Now that's a dodgy Giza: Eggheads claim Great Pyramid can focus electromagnetic waves The Great Pyramid of Giza, the oldest of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, has remained an architectural mystery. How was it built? Why are its dimensions so perfect? And, er, can it concentrate electromagnetic energy? Yes, it can, allegedly, according to a paper published in the Journal of Applied Physics. "Egyptian …
Bloody hell. This one is going to get the alien origins nutters jumping up and down again. They'll all believe this was planned and therefore the ancient Egyptians couldn't have done it. After all, if you think about it, Lincoln Cathedral was designed to focus worshippers on the unseen altar so why wouldn't the pyramids be designed to focus radio waves on the foundations, huh? Huh? If you build your own model pyramid out of cardboard and put a piece of bacon or a razor blade at the focus it'll never rot or go blunt, right? What more proof do you need? Get your heads out of the sand, sheeple!
Resonance?
There I was, Spring of 2003, minding my own business, not bothering anyone, standing tippy-toe on my step ladder, drilling just a wee little pilot hole into the side of their 121m tall stainless steel Dublin Spire. All I wanted to do was firmly attach my monopole feed point to their spectacularly giant 590 kHz vertical monopole whip antenna conveniently plonked in the middle of O'Connell Street. But no, the Gardaí arrived with their blues and twos. They requested that I put away my gear. They were very kind, and even held my 4th Guinness of the morning while I packed away my equipment. Ruined my whole trip. I never did get my AM Broadcast Band transmitter on the air from Dublin.
"Croc clips are just like alligator clips, only not as tasty."
I tried eating croc once, it tasted just like chicken, very overpriced chicken. Not very surprising, that's what they feed them. So now I cut out the middle man, er middle croc, and just eat pure chicken.
Yes, the "Pyramidiots" are still in full flight.
Just like Charles Piazzi Smyth the former Astronomer Royal for Scotland, some scientists get a bee in their bonnet about the great Pyramid and spout some appalling nonsense, and go around inventing such things as the "Pyramid inch" so as to validate their theories.
As a former archaeologist myself I would say to the present proponents of weird things in the Pyramid of Khufu.
"Don't give up your day job."
.. a paper published in the Journal of Applied Physics.
Many of us have known about this since at least 1973. Some of us were brought up on the late Lyall Watson's seminal Supernature, which included a chapter on how to keep a razor blade sharp by storing it overnight in a cardboard replica of the Great Pyramid.
Many of us have known about this since at least 1973. Some of us were brought up on the late Lyall Watson's seminal Supernature, which included a chapter on how to keep a razor blade sharp by storing it overnight in a cardboard replica of the Great Pyramid.
That's the one! I picked up a secondhand copy when I was 12. I built a little cardboard pyramid and borrowed a used razor blade from my dad. I left it there for several weeks, testing the edge every day on another sheet of cardboard, and of course noticed that it just got blunter and blunter. At about the same time Uri Geller was in the news and on Blue Peter bending spoons, and I think he was the one who mentioned pyramids keeping bacon fresh. That didn't work either.
I've always been grateful to Lyall Watson for contributing to the development of my sceptical mindset (fair play, he did write well too). I refuse to thank Uri Geller for anything, though, the fucking fraudulent grifter.
Many of us have known about this since at least 1973. Some of us were brought up on the late Lyall Watson's seminal Supernature, which included a chapter on how to keep a razor blade sharp by storing it overnight in a cardboard replica of the Great Pyramid.
Yes, I saw that on TV in the 80s, complete with sciency-sounding voiceover and examination of the razor blade under the microscope. It's sharper, I tell you! (Nobody seems to have noticed a cold razor getting hotter and sucking all the heat out of the room, which is sad).
Useless Knowledge Item by blogger Steve Sailer writing about pyramid schemes in Califailia:
The wild thing about this 1980 outburst was that it was the most blatant pyramid scheme imaginable, combining the usual pyramid scheme mechanics with a New Age cult of the Power of the Pyramid.
Back in Gov. Jerry Brown’s California, “pyramid power” was a popular New Age concept. (Although there’s never anything new about New Age in California — the lovely coastal mountain village of Ojai has been a New Age center since the 1800s.) In 1977 I went to a fashionable Westwood hair styling salon where for a few bucks extra you could get your hair cut in a special chair under a pyramid dangling from the ceiling. The pyramidal aura was supposed to help you avoid Bad Hair Days or something. (I declined. But, now that I think about it, I did have a lot of BHDs …)
In May 1980, a vast multi-level cash exchange craze developed in California that explicitly invoked the mystique of pyramids. Every night there were hundreds of house parties hosted by people who had gotten in earlier on this multi-level scam (perhaps the night before). My vague recollection from newspaper reports is that you’d go over to a higher-up’s house and sit with him under his pyramid while you gave him cash in return for your very own kit for building a pyramid out of wire and fabric. The Ancient Egyptian emanations from his pyramid would ensure that you’d get even more cash back from the suckers you’d recruit to buy your pyramid kits from you while sitting under your pyramid.
Duh! Everybody nowadays knows it was Nephilim wot built the pyramids, they had super powers because they were half angel and they were giants so moving all that rock would have been easy for them.
