Chance Document Find Sheds New Light On Giza Pyramids
Built 4,500 years ago during Egypt’s Old Kingdom, the pyramids of Giza are more than elaborate tombs — they’re also one of the historians’ best sources of insight into how the ancient Egyptians lived since their walls are covered with illustrations of agricultural practices, city life, and religious ceremonies.
But on one subject, they remain curiously silent. They offer no insight into how the pyramids were built.
It’s a mystery that has plagued historians for thousands of years, leading the wildest speculators into the murky territory of alien intervention and perplexing the rest.
But the work of several archaeologists in the last few years has dramatically changed the landscape of Egyptian studies.
After millennia of debate, the mystery might finally be over.
A team of Egyptian and French scholars discovered a papyrus diary written by an official named Merer. What makes this discovery so compelling is that his diary is the world’s sole first-person description of how the Great Pyramid was built. Archaeologists found Merer’s papyrus in the Red Sea port of Wadi al-Jarf.
In his diary, Merer references working for “the noble Ankh-haf,” who was Pharaoh Khufu’s half-brother, and that he was in charge of about 40 men. These documents evidence that Ankh-haf was one of those in charge of the Great Pyramid’s construction.
In Merer’s diary, he recounts how limestone quarried in Tura (about 12 miles south of Cairo) was transported by boat across the Nile River to Giza through specially built canals built by his team. One such vessel was unearthed at the bottom of the pyramids.
After traversing the river, the stone blocks were then deposited near the building site by workers using ropes. The blocks were further moved on ‘tracks’. The workers transported approximately 170,000 tons of limestone in this manner.
It’s believed a similar system was used to move granite from Aswan, which is located several hundred miles from Giza.
Around 2550 B.C., Pharaoh Khufu started construction on the Great Pyramid at Giza. It is made up of approximately 2.3 million stone blocks. Each block is absolutely massive and weighs between 2.5 to 15 tons. When the Great Pyramid was built, it was reportedly 481 feet tall. Over time, the structure sunk a little into the desert and is now 455 feet tall.
The second pyramid was built about 30 years later by Khufu’s son, Pharaoh Khafre, who also constructed the Sphinx.
Image: Blogspot.com
Pharaoh Menkaure built the third, smallest, pyramid 30 years later, in approximately 2490 B.C.
The individuals who built the pyramids required strong tools to cut the stone for the pyramids. Workers mined copper across the Red Sea and transported it to the port of Wadi al-Jarf before it reached Giza.
Khufu, also known as King Cheops, built the harbor about 111 miles from Suez – which is hundreds of miles from Giza. In addition to copper, the harbor was used to import other minerals for tool making.
It’s impossible to agree upon an exact count of just how many people contributed to the building of the pyramids, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t educated hypotheses currently being postulated. According to Greek historian Herodotus, the pyramids were built by 100,000 workers, although many of today’s Egyptologists think the number is more likely between 20,000 and 30,000.
Famed Egyptologist Zahi Hawass (below) believes around 36,000 ancient Egyptians built the pyramids based on their size, the size of the tombs, and the cemetery.
Image: enterprise.net
Archeologist Mark Lehner of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago and Harvard Semitic Museum has postulated a vastly smaller number. He noted that Herodotus wrote that 100,000 men worked in three shifts to build the structures. It’s unclear whether each shift contained 100,000 men or 33,000 men worked in each of the three shifts.
Lehner’s team conducted an experiment and calculated how many men would be needed to deliver 340 stones each day and determined there were likely 1,200 in the quarry and 2,000 delivering the stones.
Other men would also be needed to cut the stones and set them into place. He concluded the process would have required “5,000 men to actually do the building and the quarrying and the schlepping from the local quarry” to build the pyramid within a 20-40 year period.
Some people believe the ancient Egyptians had some otherworld help creating the pyramids. One theory that conspiracy theorists have latched on to is that the pyramids were built by aliens.
Their proof? They point out that the pyramids at Giza align with the stars in the sky that form Orion’s belt.
This is not as fanciful as it first seems, as some years ago, it was noticed the the Neolithic monuments known as the Thornborough Henges in England also match the stars of Orion’s Belt, as seen in the image below.
In addition, these people believe that the Giza pyramids are in extraordinary shape compared to pyramids that were constructed hundreds of years later.
However, they don’t take into consideration the fact that the pyramids of Giza have undergone intense preservation over the years so it makes sense that they are in better condition than those that haven’t been touched.
In 2014, researchers from the University of Amsterdam and the Foundation for Fundamental Research on Matter conducted an experiment. They transported heavy stone on a sledge across the sand.
They proved it was significantly easier to move the sledge on damp sand versus dry sand. In fact, the action required just half the force. The reason? Wet sand sticks to itself and is more solid than dry sand.
Plus, damp sand doesn’t bunch up in front of a sledge while it’s moving. In addition, the researchers noted that a painting from an 1800 B.C. tomb depicted a worker dumping water on the sand to help a sledge moving a heavy statue.
Dr. Joseph West of Indiana State University developed his own theory about how the stone blocks were moved to the pyramid’s construction site. In 2014, he suggested that builders might have secured wooden beams to a stone block, turning it into a dodecagon (a 12-sided object), which would have enabled workers to more easily move them, as opposed to dragging them. He wrote:
A novel method is proposed for moving large (pyramid construction size) stone blocks.
The method is inspired by a well known introductory physics homework problem and is implemented by tying 12 identical rods of appropriately chosen radius to the faces of the block.
The rods form the corners and new faces that transform the square prism into a dodecagon which can then be moved more easily by rolling than by dragging.
