to say and am prepared to voice a hundred "suspicions" that may or may not prove fruitful. Roger Wescott (private note): Dave, linguists who recognize consonantal apophony accept kop- and kom- as related, like pa/ma or skip/skim in English. DAVE This revelation accords so well with my original suspicions that I would like to pursue the connection further, with specific reference to the feminine and masculine nuances of the Great Star. The radiating "splendor" of the Great Star is the _kom_, generally a feminine principle. Is it possible that the goddess' counterpart, the warrior-hero, might reveal an archaic relationship to _kop_ as the head, the one who wears the _kom_ as hair, headdress, or crown, and wields the _kom_ as a weapon or emblem of power and authority? When you think about it, it's hard not to notice that the p- and m- sounds do seem to carry respective masculine and feminine associations (as in pa and ma for that matter). So my first guess would be that the principle of apophany Roger noted did indeed have its reference in the conjunction of male and female aspects in the Great Star. >From Pam Hanna: One small comment on Dave T's article which I wanted to mention - about the word "sacred" - not to contradict "holy" & "wholeness" but to insert that 'sacer' (from my Partridge 'Word Origins') has 3 important full compounds: 'sacerdos' a priest; 'sacrificium,' an offering to a god; 'sacrilegus,' a stealer of sacred things. Sacerdotal, sacristy, sacrament, - all relate to sacrifice, i.e. sacred does mean 'holy' and may mean 'wholeness,' but i believe the wholeness would derive from sacrifice. The priest is sacrificer, and he sacrifices in the sacristy which is holy because that's where he sacrifices. "Sacramentus" is "...a deposit made to the Gods, hence, from the accompanying oath...." Hyam Maccoby stressed this . . . in *The Sacred Executioner.* And i believe it relates directly to Catastrophic word origins. We've already established that one of the human reactions to the polar configuration was to initiate blood sacrifice. They couldn't feel holy and whole without blood sacrifice, que no? Dave Talbott said: More than once I've expressed the belief that the echoes of an original unity pervade our language. The patterns, however, will not be recognized until one sees the true source of the unity in a planetary configuration. My contention has been that this configuration was an obsessive focus of human attention in the crucial phase of language formulation. Dave said previously: So you have to ask yourself two crucial questions: 1) can you see anything in the familiar natural world which might have prompted the full complex of relationships? 2) if you grant the Saturn model, would you EXPECT such relationships? Amy again: The answer to the first question, "can you see anything ... ?" depends on the viewpoint (paradigm again) from which you're looking. From a uniformist paradigm, the definition of evolution precludes the possibility of sudden change. Although that viewpoint is changing, even from within the walls of mainstream academia. Concepts like Stephen J Gould's "punctuated equilibrium" and Forese Carlo Wezel's "anastrophic speciation" are eroding the "gradualist" paradigm. These concepts may be a stone's away throw from the catastrophist viewpoint, but they don't actually throw the stone. They say "sudden evolutionary changes", they say "following catastrophic extinctions", they say "species appear fully-formed and there is very little change once the species stabilize". But what they mean is that the same almost-unnoticed gradual changes took place "remarkably fast", over hundreds of years, rather than millions. Many catastrophists use more radical concepts. Ev Cochrane feels that only something as immediate as "Larmarckian" would be able to cope with catastrophic change. Charles Ginenthal suggests metamorphosis. I am willing to settle for "parallel mutation" (it's been demonstrated in fruit flies under laboratory conditions), which means speciation in a single generation under catastrophic conditions. Or a combination of the above (life is polymorphous, after all.) So let's go on to Dave's second question, "if you grant the Saturn model," what would I expect to find in the biological sphere? Spoken language is an intricate part of Homo sapiens. It involves several complex phenomena, including a "hard-wired" grammar function and a unique placement of the human larynx, plus probably more things I'm not aware of. All of the above, or one crucial component, could have appeared at once in many members of the Homo sapiens predecessor. If I grant the Saturn model, I would expect to find clusters of Homo sapiens inventing language for the first time under the most dreadful of situations -- the world has changed around them, and they are desperate to find out why, remember the way it was before, deal with the new conditions, keep it from happening again. I would expect to find what Dave suggests; that most, maybe all, of human language would be connected to the event which also triggered the ability to speak. Michael Armstrong adds: . . . the above paragraph mirrors my conception of what happened. The evidence suggests that oral language arose suddenly, not from a previous "mother" or proto-language but from radically new conditions, needs and context, and arose in the context of a crucially dramatic shared experience. ---------------------------------------------- THE ABSURDITY OF NEUTRON STARS By Wal Thornhill Nowhere is the gravitational paradigm of cosmology shown to exhibit more strangeness than in compact high energy phenomena in deep space. A report in the journal Nature of 15 November proposes that a recently discovered star "is made of an exotic stuff called 'strange matter', never yet seen on Earth". In other words, it may be a "strange star". This bizarre suggestion comes out of the mathematics describing stars that generate rapid pulses of radiation, commonly called "pulsars". The x-ray pulses are thought to be due to a rotating beam of x-rays that flashes toward