Of course the truth about Nephilim has been covered up by the Vatican and the Illuminati!
I sharpened a pencil under a pyramid once, it went blunt when I drew with it though.
I don't know about the aliens as I wasn't there, perhaps there were aliens and we are their descendants - how would we know? The Sumerians do appear to refer to some step event and new technology however - should we ignore that?, I don't know, it seems a bit rash to write them off - especially considering that the need for neolithic man to evolve/invent a method to carve and position 100 ton blocks of stone with millimetre precision was somewhat lacking.
As for the pyramids, we still have no idea what they were actually built for, and only vague guesses as to how they were built so we are hardly in possession of enough data to discount 'aliens'.
There is a myth that they are burial chambers but we've discovered the burial chambers made in those eras and they are quite different with many decorations and much writing, the pyramids with their odd electrical contacts, straight shafts and lack of decorations are rather more like an ancient machine.
@MrReal
Oh please,... are we in any doubt that the Romans managed to pick up, transport, and re-erect _eight_ obelisks in Rome? Did the Romans have vastly superior tech? No, it was people, and ropes, and boats, and carts and horses.
I've been to the quarry at Aswan where the obelisks were carved, there are chisel marks, they weren't cut out by aliens with space lasers.
they weren't cut out by aliens with space lasers.
Aha! That's what the aliens[1] *wanted* you to think! It took them *ages* to work out how to make their lasers look like primitive chisel marks!
[1] Were the lasers built into their heads? Were they alien space sharks?
Romans used much smaller blocks than the ancient Egyptians.
Your theory of aliens with space lasers is interesting but there is no evidence for that. Also why do you need aliens - the earth is as old as the surrounding planet and solar systems.
There is also no evidence however for the use of copper tools and round stones, the tools we are told were used: there simply wasn't enough time to use them given the number of cuts required and the population.
Now buy a lump of granite and try attacking it with a copper chisel: Go on.
And just when I thought the world had forgotten Erich von Däniken this comes along <sigh>. Have you never been unemployed or a student? There's about 15 day time channels just on Sky running wall to wall 'Ancient Aliens' documentaries. All carefully layered up against criticism by having their voice over prefix every sentence with 'It could be that....' as in 'It could be that Stonehenge was actually built by mutant radioactive mice to a plan telepathically implanted by Martians'.
I for one plan on getting into making such documentaries, 'Were aliens particularly attracted to tropical beaches? Our intrepid investigator spent months on an expense account selflessly looking for clues along the world's shorelines. Surely the fact that there are billions of stars in the galaxy and billions of grains of sand on a beach can't be a coincidence?'
Do you mean 42 mice or 42 Martians? Be precise, man
Perhaps Marvin visited that place once ... Perhaps all that concentrated RF blew all the diodes down his right hand side ... Perhaps the Total Perceptive Vortex is somewhere down there ...
We need far more serious research into this important subject.
Enquiring minds ....
ps ... I'll bet the mice were furious.
All carefully layered up against criticism by having their voice over prefix every sentence with 'It could be that....' as in 'It could be that Stonehenge was actually built by mutant radioactive mice to a plan telepathically implanted by Martians'.
They may start of with "It could be...", but within a sentence or two the assertion being used as a "fact" to bolster up the next "It could be..." assertion till they have a whole house of cards built on their "factual" sand foundations. It's fun. There's even some small nuggets of truth mixed in to leaven it. My wife lets me watch it because it's the only time I get to shout at the TV without her telling me "IT'S ONLY A STORY" when the "facts" are wrong :-)
>> My wife lets me watch it because it's the only time I get to shout at the TV without her telling me "IT'S ONLY A STORY"
> Has your wife met my wife? I think they'd get on very well together...
:D (as John Kovalic once so put it: dating geeks is an art. Obviously those who do will share some traits. Yes, that includes my wife. Or the spouses (both sexes) of many of my friends (when it was not two geeks that got hooked up).
Has your wife met my wife? I think they'd get on very well together...
I think it must be a Universal Property of wives[1] since mine also does that. Which is why I'm not allowed to watch pseudo-science stuff with her..
[1] Or maybe the subset of 'wives of people who read El Reg'.
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Any structure built with some degree of regularity will have resonant frequencies, that's sort of implicit in the laws of physics. Finding what those frequences are doesn't necessarily mean that the structure was built specifically with them in mind, though.
"Particular Structure Rresonates (when tested) will not be seen as a specific case of Things Resonate"
Has anyone investigated the EM properties of stainless steel sinks? They may be focussing energy to control our thoughts. Has anyone ever seen Mark Zuckerberg in the same room as a metal sink? There you are, then. Now you know why all these tech billionaires want to keep women in the kitchen.
"Has anyone investigated the EM properties of stainless steel sinks? They may be focussing energy to control our thoughts."
That used to worry me too so for safety's sake we had an earthenware Belfast sink fitted instead and now I feel much better, begorrah!
"That used to worry me too so for safety's sake we had an earthenware Belfast sink fitted instead"
Our Belfast sink in a Belfast lab leaked badly despite all attempts to tighten up the joints on the drain. I only realised later it was the effect of the hydrofluoric acid on the glaze.