French theorist Joseph Davidovits was on the right path. His ideas led to the discovery of concrete blocks that were used on top of the pyramids. Professor Michel Barsoum from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Drexel University tested Davidovits’s theory and determined several things. The stones both inside and outside the pyramid appeared to be “reconstituted” limestone.
The stones contained a lot of water and were amorphous, which is extremely unusual for limestone. Moreover, silicon dioxide nanoscale spheres were present in one sample, indicating the blocks were not “natural” limestone.
Barsoum noted:
It’s very improbable that the outer and inner casing stones that we examined were chiseled from a natural limestone block.
When it comes to placing the large stone blocks in place on the pyramids, many believe the ancient Egyptians used large ramps.
Thousands of people would have been required to set two million blocks to make the structures.
In 2013, engineer Peter James, whose company spent nearly two decades restoring the pyramids, disputed that claim. He called it “impossible” because the ramps would have had to be long, and would have been a bigger engineering project than the pyramids themselves as they would have had to be continually extended to maintain the angle of the slope.
Otherwise, they would be too steep to move the limestone and granite materials. Instead, James theorized that the workers crafted the inner core of the pyramid with smaller blocks using a series of zigzagging ramps.
Then they constructed scaffolding to complete the outer core with larger blocks. James told the Daily Mail:
Looking at the pyramids from a builder’s point of view, and not an archaeologist’s, it’s clear that the current theories are nonsense. Just look at the numbers.
Under the current theories, to lay two million blocks, the Egyptians would have to have laid a large block once every three minutes.
It would have been impossible to build the pyramids using ramps around the outside, too, because they would have ended up being larger, in some cases, than the pyramids themselves.
Plus, what happened to the ramps once the pyramids were finished? They would have been removed, but would have left scars where they were keyed in to the pyramids to stop them shifting, and their foundations, which would have been both wide and deep to support the weight of the ramp, would be visible on the ground.
The bottom line is, even with this new information, we still don’t know how these massive structures were actually erected.
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Purple Helmet
| #
What’s with all the establishment coverup articles on this site all of a sudden? Somebody needs to ask Dr. Hawass why the Sphinx shows signs of water erosion if it’s only 4500 years old. That area has not seen significant rain in at least 5000 years. And how did the pyramids get built in 200 years when it took that long just to build the Cathedral of Notre Dame? The extraneous introduction of the “ancient aliens” straw man gives the game away.
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Herb Rose
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Archeology is rife with fakes. A foreman in charge of 40 people had learned how to read and write? He spent his spare time writing a diary and his money buying papyrus? Sounds like other “scholarly pursuits” where the experts produce evidence to support their theories. Piltdown man?
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Jerry Krause
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Hi PSI Readers,
The unknown author of this article describes how archeologists had puzzled over how the Egyptian pyramids were built and then wrote: “When the Great Pyramid was built, it was reportedly 481 feet tall. Over time, the structure sunk a little into the desert and is now 455 feet tall.” I have to ask: How did the Egyptians measure the final, original, height of the pyramids they had constructed?
So, I question question the implied claim that the pyramid had sunk 26 feet into the desert surface. A somewhat frivolous question I can ask: Was the pyramid sinking while it was being constructed? For I doubt anyone would claim that it was constructed in a day, a year, or even a decade, etc. For we are not told, from this newly found “diary”, this information which a common definition of “diary” suggests should have also been reported.
Louis Elzevir, the publisher; of Galileo’s famous book, wrote to the book’s readers: “Intuitive knowledge keeps pace with accurate definition.”. This as translated to English by Crew and de Salvio.
That accurate definition is a great problem and I agree with Herb’s comment.
Have a good day, Jerry
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Jerry Krause
| #
Hi PSI Readers,
While I question some of what the author of this article has written; I do not question: “A team of Egyptian and French scholars discovered [in] a papyrus diary written by an official named Merer”. For I understand that is how we have learned what an Egyptian, named Moses, had written on papyrus at an ancient time and translated into various other languages, since that time, and published at the beginning of the book titled “The Holy Bible”.
Have a good day, Jerry
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Maurice Lavigne
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I’m still waiting to know how they cut these stones. Hammers and chisels “just don’t cut it”.
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Maurice and Herb,,
The undebatable fact is the stones of the pyramids had to have been cut and shaped somehow.
Have a good day, Jerry
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Matthijs
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Sand and a copper bar.
Try it.
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Jerry Krause
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Hi MattH (I guess),
It is amazing what your experiences have been because I believe you have tried it.
Have a good day, Jerry
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Howdy
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Copper chisels were used with a constant sharpen and replacement crew due to fast deformation of the tip.
Or you can look here:
https://archaeopress.wordpress.com/2017/03/17/metal-tools-of-the-pyramid-builders-and-other-craftsmen-in-the-old-kingdom/
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Citizen Quasar
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You people don’t have a clue. These pyramids are not tombs they are machines and they are tens of millennia older than you say.
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Andy Rowlands
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Oh okay then.
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Citizen Quasar
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https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Giza_Death_Star.html?id=nzaiviPoS5oC
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Howdy
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Alternatively…
Orion represents the Messiah, and if you follow the line of the belt stars, you arrive at Sirius, the star of Isis, who is the Egyptian virgin mother of the Messiah.
The pyramid tunnels also come into alignment with stars, and there is allways the Ark of the Covenant
https://www.ancient-code.com/the-origin-of-our-civilization-the-constellation-of-orion/
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Jerry Krause
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Hi MattH (I guess), Howdy, and any other readers,
Because of the information of Howdy’s link I had concluded that Matt was likely wrong. Then I finally saw the fact that Matt mentioned the words “sand”, bar, and try it. Then I tired to read in my chemistry books about ‘limestone” and could not find anything written about it. So ended up with the Encyclopedia Britannica (1968) where I found my conception of limestone as nearly pure calcium carbonate was wrong. The calcium carbonate concentration limestone, according what I read there, only requires at least 50% calcium carbonate and is commonly “soft” according to D.L.G. And as I double checked what I remembered (a problem) reading I saw I was referred to “quarrying”. Something which I did not read about at Howdy’s link, nor did I read that sand might be involved in ‘cutting’ the blocks of limestone, nor was how the blocks of limestone got from the quarry to the site of the pyramid.