the Earth once per revolution like a cosmic lighthouse. See picture at: http://www.holoscience.com/views/view_strange.htm This seemingly simple model began to show signs of strain many years ago when the first millisecond pulsar was discovered. In order to flash (rotate) several times a second a pulsar would need to be very compact indeed, only a few kilometres in diameter. But to generate x-rays gravitationally requires an extreme concentration of matter to accelerate particles to a sufficiently high energy so that when they strike the star x-rays are produced. The only objects that theoretically meet that requirement are neutron stars and black holes. Both kinds of object are well outside our experience. The discovery now of an x-ray pulsar SAX J1808.4-3658 (J1808 for short), located in the constellation of Sagittarius, that flashes every 2.5 thousandths of a second (that is 24,000 RPM!) goes way beyond the red-line even for a neutron star. So another ad hoc requirement is added to the already long list - this pulsar must be composed of something even more dense than packed neutrons - strange matter! When astrophysicists are having difficulty with their models they traditionally turn for rescue to the nuclear physicists. (They were called in to explain away the missing solar neutrinos). The news report goes on: "The most fundamental building blocks of nuclear matter are thought to be particles called quarks. The 'regular' nuclear particles or 'nucleons' - protons and neutrons - are composed of 'up' and 'down' quarks: two up quarks and a down quark make one proton, while a neutron consists of two downs and an up. But there are at least four other, more exotic, kinds of quark, amongst them the so-called 'strange' quark. In nucleons, quarks are supposed to exist in inseparable groups of three, which is why no one has ever seen an isolated quark. But at extremely high densities of matter, quarks may become uncoupled or 'deconfined'. 'Strange matter' is a melange of deconfined up, down and strange quarks. Physicists are hoping that the new particle colliders currently under construction, such as the Larger Hadron Collider at CERN in Geneva, will create conditions extreme enough to break quarks free. But the Universe may have got there first. X.-D. Li of Nanjing University, China, and colleagues' suggestion that J1808 is a strange star follows a small number of similar proposals for other astrophysical objects that emit bursts of X-rays. The X-ray bursts from these objects are signs of violent activity of a sort that becomes possible only when matter is pushed to extremes." Wal Thornhill comments: I think J R Saul highlighted the language problem we are seeing here when he wrote, "Ten geographers who think the world is flat will tend to reinforce each other's errors. If they have a private dialect in which to do this, it becomes impossible for outsiders to disagree with them. Only a sailor can set them straight. The last person they want to meet is someone who, freed from the constraints of expertise, has sailed around the world." J R Saul, Voltaire's Bastards. The Nobel Laureate, Irving Langmuir, coined the term "pathological science" for "the science of things that aren't so". Two key symptoms of such science are: (1) the resort to fantastic theories contrary to our experience, and (2) the use of ad-hoc requirements to save the appearances. If we apply these criteria, two disciplines that share line honours for pathological or strange science are cosmology and particle physics. They both deal with unseen objects - neutron stars, black holes, quarks, etc. They both produce fantastic ad- hoc requirements to explain new discoveries - dark matter, super- heavy objects and exotic particles. They cross-infect each other with their theoretical requirements both to save appearances and convince governments to spend large sums of research money for super-colliders to replay bits of a hypothetical Big Bang, or to build gravity-wave telescopes when we have no proof such waves exist. The above report brings such strange science sharply into focus. It is not ordinary matter, but scientific models that are being pushed to extremes. Einstein warned: "Most mistakes in philosophy and logic occur because the human mind is apt to take the symbol for reality". Neutron stars and quarks have never been seen. They are derived from mathematical symbols. Let's take quarks first. There is little to suggest that any of the shrapnel from high energy colliders exists in normal matter. If enormous energy is spent in shattering a proton to unlock the hypothetical quarks then the energy itself may manifest as particles that don't play any part in ordinary matter. Flying a 747 into a mountainside and picking over the ruins is not the best way of finding out how an aircraft works. Suggesting that a star can be composed stably of unobserved particles simply because a theory of invisible, super- heavy objects demands it is asking too much! Here are some of the many unstated assumptions underpinning the X-ray pulsar model: 1. It is assumed that the physics of neutral matter and ideal gases on Earth can be used to explain the operation of the glowing balls of plasma we call stars. Wal: 99.999% of the universe is made of plasma. It is not necessarily electrically neutral and does not behave like an ideal gas. 2. It is assumed that all interstellar plasma is mostly an ionized, uncharged, superconducting gas that can trap and carry magnetic fields. Wal: Plasma is not a superconductor so magnetic fields cannot be trapped in it. The origin of the magnetic fields is not clear from standard theory. The Electric Universe proposes that magnetic fields and plasma filaments in space are formed by electrical currents in charged plasma. (No book on astronomy mentions electrical effects). 