Yes, well, that's the crucial bit and the only one worth remembering about the whole "study" (I think I'd prefer to investigate the scattering effects of a glass of Martini instead - well, it definitely scatters my brain...). Unfortunately, all the nutjobs will hear is "see, I told you! Glowing crystals and stuff!" instead of "stand here and you have reception, stand there and you don't - or maybe you get two bars less..."
> Unfortunately, all the nutjobs will hear is "see, I told you! Glowing crystals and stuff!"
On that note, are there any known materials which will fluoresce when subjected to the wavelengths guessed in the article?
If so, they could really add to the Egyptian exhibits by adding some objects (skulls even) made of the stuff.
In a similar vein to this, did you know that at a micro scale, steel can behave somewhat like nitinol "memory metal"?
That is how all these cranky "Pyramids can re-sharpen razor blades work"; a used razor blade loses sharpness by the edge of the blade being deformed. Leave it alone somewhere for a period of days, and the metal will partly recoil back to its original shape, thus giving the illusion of a blunt blade becoming sharp once again.
This phenomenon was known of, and recognised at least by some people during World War I, where soldiers were at least sometimes issued with seven safety razor blades at once, one for each day of the week. Use each blade in sequence, then replace it with the next day's blade and each spare blade then has a week for this reforming process to take place.
Of course, this doesn't work indefinitely. Razor blades do have their edges deformed to the point of uselessness eventually, so this trick only somewhat extends the life of a razor blade, and with the advent of much cheaper disposable razor blades, this interesting snippet of knowledge was lost only to be rediscovered by ignorant new-age pyramidiots decades later.
"Finding what those frequences are doesn't necessarily mean that the structure was built specifically with them in mind, though.
Apparently rusty wire fences*** near the BBC's 200KHz transmitter at Droitwich, England used to give ghostly audio renderings of the current programme.
Then there were apparently people who heard various radio broadcasts through their metal teeth fillings.
***a rusty junction has semiconductor diode properties.
Lucky you're not a peer reviewer for the Journal of Misapplied Physics then, innit. My shower cubical was designed by aliens, which I discovered by humming at its resonant frequency. This explains why my razor remains sharp if I leave it in there. Bacon I have not tried.
Maybe not. There are some artifacts found in ancient Egypt that appear to have been electroplated. They may have had some type of primitive battery able to generate enough current to do that, perhaps similar to the "Baghdad battery". But yeah, nothing to do with resonant frequencies of pyramids!
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It was on 200kHz originally, but shifted a LONG time ago to be 198kHz as a multiple of the 9kHz AM band spacing.
We still have an old QuartzLock 2A off-air frequency reference that provides an accurate 10MHz from that LW transmission. Shows a little of the general wobbles (about 3E-8 at 1s interval) and day/night changes though, but if compared to the recent very stable GPS-based QuartzLock E8000 reference they agreed to better than 1E-10 over a day or two averaging.
"[...] is on 198 kHz; and their frequency is phased-locked to the NPL so it can be used as an off-air standard.
In my misspent youth the essential piece of equipment for a UK HF radio amateur was a war surplus frequency standard. The 200kc/s*** transmission of the Light Programme was the ideal signal with which to calibrate it whenever it was used. The move to 198kHz was a pain.
***cycles per second was an obvious unit of measurement until someone decided it needed obfuscation by the name of Heinrich Rudolf Hertz.
I've read that if everything fails, and Radio 4 LW on 198 kHz also falls silent, certain British subs might conclude that today is The Big Day, open their safe, and read the PM's doomsday instruction letter.
The Russians must be well motivated to keep on supplying vacuum tubes to keep Radio 4 Long Wave on the air.
No, because they're triangular based pyramids.
All of the ones that have 'unexplained' effects are square based, and aligned to the earth's magnetic field!
But if you look at a pyramid tea bag, you will see that it is just a tube of paper, with the top an bottom seams glued/welded at right angles to each other in parallel planes with the perpendicular aligned along the centre of the tube.
All this time I thought that it was some clever folding machine, only to discover it's almost no different from a machine making normal square tea bags.
"But if you look at a pyramid tea bag, you will see that it is just a tube of paper, [...]"
I was putting them in the compost bin - until I realised that at least one brand now makes them of plastic. A very fine mesh that is apparently perfect for degrading to micro-particle plastic pollution in the soil, rivers, and seas.
Inside the pyramid aren't there big blocks of granite? AFAIK the inner structure of the pyramid is far from being well known, but dismantling it and then putting it together again (using all the king's horses and all the king's men, of course).
There's also evidence of a large cavity - or at least multiple construction voids - in the great pyramid detected using cosmic rays as a source:
https://www.news.com.au/technology/science/archaeology/great-pyramids-hidden-chamber-may-be-a-trick-of-perspective-egyptologist-warns/news-story/d02e9021caf6233a265c0d84b7277812
There's also evidence of a large cavity
But that was done using 'science' and is thus less 'real' than someone reciting the events of a past life[1] to prove that it was made by aliens..
[1] Which, strangely enough, seems to follow pretty exactly the plot of a film that said nutter^W psychic saw 5 years ago..
The sarcophagus, burial chamber, the relieving chambers above the burial chamber and the portcullises in the antechamber are all made of Aswan granite. The rest of the pyramid is constructed from local Giza limestone and was originally cased with Tura limestone from the eastern bank of the Nile.