At quarrying I read: “The first operation is to make a cut or channel … For softer rocks such as limestone … a channel 2 to 2 1/2 inches wide and several feet deep [is made … Another method is wire saw … [which] cuts by abrasion when fed with sand … in water. When the primary cuts have been made .. the mass of rock [is separated by drilling horizontal holes and driving wedges into the holes].” In ancient times the holes could be drilled by the flat end of the copper rod and sand etc as suggested by Matt and what I have read.
Ancient people needed to be practical people to survive; farmers and fishermen still do.
Have a good day,
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Jerry Krause
| #
Hi MattH (I guess), Howdy, and any other readers,
Because of the information of Howdy’s link I had concluded that Matt was likely wrong. Then I finally saw the fact that Matt mentioned the words “sand”, bar, and try it. Then I tired to read in my chemistry books about ‘limestone” and could not find anything written about it. So ended up with the Encyclopedia Britannica (1968) where I found my conception of limestone as nearly pure calcium carbonate was wrong. The calcium carbonate concentration limestone, according what I read there, only requires at least 50% calcium carbonate and is commonly “soft” according to D.L.G. And as I double checked what I remembered (a problem) reading I saw I was referred to “quarrying”. Something which I did not read about at Howdy’s link, nor did I read that sand might be involved in ‘cutting’ the blocks of limestone, nor was how the blocks of limestone got from the quarry to the site of the pyramid.
At quarrying I read: “The first operation is to make a cut or channel … For softer rocks such as limestone … a channel 2 to 2 1/2 inches wide and several feet deep [is made … Another method is wire saw … [which] cuts by abrasion when fed with sand … in water. When the primary cuts have been made .. the mass of rock [is separated by drilling horizontal holes and driving wedges into the holes].” In ancient times the holes could be drilled by the flat end of the copper rod and sand etc as suggested by Matt and what I have read.
Ancient people needed to be practical people to survive; farmers and fishermen still do.
Have a good day,
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Howdy
| #
Cracking large rocks by wedges is still practiced Jerry.
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Howdy
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This might interest you:
THIS is How You Know Ancient Egyptians had a Lost Ancient Technology…
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Howdy,
First, thank you for the you tube (whatever the correct words are) links. I refer to the one where Joe Rogen interviews Randal Carlson and Gram Hancock
These “intelligent” people refer to the “great” Testa’s ideas. I ask: What did Testa do with his ideas? I cannot remember reading that he did anything besides have ideas. Maybe you, or another PSI reader, can inform us about what I have missed. As I listen to these “experts” knowledge of history, I do not hear one name of the scientists who designed the nuclear bombs, which were constructed according their ideas, and which worked the first three times they were tested.
I do not hear about Stonehenge which is considered to have been begun more than 2000 years ago. Now relative to moving massive bodies and building something; I know I have read about a man in Florida who did single handily built quite massive structures. And supposedly one can still see what he did. Yes, I have forgotten the name of this man but I believe you (Howdy) or MattH can discover this name for us.
These intelligent men being interviewed by Joe Rogan are the reasons how so much previous knowledge has been forgotten.
Have a good day
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Herb Rose
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Hi Jerry,
I know you can’t read (your eyes may pass over the words but there is no comprehension) but I suggest you try to look up Tesla’s achievements before denigrating him. The reason so much of the previous knowledge has been forgotten is because it has become obsolete and useless because of the advance made by men like Tesla.
Herb
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Herb,
You wrote: “I suggest you try to look up Tesla’s achievements before denigrating him.”
I ask: Why don’t you prove me wrong by listing his actual achievements about which I seem to be ignorant?
Have a good day, Jerry
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Herb Rose
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Alternating current,
Radio,
Transformers,
High voltage currents
Many more advance in electricity.
One of the things I admire about Tesla is that when Westinghouse was struggling to get financing because of Tesla’s patents he tore up the patent agreements so the advances could continue. It didn’t work because J.P. Morgan told Westinghouse he would bankrupt them with court costs by challenging the patents unless the patents were given to him. He used the justice system to rob Westinghouse. Tesla died penniless.
Since you will not believe what I tell you I refer you to look it up but you seem to obsessed by ancient history. There is nothing can do to cure your ignorance.
Herb
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Howdy
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Relics of a material age Herb, they have no significance to the future.
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Herb Rose
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Hi Howdy,
And what are the pyramids?
I think the stone work of the Inca is more impressive than the Egyptians. They were not working on flat lands but mountains. They had no oxen or horses as draft animals, only llamas Their cities were build in a far more seismic active area than the Nile valley
Herb
Howdy
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The pyramids and other structures are evidence of what could be done before things fell too far.
Neither the incredible tolerances the stones were cut to, nor the massive weights shifted can be comprehended by science, nor satisfactorily explained. The cut stones even appear to be taken from the rock one after the other as simply as lifting bricks from a loose stack and placing them into another stack with no cleaning up between. The rocks match as far as I can see.
It requires the use of an anomaly to explain. Lasers, aliens and such.
Man is supposed to be in synchronicity with nature, and the order of the universe, thus able to use it for tasks that today are seen as impossible. It requires the creative, and science is not creative, but just problem solving, and more frequently, flights of fancy and corruption.
There is nothing clever about ‘modern’ civilization, quite the opposite.
