Wow Signal – Brief Burst of Radio Waves

The Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence, SETI, has seen many astronomers touring the sky with hopes of receiving artificially generated radio signals sent by alien civilization. Nicknamed the `Wow’, signal, saw a brief burst of radio waves detected by astronomer Jerry Ehman, on August 15, 1977, a strong narrowband radio signal, while he was working on a SETI project at the Big Ear radio telescope, of the Ohio State University which was then located at Ohio Wesleyan University’s Perkins Observatory in Delaware, Ohio.

The signal was so remarkable that Ehman circled it on the computer printout with a `Wow’, in the margin and unintentionally gave the received radio signal the name for which it became very famous. The signal had the unexpected hallmarks of non terrestrial and non solar system origin and it lasted for the full seventy two second window that Big Ear was ever able to observe and has not been detected again. This signal has been the subject of significant media attention ever since.

No Identification for Signal’s Source

No identification has been found for the signal’s source inspite of great efforts without repeated signal found which turns out to be a mystery. The only conclusion drawn was that if the signal could have originated in deep space then it could either be an astrophysical phenomenon which was never seen before or it could have been an intercepted alien signal.

After trying and failure in finding any repeat of the signal, the Wow signal researchers faced difficulty and Ehman became skeptical of its origin stating that `something suggest it was an Earth sourced signal that simply got reflected off a piece of space debris’, and when he made attempts to investigate the explanation, he faced more problems.

Signal’s Intensity

On investigations, it was found that the signal could have probably originated on Earth with likely reflection off a piece of space junk. The received signal being specific, the explanations required too many assumptions and a logical thinking pattern known as Occam’s razor pointed towards this signal with an astrophysical origin though it did not provide an explanation.

The signal’s intensity at the start was noticed to rise and fall over a period of 72 seconds, consistent with the Earth’s rotation with a single source tracking in the sky with the help of the Big Ear telescope which gave the signal a characteristic signature caused by object seen in the sky. This would be impossible to match for any Earth bound object.

Amazing Frequency – Sharp Transmission

The signal also stood out over the background noise found in deep space, about 30 times louder than anything else and the most amazing thing about it was its frequency which was sharp transmitting at only a single frequency.

Natural radio sources do not operate that way but spread across a range of frequencies, in other words, the same signal covers a broad band of transmission and the Wow signal is far from it showing only one specific frequency of 1420 MHz approximately which is also known as the hydrogen line, a frequency which is internationally banned from use by terrestrial radio signals due to its use in radio astronomy.

Gorgias of Epirus

Gorgias of Epirus Birth in his Mother’s Coffin

Gorgias of Epirus was born in his dead mother’s coffin when the pallbearers heard him crying out as they carried his mother’s coffin to the grave. As they stopped to figure out the sound coming out of the dead coffin, they discovered little Gorgias. He was a Greek sophist, pre-Socratic philosopher and a rhetorician, a native of Leontini, which was a Greek colony in Sicily and often called the home of Spartan rhetoric. His father was Charmantides and had two siblings, a brother Herodicus and a sister who had dedicated a statue to Gorgias in Delphi.

He formed the first generation of Sophists along with Protagoras and it was reported that he was a pupil of Empedocles, though he was a few years younger to him. Like many Sophist he was considered an itinerant, practicing in many cities as well as giving public exhibitions on his amazing skills at the great pan Hellenic centers of Olympia and Delphi. He would charge huge fees for his performances and instructions and his special feature of display was the invitation of miscellaneous queries from the audience and providing them with prompt replies. Besides this, his chief claim for being recognized was in the fact the he transplanted rhetoric from his native land, Sicily to Attica, contributing to the diffusion of the Attic dialect as the language of literary prose.

Admired for Gorgias of Epirus ability to speak on any topic

He was sent to Athens in 427 BC, at sixty, by his fellow citizen at the head of an embassy to ask for Athenian protection against the aggression of the Syracusans and subsequently settled there, due to the popularity he gained on his style of oratory as well as the profits made from his performance together with the rhetoric classes. Gorgias of Epirus is said to have lived to reach one hundred and eight years and died at Larissa in Thessaly.