[mine's the one with the Ark of the Covenant in the pocket]
It's described as a burial chamber but there's no evidence that was what it was built for. All the burial chambers discovered before, during and after that period are quite different and none of them are pyramids.
All we really know is that there's a big granite container with a corner missing, the missing corner is again a mystery because it's pretty well protected in the pyramid and rats would hardly be able to gnaw it away.
Guesswork isn't science: we don't know what that room or container was for.
"It's described as a burial chamber but there's no evidence that was what it was built for. All the burial chambers discovered before, during and after that period are quite different and none of them are pyramids."
Have you read the pyramid texts, MrReal? I rather suspect the builders had more of a clue of their intended use than you do.
Consider the RF properties of a spherical cow, made of metal...
Just because something just happens to have a certain property, doesn't mean that anybody was using it that way. I would love to see an actual RF test of the pyramid, though. That might actually be informative.
Only in the minds of people with low engineering knowledge.
Rollers, barges, wedges, A-frames, basic geometry, astronomy, ratios and Zero concept all known to Ancient Egyptians and Babylonians. The Greeks formalised theories later for the geometry that the Egyptians used.
There is no mystery as to how the pyramids were built or aligned. Nor Stonehenge or Newgrange (much older!).
This is Woo of highest order. ANY regular structure has resonances. RF and Acoustic Anechoic chambers are hard to build.
Actually about the only mystery remaining about the pyramids is how the top bit was made.
For the lower two thirds, a ramp will suffice. For the top bit, an internal ramp is needed. The rest of the pyramid is actually mostly rubble infill, as evidenced by the quarries from which the building stone was sourced nearby. We know the volume of the pyramids. We know more or less how much stone was taken from the quarries, and we know what the usable stone to waste ratio was for Egyptian mining techniques.
There was not enough volume of stone taken from the quarries for the pyramids to be all dressed stone, therefore a goodly proportion must be rubble with the only dressed stone being the sides and the internal passages. This then ought also to revise how we think of a pyramid: it isn't a building so much as a very tidy pile of stone with tunnels built through it.
This then explains the recently detected voids: these are caused by the settling of the internal rubble packing of the pyramid over time.
I expect the Pyramids at Giza were built two sides at a time with minor bits on the other two as it was built up. That fixes the problem of having a completed pyramid very soon after the death of a Pharaoh. The different chambers also end up near the middle at different times as well. I've seen marks that appear to have been made from logs supporting the outer lip of the casing stones on the Red and Bent pyramids that would imply they put the casing stones on from the top down. I think the evidence that the casing stones were removed and reused to be lacking as the angle they were cut happens to be a suitable angle for archways yet there aren't any examples of it being used that way.
It's the second pyramid, that of Khafre which retains part of its casing.
Judging by the whacking great gouge in its side, the picture is of Menkaure's pyramid. The damage was done by workmen belonging to Saladin's son, al-Malet al-Aziz Othman ben Yusaf who wanted to quarry the pyramids for building stones. Such is the quality of the building, they did precious little damage apart from stripping the casings.
If you want to see a pyramid with casing nearly intact, a trip to the twin pyramids at Dahsur near Saqqara is recommended. One of the two - the Bent Pyramid - is in especially good condition (apart from not actually being a true pyramid).
This new electro-magnetic resonance information, combined with the frustum shape of the pyramid, clearly indicates that they are in fact enormous EM-drives. Almost certainly they are designed to propel the occupant's ka to paradise, probably somewhere near Sirius.
Those ancient Egyptians knew so much more than we give them credit for.
Make and sell "Pyramid Power" (tm) (c) LNB/DTV boosters for getting encrypted Sky/Freeview channels for free, that just contain some clever electronics that pick random TV shows from said channels circa 2008 with a 64GB SD @ 7.99 bulk and a budget SBC using lookup table with near-live channel data then replay them. With carefully placed more modern ads to keep folks guessing, and a WiFi leeching capability so the ads can be updated when people start to suspect they've been had or wonder how it even works in the middle of a thunderstorm when normal TV cuts out with "NO SIGNAL".
Even as a joke to "entertain" people.
..as there is not enough magic or mystery in the world these days. But I fear this may be some guys with a solution looking for a problem. Eg., find what you want to believe and then figure out a path that sort of gets you there. I'm curious as to the concentrating effect of other shapes, such as cones, trapezoids, etc. I fear that this may be just some random intrinsic property than anything approximately shaped like a pyramid would have. Like some far future archaeologist finding a hubcap and noting that it rings like a bell when struck, so it must have been used in religious ceremonies..
I agree... those nutters who believe in a 'higher power', thinking that signs and symbols in ancient history can only mean that there are these luminous beings who shaped the world with stories like 'Genesis' and that monotheism is clearly correct...
And don't get me started on the concept of some bearded guy rising from the dead...
... what you mean, 3 billion people? Nah, that would make them as crazy as those who believe in alternative meanings and possibilities.... Can't be going against the One True God® now can we...