Herb Rose
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Hi Howdy,
I don’t think the stones were split then reassembled to make these buildings (Far too many straight lines and right angles). I believe they have found river stones that were used to pound the surfaces of the stones to get a tight fit. A lot of work to do it right but that’s what drives technology. We now use mortar to make stable structures (less work, faster).
I thought it interesting that in the article they spoke of the possibility and evidence that the limestone surface stones were dissolved then reconstituted in place (like concrete). Maybe this technique evolved into the Roman self healing concrete written about in another article..
Herb
Jerry Krause
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Hi Herb,
Starting with Google I found the question who invented radio the first time and the answer was”inventor Guglielmo Marconi”.
Next I asked: who invented the first alternating current generator? And found: “Serbian-American engineer and physicist Nikola Tesla (1856-1943) made dozens of breakthroughs in the production, transmission and application of electric power. He invented the first alternating current (AC) motor and developed AC generation and transmission technology.” Which did not directly answer my question. For without the AC generator there is. no need of an AC motor. But I will grant you that I did not even know that he had lived until 1943.
Next I asked: Who invented the first AC voltage transformer? “In 1885 the ZBD model alternating-current transformer was invented by three Hungarian engineers: Ottó Bláthy, Miksa Déri and Károly Zipernowsky.”
Next I asked a somewhat similar question: Who invented the first high voltage AC voltage transformer? Just to see If I would get the same answer. Which I did.
So I will admit that Testa actually did much more than I had given him credit for and consider you need to admit that he was in not working in a Vacuum of other inventors’ ideas.
Have a good day
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Howdy
| #
Jerry, if you search for “alternator” instead of “alternating current generator”, the name Hippolyte Pixii is credited instead.
http://www.edisontc.org/grid-history/hippolyte-pixii-comes-out-of-obscurity/
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Howdy
| #
AC Power History and Timeline
https://edisontechcenter.org/AC-PowerHistory.html
Herb Rose
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Hi Jerry,
Tesla invented the first radio wave transmitter and patented it (different name) but Marconi was given the credit just as Bell was given the credit for the telephone which he did not invent.
Tesla started working in Edison’s lab, like many other of the day, then left to follow his interests. Tesla believed AC was the future while Edison wanted DC. When Buffalo NY award the contract to electrify the city to Westinghouse/Tesla (utilizing Niagara Falls as a power source) with AC (much more efficient) rather than to Edison Electric J.P.Morgan took control of Edison Electric away from Edison and changed the name to General Electric. No one works in a vacuum but in the end it is crooks who take the credit and the profits (Bill Gates).
Herb
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Howdy
| #
The coral castle Jerry?
https://www.livescience.com/41075-coral-castle.html
Graham Hancock, Randall Carlson & Michael Shermer:
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Howdy and PSI Readers,
Yes and if one does not find this story more interesting than Joe Rogen’s interview; one is brain dead. Just my opinion.
Have a good day
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Howdy
| #
Hi Jerry,
The video mentions that gobekli tepi was built 7000 years before Stonehenge at 18:37 into the video.
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Howdy and PSI Readers,
Your second link is about a several hour discussion of what SCIENCE is NOT. Fortunately you only encouraged me to eventually listen to 19 minutes as I tried to first decrease the listening time even further to learn what “gobekli tepi” was. As I had never read about it.
While in these 19 minutes there were many names of claimed scientist whom were mentioned; however I only recognized the name of Lewis Agassiz. About whose name, when I mention it to the people I meet, the vast majority of these people have no knowledge as to whom he might have been. Except possibly a tennis player.
And during this 19 minutes I never heard the name Galileo or Newton, whom are generally considered the founder of this human intellectual activity termed PHYSICAL SCIENCE. Which is fundamentally based upon qualitative observation and quantitative measurements made with human invented instruments.
“On November 27, 1895, Alfred Nobel signed his third and last will at the Swedish-Norwegian Club in Paris. When it was opened and read after his death, the will caused a lot of controversy both in Sweden and internationally, as Nobel had left much of his wealth for the establishment of a prize. His family opposed the establishment of the Nobel Prize, and the prize awarders he named refused to do what he had requested in his will. It was five years before the first Nobel Prize could be awarded in 1901.” (https://www.nobelprize.org/alfred-nobel/alfred-nobels-will/”
In his will one can read: ““All of my remaining realisable assets are to be disbursed as follows: the capital, converted to safe securities by my executors, is to constitute a fund, the interest on which is to be distributed annually as prizes to those who, during the preceding year [s?], have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind.” Years instead of year because real SCIENTISTS know that these achievements need to be established by the test of time.
I call attention to the Nobel Prize because during the 19 minutes I listened to the first portion of your link, I never recognized a name of a SCIENTIST who had been awarded a Nobel Prize. This is not to imply there were no such names for I am commonly wrong as most humans are prone to be from time to time.
So in summary what you generally would listen to, if you took the time, is an example of what Aristotle, the philosopher, and his fellow philosophers debated at the earlier time about the NATURAL WORLD & UNIVERSE.
The topics discussed at the link need to be discussed, not debated, by actual SCIENTISTS whom mainly have devoted a life time of effort studying that which interested them. If one is interested in geology I recommend that one reads NORTH DAKOTA’S GEOLOGIC LEGACY (Our Land and How it Formed) 2016 by John P Bluemle.
Have a good day
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Howdy
| #
“SCIENCE is NOT”
Not all science is received as science. One needs to be ‘one of the boys’ or one is segregated as a misfit/heretic. It is what people know, Jerry, not what accolades they have.
As we have seen, the Nobel prize is given for nonsense reasons as well as genuine achievement.