3. It is assumed that we understand how our Sun and other stars shine, evolve, and someday die or form neutron stars. Wal: We do not understand the Sun's magnetic field, the hot corona, solar wind, solar cycle, x-ray variability, coronal mass ejections, sunspots, low neutrino count, etc., etc. 4. It is assumed that we understand what causes a supernova explosion. Wal: The number of ad hoc assumptions required for a mechanical explosion following a sudden stellar implosion results in a highly unlikely explanation. SN1987A showed that such explosions are not spherically symmetrical. 5. It is assumed that a supernova can "squeeze" stellar protons and electrons together to form neutrons. Wal: A first-order wild conjecture. The model incorporates many unproven assumptions about the unseen internal structure of stars. If the implosion is not spherically symmetrical there may be insufficient "squeeze" to force protons and electrons to merge, even if that were possible. No account is taken of electrical effects. Our own Sun with a mean density only slightly above that of pure hydrogen shows that electrostatic forces are at work within stars to offset compression forces. 6. It is assumed that it is possible to form a stable neutron star. Wal: When not associated with protons in a nucleus, neutrons decay into protons and electrons in a few minutes. Atomic nuclei with too many neutrons are unstable. If it were possible to form a neutron star, why should it be stable? 7. It is assumed that a supernova can further squeeze neutrons until they "pop their quarks". Wal: A second-order wild conjecture. 8. It is assumed that it is possible to have a stable massive object composed of quarks. Wal: A third-order wild conjecture based on the pathologies of both astrophysics and nuclear physics. It is an unseen object composed of unseen matter. 9. It is assumed that a neutron star can convert the energy of infalling matter into tightly collimated, pulsed x-ray beams. Wal: It is difficult to imagine a more unlikely way of achieving this effect. 10. It is assumed that a spinning object is required to cause the pulsations. Wal: Only required in a purely mechanical model. 11. It is assumed that Nature overlooks the normal (and infinitely easier) method of creating x-rays by accelerating electrons in an electric field. 12. It is assumed that Nature overlooks the simplest way of creating pulsed radiation by a charge-discharge relaxation oscillator cycle (where electric charge builds up slowly until a threshold is reached and a sudden discharge occurs). 13. It is assumed that Nature ignores the simplest way of creating a highly collimated x-ray beam and particle jet (if one is required from the observations) by the use of the plasma focus effect. The Electric Universe model assumes that Nature knows best. It does not require strange matter or a strange star. The x-ray pulses are caused by regular electric discharges between two or more orbiting, normally constituted, electrically charged bodies. It is a manifestation of a periodic arc instead of a spinning star. If beaming of the radiation is occurring then that should be verifiable here on Earth in the lab by studying the plasma focus device. For diagram of the plasma focus device, go to: http://www.holoscience.com/views/view_strange.htm The Electric Universe model lets go of the Newtonian dogma that gravity is the driving force in the cosmos. It allows for the possibility that the fundamental characteristic of normal matter - its electric charge - plays the most significant role. So if gravity wave telescopes detect anything at all, it won't be gravity waves from super-heavy objects. And particle physicists who are trying to work out how the universe was constructed from strange matter early in the Big Bang are wasting their time. The astronomer Halton Arp, author of the Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies, has conclusively disproven the theory of an expanding universe and so knocked out the foundation of the Big Bang theory. Meanwhile the plasma physicists and electrical engineers are waiting in the wings for those astro-and nuclear-physicists parading their strange science in public to get off the stage. It would be entertaining if it weren't so serious. But it is costing us dearly and holding up real progress. [Ed. note: For the latest developments in the Electric Universe, visit the rest of Wal Thornhill's www.holoscience.com website.] ---------------------------------------------- PLEASE VISIT THE KRONIA COMMUNICATIONS WEBSITE: http://www.kronia.com Other suggested Web site URL's for more information about Catastrophics: Subscriptions to AEON, a journal of myth and science, may be ordered at the I-net address below: http://www.ames.net/aeon/ http://www.knowledge.co.uk/sis/ http://www.flash.net/~cjransom/ http://www.knowledge.co.uk/velikovskian/ http://www.bearfabrique.org http://www.grazian-archive.com/ http://www.holoscience.com http://www.users.uswest.net/~dascott/Cosmology.htm http://www.catastrophism.com/cdrom/index.htm Immanuel Velikovsky Reconsidered, 10 Pensée Journals may be ordered at the I-net address below: http://www.e-z.net/~mikamar/default.html ----------------------------------------------- The THOTH electronic newsletter is an outgrowth of scientific and scholarly discussions in the emerging field of astral catastrophics. Our focus is on a reconstruction of ancient astral myths and symbols in relation to a new theory of planetary history. Serious readers must allow some time for these radically different ideas to be fleshed out and for the relevant background to be developed. The general tenor of the ideas and information presented in THOTH is supported by the editor and publisher, but there will always be plenty of room for differences of interpretation. We welcome your comments and responses. thoth at Whidbey.com New readers are referred to earlier issues of THOTH posted on the Kronia website listed above. Go to the free newsletter page and double click on the image of Thoth, the Egyptian God of Knowledge, to access the back issues. Amy Acheson editor of THOTH thoth at whidbey.com --------------21BC2257902-- --- You are currently subscribed to kroniatalk as: mikamar at e-z.net To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-kroniatalk-36515E at telelists.com