I like watching Ancient Aliens occasionally first few fresh series only, (latter series seem to want to attribute everything including getting up at 4 am and using the entire roll of bogroll to alien influence), it's a rich vein for Sci-Fi, a lot of the most successful Sci-Fi series and stories have the Ancient Alien element in there somewhere. BattleStar Galactica and Stargate being the more famous examples.
And personally, I very much doubt the still touted tomb explanation when it comes to the Great Pyramid. The interior is just too weird, more like a chemistry set in stone and no decoration, the construction timescale doesn't wash, the flawed reconstruction project is still cited like it answered everything and have you seen the size of those stones? I'm not at all convinced by AA solutions to the mystery either.
Sure, the resonance might be a unintended consequence for a huge stone tomb of intricately piled up blocks as everything resonates at some frequnecy, but why the effort in that shape, and why the odd shaped chambers and tunnels in that particular arrangement?
To actually post something slightly serious, I definitely do not subscribe to ALL the wacky theories put forward by the Ancient Aliens lot (the moon, a starbase? Really??). However, I definitely agree with the points made in relation to established theory such as anything Egyptian being rooted in egostism, and complete unwillingness to admit there might be room for improvement or, and this REALLY gets any archaeology theorist a bit grumbly, that they could just be plain wrong.
After all, the Great Pyramid's reason for existence is based on one hieroglyph, which is highly likely to be completely fake, in order to save explorer Vyse's reputation (go read it, I'm not explaining history here!), and if this IS the case, then much of what we theorised about the pyramids are likely wrong as well.
After all, as those with closed minds tell us, without evidence, there is no truth.
"a lot of the most successful Sci-Fi series and stories have the Ancient Alien element in there somewhere. BattleStar Galactica and Stargate being the more famous examples."
Although I'm sure you know this, it's worth pointing out that most of those SciFi ideas not only re-date the TV show Ancient Aliens, but they drew their ideas from much earlier "aliens are among us", "aliens have visited us in the past" popularised by Erich Von Daniken (who is Georgio's mentor and makes the odd appearance on the show every now and then). And not forgetting the influence of Charles Berlitz and Lyall Watson's books too.
Although I'm sure you know this, it's worth pointing out that most of those SciFi ideas not only re-date the TV show Ancient Aliens,
Yeah, I was not really clear I used 'Ancient Alien <u>element</u>' expecting that would be enough to convey I didn't literally mean the 'Ancient Alien' programme.
Danikens 'Chariots of the Gods' book was published a decade earlier than the first of the mentioned shows (Battlestar Galactica 1978), but I doubt that was a principal influence as well.
The Atlantis myth is a likely candidate (personally I think the Minoan disaster the likely root for that myth, but I'm open to other ideas).
But I know a link who does.
To all you faux-scientists cheerfully labelling people as nutters etc. Here's your chance to use actual scientific method.
https://pyramidrazorsharpener.wordpress.com/
Give it a go for a couple weeks and let us know how you got on. If you tried it and it's crap then you can start the badmouthing. Yes I know actually doing research is loads more trouble than just spouting off sorry for the inconvenience.
In my dim distant memory I think I remember some bloke who allegedly got this working in the old Soviet Union when new razor blades were rare to nonexistent.
It's quite clever, that page. You've got a supposedly sceptical author, a reasonably well-written story, the appeal to (anonymous) authority who spouts some erudite-sounding bollocks.
The best bit is that the link to the net-file for your own cardboard pyramid is broken. So if you were mildly interested in this, you give up at this point, but are left with the miasma of "pyramids sharpen razor-blades" hanging in your sub-conscious. But if you really want to try, you give it a go, but does it fail because (a) it's all bollocks, or (b) because you built your pyramid wrong?
8/10 Well constructed hoax.
A lot of people were messing around with pyramids and alter ati e belief stuff in the late '60s early '70s, I'm fairly sure there was a test of pyramid powerdone in New Scientist at the time. I was given a birthday card with a cut out pyramid kit in it so I tried it. I can honestly say that I was amazed the razor blades I left in it for a fortnight were blunter than when I put them in.
If you like gullible people there is a youtube channel called Zeg something or other, there is a dickhead on that who get twats to pay for his trips to Egypt and Peru, then he lies to them about how this stuff is built and they all nod and tell themselves how clever he is as the alternative is admitting he suckered them.
'..The best bit is that the link to the net-file for your own cardboard pyramid is broken'
It's even funnier than that, if you finally track down an archived copy of the page pointed to, it turns out that they wanted money for the plans, in fact, to all intents and purposes it looked like a pyramid pyramid scheme..
The razor-blade claim has been around for many decades. When it first came out, several scientists tried it independently and all found it to be "irreproducible in the laboratory", i.e. bollocks. I cannot believe that the laws of physics have changed in the last thirty years.
Oh, yes, except for a friend of mine who kept his blades in an old envelope because they stayed sharper than the ones kicking around on the bathroom shelf. He reckoned that a cardboard pyramid would do the job just as well, and I am confident that he would be proved right.
"Oh, yes, except for a friend of mine who kept his blades in an old envelope because they stayed sharper than the ones kicking around on the bathroom shelf."
Protection of steel from moisture + corrosion happens fastest at sharp edges. Makes sense.
And perhaps that's the cardboard pyramid secret - take them out of the bathroom.