Of course you won’t find Galileo or Newton. It’s nothing to do with them, though that makes it no less important. It is more important than most of the drivel that passes for science these days.
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Jerry Krause
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Hi PSI Readers,
I quickly make this comment this morning to try to prevent the previous discussion (conversation) from ending as is too common.
Have a good day
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Howdy,
You introduce us to good links of information and then seem to run away. The men (including Newton, Robert Boyle, and others whose names I can not remember just now) regularly met and discussed observations and ideas.
One cannot be a SCIENCE if one is unwilling to stick to a consist topic. Which is at this time comets among other things. Newton, in the 3rd Book of The Principlia wrote at length about comets as he and other astronomers had the rare opportunity to see two comets which approached the SUN very closely as the incoming comet became an out going comet in little more than 24 hours. Newton and these other astronomers saw how the small incoming tails of these comets, which were still incoming, as a new, much grander, tail led the out going comet head away from the Sun toward space. And Newton speculated that when the Earth passed through these tails was how the earth accumulated all its water. If one is really interested in SCIENCE, one should read in English what Newton wrote as translated by Andrew Motte. And if one is not really interested in SCIENCE one should not try to confuse issues by pretending to know something about our acquired KNOWLEDGE of SCIENCE.
Howdy, you continually have been bringing good information to our attentions. Thank you very much. But please stick around to discuss this good information.
Have a good day
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Howdy
| #
“and then seem to run away.”
Still here Jerry as long as the discussion interests me. There is allways something else vying for my attention, though no less technical or scientific.
“One cannot be a SCIENCE if one is unwilling to stick to a consist topic.”
I’m not a scientist, but have a strong attraction to scientific subjects. I prefer versatility to single subjects because it allows me to be more helpfull to a wider spectrum.
Why are you talking about comets when Egypt is the subject?
Jerry, you know of the eye of Horus, the makeup? There is evidence this is actually a recreation of the centre of the brain, or possibly a measuring tool.
Did you know that Isis is the Egyptian ‘Virgin Mary’? That according to Egyptian tradition, The god Khnum created humanity from the clay of the Nile and breathed life into them? The animal headed Egyptians didn’t actually have animal heads and it is symbolic? This is stuff I’ve discovered just because I have an interest in something Egyptian. Should I have discarded it simply because it’s not the precise subject I was on?
If this makes me a non-scientist then I proudly claim to be a non-scientist.
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Howdy
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Jerry, I believe you would not attribute Astrology to science, but I also know you are a strong proponent of observation. So what If I have examined my life by much reflection according to Astrology, and the observations have shown the subject to be accurate and true, by observation. That my makeup, faults, gifts etc were correctly described. How does one proceed when truthfull observation conflicts with widely held opinion that a subject is voodoo and of no value?
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Moffin
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And then there is dowsing! Divining water before drilling a well is a common practice and then there is the energy fields that Nils Axel Morner claimed to be able to detect.
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Howdy and PSI Readers,
Our understanding of weather and climate is poor for there has been a lack of good information about ATMOSPHERIC WEATHER SYSTEMS. I oftenI go to (https://wrcc.dri.edu/cgi-bin/rawMAIN.pl?sdMBST) because I grew up in eastern South Dakota about 40 miles from Big Stone. And if you click this link you can see the weather data has only been available for about 2 decades. At other remote locations information (data) has been available for up to 4 decades. And if you back through the link you will see there are more than a thousand remote weather stations like this sponsored by the USA government.
My point is to inform you that the ideas about weather have been formulated long before this data about weather was available. Hence, the nonsense we hear being discussed by people who claim to know so mush about SCIENCE. Which is totally based on data such as is being finally observed.
Have a good day
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Jerry Krause
| #
Hi Howdy and Moffin,
Howdy asked: “How does one proceed when truthfull observation conflicts with widely held opinion that a subject is voodoo and of no value?”
You both should not my answer. Go with the observation because it always trumps opinion. My father successfully dowsed several very productive wells including the one which he hand dug, removing the boulders at bottom so there was never more than say 3 feet of water. And I could feel the pull on the forked branch as I walked across the narrow vein.
Do you both take polls to learn what you know (observe)?
Have a good day, Jerry
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Howdy
| #
“Go with the observation because it always trumps opinion”
That’s what I thought you would say Jerry 🙂
The water board still use dowsing rods to find pipes.
Take polls?
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Jerry Krause
| #
Hi Howdy and Moffin,
Sorry I misunderstood your comments.
Have a good day
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Howdy
| #
“Do you both take polls to learn what you know (observe)?”
What does that mean Jerry?
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Howdy
| #
“Do you both take polls to learn what you know (observe)?”
What does that mean Jerry?
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Jerry Krause
| #
Hi Howdy,
You just wrote: ““Do you both take polls to learn what you know (observe)?”
What does that mean Jerry?”
I had considered replying to this question which you had not quite directly asked but decided not to. I asked my question because it seemed that you and Moffin were leaning toward consensus science. And did not write ‘this’ before because I knew I had not researched what Moffin had written. A mistake and I didn’t want to make another mistake.
Relative to my father’s well I have some other observation to bring to your attention which hopefully will interest you so our conversation will continue.
Have a good day
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Howdy
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Leaning toward consensus science? You’ve got to be kidding me Jerry. What made you think that?
Consensus science is nodding heads, agreement of opinion and nothing more. It isn’t actual science.
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Jerry Kause
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Hi Howdy and PSI Readers,
Of course I do not believe that you and Moffin practice consensus science.
This comment is about the observation about the water from my father’s well that has never been pumped dry, even during the1930s.
Its water is colder and ‘softer’ (less dissolved minerals) than the water from the surrounding much deeper wells. The warmer water from the deeper wells might seem consistent with the fact we consider the interior of the earth to be molten because of nuclear fission reactions occurring there.