Using Wiki as a source to dismiss theories? Yes.. that makes perfect sense.
These jars DO produce current - that is easily proven. Therefore, by definition, they are batteries. Just because nothing has been found to explain their use, does not disqualify them from what they actually are.
There are many theories that can't be proven due to lack of physical evidence... but you don't hear about those being dismissed quite so easily.
"These jars DO produce current - that is easily proven. Therefore, by definition, they are batteries."
A potato produces current if you stick the right wires in it and connect up a digital clock. You can buy the kit all over the place.
OMG! God made batteries and disguised them as potatoes so only the worthy would realise the truth!
At this point, all puns about chips should be exorcised with bell, book, candle and of course, spirit vinegar.
not least because no electroplated items have been found.
Really, I thought the 'electroplating' use was the one given by people in response to the suggestion that ancient people might have been using it to light the inside of tombs with fancy over decorated lamps with huge bulbs or run their wig-making factories.
Saw that on 'Ancient Aliens' - which was marginally in favour of lighting and poo-poo'ed electro-plating (but strangely silent on electric horse-hair braiding).
The insides of both the pyramids and tombs would be quite dark, is there evidence of oil torches or candles being used to illuminate the interiors?
It's an interesting problem: eating carrots only gets you so far in the dark, even back then.
Perhaps they captured fireflies in the jars and they are not batteries at all.
The Great Pyramid of Giza, the oldest of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, has remained an architectural mystery.
To who ? Obviously the thickies that read tabloid journalists haven't got the smarts to work out how buildings work. But people who have take the time and effort to improve their understanding by "learning" (some folk may need to look that one up in a dictionary) don't use words like "mystery".
How was it built?
it was built by cutting blocks of stone, and placing them in position. Yes it is hard work (which probably accounts for some lack of understanding by modern standards). But entirely possible. As we can see BECAUSE IT'S THERE.
Why are its dimensions so perfect?
Why are any buildings dimensions "so" perfect ? Because they were built to a plan using the (ridiculously simple) tools to maintain angles and lines.
Don't get me wrong. The Pyramids are a fucking classy piece of work. An amazing legacy. And doubtless a lot of techniques and knowledge that were extant at the time of building have been lost. But "mystery" ? We can even have a stab at what they were used for. Sodding big mausoleums. We can also have an educated guess that they build a pyramid because - clever as they were - they couldn't build a hemisphere which would have represented the night sky they did worship.
Here's an interesting clip ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5pZ7uR6v8c hopefully takes some of the "woo" out of the discussion. Which is not to say "wow" - as it is amazing.
"Because they were built to a plan using the (ridiculously simple) tools to maintain angles and lines."
And several thousand years of compressive force along with the absorption by limestone of carbon dioxide tends to reduce any gaps, explaining the apparently perfect fit.
"We can even have a stab at what they were used for. Sodding big mausoleums. "
That's a good point I haven't realized before: We know why the pyramids were built for because they luckily left documentation in a way that survived thousands of years (reliefs and paintings in/on stone). With, say, Stonhenge, we do not have such a documentation, for a variety of reason. Hence, it's a mystery. That doesn't mean much. Just that we do not have documentation, just speculation.
The same goes for so-called "out of place" artifacts: They're out of place because the tools that put them in this place have not survived the millennia. They rotted away. There's some frickin' big deduction being made from that, except not the that's typically made: Those people were intelligent and could make tools, and use those tools to do amazing things. Because we see the results of their thinking and their tools.
There was a fallacy being made for a long time: The lack of tools was equated with a lack of intelligence. That's wrong. It just means the tools aren't there. Maybe because they were made in such a way that they did not survive.
It is indeed a shatteringly world-changing discovery that an asymmetrically shaped lump of dielectric material will interact with wavelengths comparable with its physical features and, moreover, that interaction will be asymmetric. My legs have gone all wobbly at the implications for my (ex-)profession.
Next time I crap an asymmetric turd, remind me to point a millimetre-wave 5G communications signal at it and see what Mr. Hanky has to say for himself.
nope, the IgNobel is for sound science that sounds weird / stupid at first. Basically it should make you go "What?" and then get you thinking about it. Like the post-mortem brain scans of salmon, which went to show you should f'ing correct for multiple testing
Sorry, I sometimes get these twitches...
with "History of the world backwards" ?
Admittedly it was pretty poor - too thinly stretched. But the core idea - that somehow we are reverting through time - seems to chime occasionally.
Given that 20 years ago we had passenger supersonic flight - but none now. It was quicker to go London - Edinburgh by train a century ago. We haven't walked on the moon in half a century .... quite aside from the disturbing rise in political discourse that was popular 80 years ago; it's hard not to feel we are regressing, not progressing.
Using the examples you have, I can see the point you are raising, but on the other hand, those trains going London to Edinburgh 100 years ago, faster than today, were running an nearly empty lines with a huge amount of manpower, specialised infrastructure and pollution. Likewise, Concorde was incredibly inefficient by todays standards, fantastic as she was. The world, and it's attitudes, have changed. Other tech has come on in leaps and bounds since then and still is advancing at a pace.