About the colder water obviously flowing in the narrow vein whose depth I have no idea, I speculate that it must come from a very large natural reservoir of cold water. And one seemingly obvious origin might be from the Rocky Mountains to the west. But as you many have noticed; I do not become fixated on only one alternative. I do not have tunnel vision.
So my other possible source is the cold water of the Arctic Ocean. Which makes no sense because the surface of this ocean is known to be closer to the center of the earth’s mass than the surfaces at lower latitudes.
However, I observe (http://weather.uwyo.edu/upperair/sounding.html) jet streams tend to be observed near 45 degrees latitudes. For which I cannot remember reading the explanation of how this is. But I have observed other facts about a mistake which many scientists make. Which is they seem to ignore the fact that the Earth rotates with a period of 24 hours.
I stop to wait for your possible comment.
Have a good day
Its water is colder and ‘softer’ (less dissolved minerals) than the water from the surrounding much deeper wells. The warmer water from the deeper wells might seem consistent with the fact we consider the interior of the earth to be molten because of nuclear fission reactions occurring there.
About the colder water obviously flowing in the narrow vein whose depth I have no idea, I speculate that it must come from a very large natural reservoir of cold water. And one seemingly obvious origin might be from the Rocky Mountains to the west. But as you many have noticed; I do not become fixated on only one alternative. I do not have tunnel vision.
So my other possible source is the cold water of the Arctic Ocean. Which makes no sense because the surface of this ocean is known to be closer to the center of the earth’s mass than the surfaces at lower latitudes.
However, I observe (http://weather.uwyo.edu/upperair/sounding.html) jet streams tend to be observed near 45 degrees latitudes. For which I cannot remember reading the explanation of how this is. But I have observed other facts about a mistake which many scientists make. Which is they seem to ignore the fact that the Earth rotates with a period of 24 hours.
I stop to wait for your possible comment.
Have a good day
Reply
Howdy
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Your Father’s well, and the jet stream? Very informative, but what has it to do with Moffin and myself as regards the track we were on?
Reply
Jerry Krause
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Hi Howdy,
Trying to understand (explain) atmospheric circulation and weather and climate is what I am trying. Maybe you do not see any relationships between the circulation of water beneath the earth’s surface and that of the air above the surface. The obvious relationship is the precipitation of “freshwater”. Before radar and satellites we had little knowledge of where most precipitation seemed to fall. Now at recent history (I learned of observations that most precipitation occurs over oceans and seas) Not on continents where most people have lived and still live.
I will stop here to see if you get my point.
Have a good day.
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Howdy
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Me seeing relationships is of no consequence. You have gone completely of the topic Jerry, into something I don’t care for.
If you wish to stop then no worries. 🙂
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Howdy,
This is what Louis Agassiz taught student who became Professor Scudder: “Agassiz’s training in the method of observing facts and their orderly arrangement was ever accompanied by the urgent exhortation not to be content with them. “Facts are stupid things,” he would say, “until brought into connection with some general law.” (Louis Agassiz As A Teacher, 1917, Lane Cooper, The Comstock Publishing Col)
If you cannot agree with Agassiz’s wisdom, goodbye. I really do appreciate the conversations we have had.
Have a good day
Reply
Howdy
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Perhaps it was Scudder’s destiny, and Agassiz was simply the signpost.
I don’t do other people’s views on life as a means to live my own Jerry. You allready know this, so why bring it up? Live life your own way.
I would think by now you realized what I’m about as far as information gathering and satisfaction with the status quo goes. I don’t need to say any more.
Howdy
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Regarding the signpost comment. We are all intertwined Jerry.
When you were practicing to achieve your Chemistry knowledge and PhD, did you ever get the feeling it was a fated event? A calling? This is destiny, and others are there to help point the way, but the ultimate decision to be the best is yours.
There are greater events at work that shape ones outcome, that is not necessarily the effect of some teacher’s rules.
Jerry Krause
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Hi Howdy,
Good to find that you are still around. Thanks.
You ask: “did you ever get the feeling it was a fated event? A calling?”
Not, until I was retiring as a teacher much before I had planned to retire because I obviously love to teach. But at that time I finally read what Galileo wrote in his famous book and what I read that Lane Cooper wrote (edited) what Agassiz’s students had written about Agassiz as a Teacher. For I understood then that my Creator God was moving me on to do other things He had created me to do. Of which I believe this comment I am trying to compose without mistakes (and failing) is destiny.
Only now at 82 I am aware that “The only source of knowledge is experience.” as I look back on the many different unique experiences I have had. Like having my oral prelim examination extended because the mathematics (my second minor) professor asked me a question about orthogonal series about which I had no idea. And after more than a half-hour of grilling I couldn’t have told him what 2 plus 2 was. But then the physics (my 1st minor) asked me prove some scientific law and I knew the answer to this was I could not for I had learned that a scientific law was merely a summary of Natural relationships which had been observed over and over without exception.
Because of the continuation of my exam my major professor advised me to meet with the mathematical professor and I did. And I came away with the message to my major professor that I could never answer the math professor’s likely questions. However then destiny happened. The single grad students in our group often frequented a pub about 10 pm after studying until then. And we were familiar with a group of oceanography who also frequented this same pub and in a conversation I learned that they loved this mathematical professor because he had a small group of questions he might ask and they could prep to answer his complicated questions. Which I did and covered a 12 foot long black board with equation after equation and had even to erase the first equations to write the finishing equations.
Yes, I am now aware of fate and what my Creator God expects me to continue doing with these unique experiences he had granted me.
Have a good day
Reply
Jerry Krause
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Hi Howdy,
I do not remember calling this (https://principia-scientific.com/?s=Cargo+Cult+Science) to your attention.