Changing attitudes is also who so many can't quite get their heads around the construction of the pyramids too. In todays world, for many people, it's simply inconceivable that 1000's of people would toil day in and day out for years if not their entire lives on a single project without high rise cranes, diggers etc. Maybe they were well paid. Maybe they were slaves. Maybe they believed with all their being in a higher purpose. Whatever it was, it was a very, very different world back then.
Just look at the 1000's of people, in a mechanised, starting to be computerised, world who worked for years so a couple of guys could walk on the moon. I wonder how that will be viewed in a few thousand years?
Maybe they were well paid
Most of them were - they have good evidence of the villages where the contruction workers lived and yes, they were pretty well supplied with food and beer[1].
And the forement and architects were very well paid since they were working on a house that would[2] house the Pharoahs spirit for all eternity and said Pharoah didn't want to stint..
[1] Not really analogous to modern beer but hey, it was mildly alcoholic. safer than the water and had a decent food value too. What's not to like?
[2] In their opinion..
"Given that 20 years ago we had passenger supersonic flight - but none now. It was quicker to go London - Edinburgh by train a century ago."
To be pedantic it wasn't, because there was a war on and trains were frequently disrupted due to military traffic, the running of the railways by the War Office, bombing, and the fact that skilled railway engineers like my grandfather were either running the railways in France or recuperating from injuries.
And it wasn't between the wars. It's roughly 400 miles from London to Edinburgh and I think you'll find no scheduled steam train has averaged over about 75mph. That's over 5 hours equivalent. The current time is an average of about 4 hours 40. The fuel consumption of the steam train was enormously greater than that of even a Diesel.
Same with supersonic passenger travel. A tiny niche which could only be afforded by the rich and then only because the vast R&D expense had been written off, really doesn't count.
Nearly every one of these nutjobs and cranks subscribe to the same flawed story. "Those ignorant ancients were so much less capable than us smug modern types, and we don't know how to do that. They lacked modern tools and machinery we've become totally dependent on and can't imagine not using. So those ignorant savages couldn't have done it themselves with stupid hand tools! It had to be someone else!"
We don't know how to move pyramid stones by hand because we're dependent on heavy machinery, not because it can't be done. A local 1920's movie palace has awesome faux woodwork beams (fire codes) and the method for those has already been lost! Small wonder we forget after millennia.The ancients' knowledge of hand tools, stoneworking, and architecture were in many ways superior to ours. It was all they had, so they developed it to the fullest capability. Roman concrete structures are still in use, but Hitler's giant Flak Towers are already crumbling.
The We're So Modern snobbery is misplaced, the ancients were masters of their arts. The Pyramids, Colosseum, Tenochtitlan, and others are still here, after centuries of earthquakes and vandalism. How many "modern" constructions will survive 3000 years of natural and human assaults?
So you're convinced steel was actually discovered and used 10,000 years ago? Of course not. The only materials they had to use back then was stone and later on, copper. It's already been shown that the standard tools like saws do not work well on granite, for example. And yes, while it has been shown that adding an abrasive material such as sand and lubrication can indeed help to cut using copper, this again, is just a possible theory that is unlikely to ever be proved.
The point I'm making, is you cannot use one theory to disprove another - both are equally valid until concrete evidence is found.
I always took it that, that comment was her version of Occam's Razor.
Granny Weatherwax is a very "non-new age" and pragmatic; for instance her "clients" would think she'd healed them by making a magic potion but really it was the way she'd twisted their back while pretending to stumble and holding onto them for "support".
She most certainly would not encourage the belief in ancient aliens and other "woo-woo" stuff.
"while it has been shown that adding an abrasive material such as sand and lubrication can indeed help to cut using copper, this again, is just a possible theory that is unlikely to ever be proved."
Nowadays if you want to cut stone with a smooth surface you use a diamond saw. My uncles who ran a quarry retired without even installing one. They did a lot of stone cutting, however. Their reciprocating "saw" didn't actually have teeth or anything like that, all it did was move sand back and forward. If you have plenty of man-hours available it's surprising what you can do with simple means. Technology allows you to do things faster and more cheaply but if you don't rate those attributes highly you don't necessarily need the technology.
The only materials they had to use back then was stone and later on, copper
And wood. Sandstone is easily split by using copper chisels to make a small hole and then using wooden wedges to make the holes larger. And if your holes are in a nice line (preferrably along the grain) then sandstone is pretty easy to split.
And we know that's how they did it because we know where their quarries were and can see imcomplete or undetatched blocks.
And in Europe, they used deer antler picks to mine flint. It was pretty rubbish (by modern terms) but it did the job and was using something which they had anyway.
the ancients were masters of their arts. The Pyramids, Colosseum, Tenochtitlan, and others are still here, after centuries of earthquakes and vandalism. How many "modern" constructions will survive 3000 years of natural and human assaults?
Not necessarily a safe argument. Build 10 things and have them all still standing in 3000 years, you're a master. Build 10,000 and have 10 still standing in 3000 years, you just got lucky sometimes.
They lacked modern tools and machinery we've become totally dependent on and can't imagine not using. So those ignorant savages couldn't have done it themselves with stupid hand tools! It had to be someone else!"
And, as pointed out to me by a friend in a slightly different context, they also lacked TV. Amazing what you can get done...
“Due to the lack of information about the physical properties of the pyramid, we had to use some assumptions [very scientific]... For example, we assumed that there are no unknown cavities inside [erm, afaik, there are], and the building material with the properties of an ordinary limestone is evenly distributed in and out of the pyramid [well apart from the voids and chambers, and sand and other junk used as 'filler']"
"we assumed that there are no unknown cavities inside [erm, afaik, there are],"
Hang on! We "know" there are "unknown" voids? I think my head just exploded!
There are voids we know about, and voids we suspect may be there (at least one significantly large one which needs more investigation to see if it really is there), but for all we know, using cosmic ray detection as a method of finding voids in pyramids is only really telling us there sections of lower density. The Egyptians are very sensitive about who and what is allowed to be inside the pyramids.
Meh, take two ex-Woolworths at random, draw an extended straight line on a map between the two, get back to me when the line crosses the location of any other ex-Woolworths..(no cheating by picking ex-Woolies that are in population centres along old Roman roads)
Leaving aside all the 'mystic' BS about ley lines, I will note that our ancestors had, for reasons we'll never really know (but will have lots of fun writing papers about), an occasional fetish for laying out some of their sites in a fairly linear manner, sometimes over quite long distances. Thanks to 'hey-this-is-a-good-place-to-build-something' site re-use over the millennia, you can now find modern (past thousand years) structures sitting 'aligned' with more ancient ones, nothing mystical involved, no continued 'secret antient traditions', no 'sacred knowledge', just a good building site is a good building site, unfortunately the mystic BS merchants have seriously poisoned this well.
Poundland, that's another matter, you do not want to know what their plotted locations spell out in Enochian..
On a 1970s tour round a well-known New Age community the guide took us to the large meeting hall that was being constructed. IIRC that had a vaguely pyramid shape.
He pointed up to the apex and said that there would be a crystal suspended there. When fully functioning it would generate electricity from the thoughts of the assembled throng - making the site independent of the mains grid.
Once upon a time after reading a magazine article, I very sceptically constructed a small tinfoil pyramid as a last desperate attempt to recover data from my corrupt sinclair microdrive cartridges. I couldn't understand how it worked by leaving each one overnight under it, but it completely baffled me as it worked every time.
It was very sad to read the majority of posts ridiculing anything that challenges current establishment thinking regarding exactly what Pyramids were built for. It would be expected that the average Sun reader would just instantly dismiss any alternative ideas that goes against what they were told at school but I would have hoped that fellow Register readers were better than that.
As it happens I no more believe in Aliens and raiser sharpeners than I do tooth fairies but if, like me, you have actually been inside a Pyramid most of you I hope would at least have some serious reservations that they were tombs.
Please, don’t demean yourself by simply going along with the prevailing group think of the day, if Galileo and Darwin had not question what they had been told was fact where would we be ?
Just because some of us don’t subscribe to popular theories doesn’t mean we are all nutters that believe in ancient astronauts.
Tom
The trouble with your dissertation is that most of ElReg's readership are actually interested in such things.
That's not really a problem of the dissertation but of posting it to the Reg, where most the denizens would rather pounce on something that seems unscientific to them and lampoon it first and always.
The main issue with non-mainstream research into Egypt is it's being repressed at the source, but this is probably due to the mostly US AA pilgrimage tourist business that's sparked up as much as Egypt Antiquities Commission not wanting to allow anything that might be seen to promote alternative hypothesis in general.
Thank you Jake for your reply.
You are quite correct, I would also have expected that most Register readers would have been interested in such things hence my disappointment with the postings from such a learned group.
Perhaps readers would like to consider Balezin, Baryshnikova and Evlyukhins’ hypothesis that the resonant properties and feedline cavities that are evident within Pyramids including the apparently unfinished Pyramid of Djedefre may have much more to do with their actual use.
Though some of their calculations may need revisiting maybe, just maybe it’s not an entirely screw-ball theory after all ?
TH
Prof. Tom H, having read the material written by Messrs. Balezin, Baryshnikova and Evlyukhins, I fail to see any mention of "feed lines". Nor do they mention the finished & later dismantled ("mined") pyramid of Djedefre. In fact, about all they say is "this computer model of the Great Pyramid of Giza can resonate at certain frequencies". Which is true of all solid objects. What they do NOT say is "it wuz aliens wut dun it". They also do NOT say "it was built specifically to resonate at these frequencies for (reasons)". Nor do they say "the actual pyramid resonates at these frequencies".
Now, considering the mortuary complex built at the base of, and contemporary with, said pyramid, coupled with the cult of Khufu which used said complex to worship him for centuries after his death, coupled with a culture almost completely preoccupied with religion and the afterlife, coupled with the fact that all other pyramids (from the first rough mastabas on) were tombs (or cenotaphs, at the very least), how can the proverbial thinking man come to any conclusion other than "It was intended as a mausoleum"? ESPECIALLY seeing as there is no (that's none, zero, zilch) evidence to the contrary?
"if Galileo and Darwin had not question what they had been told was fact where would we be ?"
In fact Darwin built on the work of other investigators, including his grandfather Erasmus. And Galileo did not get into trouble with his fellow proto-scientists but the church. Both were great scientists, but they were trying to explain known facts, not overturn them.
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