Have a good day
Reply
Howdy
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“The only source of knowledge is experience.”
Yet there is not enough time to amass as much as one needs.
“a scientific law was merely a summary of Natural relationships which had been observed over and over without exception.”
Precisely why consensus is useless.
“he had a small group of questions he might ask and they could prep to answer his complicated questions.”
Hmm. That could be seen as questionable. 😉
“Yes, I am now aware of fate and what my Creator God expects me to continue doing with these unique experiences he had granted me.”
So if asked what that comment has to do with logic and science, how do you answer?
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Howdy,
Thanks for asking: “So if asked what that comment has to do with logic and science, how do you answer?
My short answer is logic has no relationship to science.
For a longer I will share a bit which Newton wrote in his preface to his famous book as translated by Andrew Motte.
“The ancients considered mechanics in a twofold respect; as rational, which proceeds accurately by demonstration; and practical. To practical mechanics all the manual arts belong, from which mechanics took its name. But as artificers do not work with perfect accuracy, it comes to pass that mechanics is so distinguished from geometry, that which is perfectly accurate is called geometrical; what is less so, is called mechanical. But the errors are not in the art, but in the artificers. He that works with less accuracy is an imperfect mechanic; and if any could work with perfect accuracy, he would be the most perfect mechanic of all; for the description of right lines and circles, upon which geometry is founded, belongs to mechanics. Geometry does not teach us to draw these lines, but it requires them to be drawn; for it requires that the learner should first to first be taught to describe these accurately, before he enters upon geometry; then it shows how by these operations problems may be solved. To describe right lines and circles are problems, but not geometrical problems. The solution of these problems is required from mechanics; and by geometry the use of them, when so solved, is shown; and it is the glory of geometry that from those few principles, brought from without, it is able to produce so many things.” Newton continued but I do not.
For you referred to LOGIC and I have been waiting a long time to have s reason to ask: Is it logical to imagine a point that one cannot see and to imagine a right line so narrow that it cannot be seen?
Have a good day
Reply
Howdy
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If logic is not needed for science, how does one get their head around the equations which are logical by design. To veer away from logic is to embrace the uncertain isn’t it?
To imagine an unseen point? By unseen point you need to specify whether the point is infinitesimally small, thus impossible to resolve, or just too small to see with the naked eye.
In the former case, that would not be logical, more a belief, want, need, which as it happens is a source of scientific claims at this moment in time.
Reply
Jerry Krause
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My short answer is logic has no relationship to science.
For a longer I will share a bit which Newton wrote in his preface to his famous book as translated by Andrew Motte.
“The ancients considered mechanics in a twofold respect; as rational, which proceeds accurately by demonstration; and practical. To practical mechanics all the manual arts belong, from which mechanics took its name. But as artificers do not work with perfect accuracy, it comes to pass that mechanics is so distinguished from geometry, that which is perfectly accurate is called geometrical; what is less so, is called mechanical. But the errors are not in the art, but in the artificers. He that works with less accuracy is an imperfect mechanic; and if any could work with perfect accuracy, he would be the most perfect mechanic of all; for the description of right lines and circles, upon which geometry is founded, belongs to mechanics. Geometry does not teach us to draw these lines, but it requires them to be drawn; for it requires that the learner should first to first be taught to describe these accurately, before he enters upon geometry; then it shows how by these operations problems may be solved. To describe right lines and circles are problems, but not geometrical problems. The solution of these problems is required from mechanics; and by geometry the use of them, when so solved, is shown; and it is the glory of geometry that from those few principles, brought from without, it is able to produce so many things.” Newton continued but I do not.
For you referred to LOGIC and I have been waiting a long time to have s reason to ask: Is it logical to imagine a point that one cannot see and to imagine a right line so narrow that it cannot be seen?
Have a good day
Hi Howdy and PSI Readers.
I must add. I tried for more than a year to draw lines and circles near perfectly in order to find the line which should (might) divide a circle into fifths. The clue I give you is: how does one commonly free-hand draw a five pointed star.
Have a good day
Reply
Howdy
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You repeated your earlier post Jerry.
I also do stars freehand, but divide a circle into 5 accurately is something I never did, and wasn’t shown in school either, other than finding the point of a circle using a compass. The answer to your question is here:
https://www.quora.com/How-do-I-divide-a-circle-into-fifths
Howdy
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point of a circle = centre of a circle.
Howdy
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Have a look at the link Jerry, but it’s a lengthy read:
Right Brain Unconscious Awareness: Socialization, Self-Image, Sex, Emotion, Hemispheric Information Transfer, the Corpus Callosum
http://brainmind.com/RightBrainAwareness.html
Howdy
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Have you gone Jerry? Isn’t it I that run away you said?
Is the link not to your liking, maybe the mention of sex? It’s not what you think and is by a Ph.D. Exceptional article in explaining I thought.
It explains exactly my stance on (true) scientific minds and the need for logic.
Robert Beatty
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As an engineer, if I was in-charge of getting the pyramid stones in place, I would use the materials most readily to hand. That would include sand and rope.
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Howdy and PSI Readers,
The following is a letter I submitted to the Editor of Chemistry & Engineering News (C&EN) and published August 28,1995 with the title “Conflict between ‘we’ and ‘they’.
Two articles in the April 24 issue of C&EN, “New Television Science Series May Draw Both Kudos and Arrows” by Richard Seltzer (page 52) and “Why is chemistry the forgotten science?” By Rudy Baum (page 49), are related to each and to the theme of the book “Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels with Science” by Paul R. Gross and Norman Levitt, which was reviewed by Stephen J. Weinminger and Jay A. Labinger (C&EN, Jan. 9, page 27)
The title of Gross and Levitt’s book certainly suggest that there might be a “we” and a “they.” Seldom is the fundamental cause of the conflict suggested by Gross and Levitt as clearly identified as it is in Seltzer’s article. The purpose of this letter is to highlight this cause so that it is not missed by the readers of C&EN.
Anne Carson, according to Seltzer, sets the theme of the new television science series by criticizing the rationalism espoused by Antoine Lavoisier and by noting, “Lavoisier revolutionized the science by placing absolute fidelity to the facts at the center of his method.”
She continues, “This happy delusion—that there are such things as facts and they do not deceive us—underlies the whole progress of science and chemistry to the present day.” If Carson isn’t the “they” Gross and Levitt identify, who is she?
Baum attempts to answer “Why is chemistry the forgotten science?” If he reads Seltzer’s article, he would find that his answer is probably wrong because the last thing Carson wants to hear about is “the fabulous story of the creation and transformation of polymers from cheap plastics to high-tech materials” or “the incredible saga of medicinal chemistry in this century,” because she does not believe in progress. The philosophy or world view that Carson espouses is not new; it is as old as intellectual society and seems quite broad based.
Baum is right, however, when he answers that chemistry is forgotten because it is a rigorous science (based on observation of facts), Carson thinks such facts are a happy delusion.
An essay, “Bacon’s Philosophy of Fruit,” by Thomas Babington Macaulay, illuminates Carson’s statement: “My problem is that I don’t believe in progress.” Frank Audelotte, the editor of the text “English and Engineering” (McGraw Hill, 1923) in which this essay was printed wrote: “It is perhaps not unfair to take this extract from Macaulay’s essay on Bacon as typical of the point of view of 19th-century scientific materialism.” Macaulay began his essay: “Two words form the key of the Baconian doctrine, Utility and Progress.” He then proceeds to argue that Seneca, Plato, and Socrates had the same problem that Carson has: They all seemed not to believe in progress.
Obviously, the result of such fundamentally opposed belief systems is conflict and the open attack upon chemistry, both ancient and modern, reported by Seltzer.
I must add to this I wrote in 1995. For I have learned that no one knew what Socrates the teacher knew because he only asked questions and never answered one. But I read that the city fathers had to put him to death.
Have a good day
Reply
Jerry Krause
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Hi Howdy,
Just a short comment to make it easier to find our continuing conversation for it is my opinion that I have some good stuff to share with you and other possible PSI Readers.
https://principia-scientific.com/feynmans-blunder-part-1/)
(https://principia-scientific.com/feynmans-blunder-part-2/)
I submitted these two essays only a few months after I had discovered PSI. Richard Feynman was a REAL SCIENTIST but he was human like the rest of the earth’s created humans and he made mistakes. However, I consider one cannot find a better human to define (describe) what a SCIENTIST is.
Feynman began his 3 volume lecture series (The Feynman Lectures on Physics) with this paragraph; “If, in some cataclysm, all of scientific knowledge were to be destroyed, and only one sentence passed on to the next generations of creatures, what statement would contain the most information in the fewest words? I believe it is the atomic hypothesis (or the atomic fact, or whatever you wish to call it) that all things are made of atoms—little particles that move around in perpetual motion, attracting each other when they are a little distance apart, but repelling upon being squeezed into one another. In that one sentence, you will see, is enormous amount of information about the world, if just a little imagination and thinking are applied.”
Howdy, I ask you, what isn’t LOGICAL in Feynman’s one sentence?
Have a good day
Reply
Jerry Krause
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Hi Howdy,
It appears my today comment was posted before yours. I considered your link was nonsense since the only observation was that the human brain is divided into two portions and the only thing I know, based upon observation, about humans is that each individual is obviously different from another (finge prints and DNA) and have different skills (ability). I know I am “tone death” and some people have extra ordinary abilities.
The chemical properties of the atoms of a given element are indistinguishable from one another even there are different isotopes of an element’s atoms which do have different nuclear properties. I do not pretend to understand living organisms for this reason and a reason I do not spend much time reading people’s opinions about humans.
I asked you a question about logic which is a term which seems you want to discuss.
Have a good day
Reply
Howdy
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My link was nonsense? OK then…
You can observe a lead acid battery charging from outside, but until you know the internal workings, anything else is guesswork and supposition.
I consider one cannot find a better human to define (describe) what a SCIENTIST is.
Eye of the beholder Jerry. It’s just your perception of what makes a good scientist, which doesn’t necessarily apply to anybody else. This is borne out in your comment about people being different.
“I do not pretend to understand living organisms for this reason and a reason I do not spend much time reading people’s opinions about humans.”
If you don’t understand living organisms, then you can’t claim other people’s knowledge about them as being opinion. These people are just as adept in their chosen field as you are in yours and they have the equivalent qualification to prove it.
Even without qualifications there is insight and knowing.
My comment on logic was about science being a left-brained activity. If you found my link pointless there is little use in discussing it further..
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Howdy,
You still haven’t answered my question about Feynman’s one sentence. Egyptian pyramids are observed facts constructed by humans of the past. Just as early people of the past a facts whom were found to populate New Zealand, Australia, other Pacific islands, and the Americas before these places were rediscovered by modern European people in modern times.
And if we study what these ancient people have done we might learn something that might help us survive in modern times when some children may never learn how to tie their shoes or to ride a bicycle. Activities that are intuitively done so they will never be forgotten once learned
Have a good day.
Reply
Howdy
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I’m not here to answer questions about other peoples use of logic in their past statements Jerry. I won’t be answering it at all.
While some among us have the ‘knack’, tying one’s shoelaces, or riding a bike are not intuitive activities. It takes learning and practice for most people to get it under control.