Gorgias of Epirus had won admiration for his ability to speak on any topic accumulating a considerable amount of wealth, which was enough to commission a gold statue of himself for a public temple. The Greeks, after his Pythian Oration, installed a gold statue of Gorgias in the temple of Apollo at Delphi. He was also known as `the Nihilist’, due to his beliefs regarding the concept of existence and Nihilism is the belief that all values are baseless with nothing can be communicated or known and is often related to extreme pessimism and radical skepticism which condemns existence.

Gorgias of Epirus Philosophy – Nothing Exists

Gorgias of Epirus belief or philosophy is that nothing exists at all and the full extent of this is portrayed in his `On Non-existence’, where he developed three sequential arguments, first that nothing exists, and second that even if existence does exist, it is inapprehensible to humans and third that if existence is inapprehensible, it cannot be communicated or interpreted to another.

Gorgias of Epirus writing was also both rhetorical and performative and he would go to great lengths in order to exhibit his ability of making an absurd and argumentative topic appear stronger. He was also of the belief that his magical incantations would bring about healing to the human psyche on controlling powerful emotions, paying more attention to the sounds of words, which would captivate the audience like poetry.

Mermaids

Mermaids are legendary aquatic creatures with the upper body of a female and the tail of a fish. Mermaids are associated with perilous events like floods, shipwrecks, storms and drowning and in other folk traditions they can be bestowing boons or falling in love with humans. Mermaids, the mythical creatures, have long captivated the imagination of the people and have also thrilled us in documentaries paintings, fairytales as well as in the cinemas.

These seafaring fish ladies come to the aid of men and according to some belief would hug them and drown them to death while out at sea. The earliest mermaid legend comes from Syria and in ancient Syrian was a goddess by the name of Atargatis. She was a fertility goddess whose cult spread to Rome and Greece and was associated with water. She is often depicted in mermaid form and could be perhaps the original mermaid. According to legend, she plunged into a lake to become a fish but only her bottom half was transformed.

Mermaids – Fish like People

In old English, `mer’, means `sea’ and `maid’ meant woman and mermaids are considered to be women of the sea. Following the line of etymological logic a `mer’ man – merman would be a man of the sea. Mermaids and mermen are fish like people who swim through the seas and the oceans. In some of the legends of the Pacific Islands it is believed that the humans descended from both mermaids as well as mermen and seems way back in time that their tails somehow dropped and people were able to walk on land.

An example is taken from the creator god Vatea who was depicted as being half human and half fish. Female mermaids and male mermen are imaginary being with the upper bodies of human beings and the lower bodies of fish. Mentioned often in European legends they occur occasionally in the folklore of sea travelers from various regions of the world. Though they are portrayed as being attractive, they are also associated to danger and their dual nature reflects humankind’s relationship with the sea, which could either be realm of fear and disaster or beautiful and calm.

Mermaids, Part of Folklore

As humans learned slowly how to survive at sea, mermaids became a part of the folklore and legends and there were no more gods only spirits of the sea which brought both good and bad events to sailors when they encountered them. Some were of the belief that they could transform themselves to human state. Irish folklore to this day protect this lore and some famous Persian books like the Arabian Nights speak on multiple occasions of the human race of sea dwellers, minus the fishtails, which could live both in water as well as on land.

Though we see the mermaids as part of popular culture and folklore remnants of ancient times, the mythology around the mermaids has influenced some to the earlier civilizations and changed the way of looking at the mysteries and danger hidden in the unexplored sea. Due to their enticing looks of half humans and half fish, mermaids managed to remain the part of our history as the most famous mythical creatures which lived in the water.

Angel Hair – Connected to UFO

Angel hair or siliceous cotton is a fibrous, sticky substance which had been reported in connection with UFO sightings. It has been named for its similarity to fine hair or spider webs and in some instances it is found to be the web threads of migrating spiders where it is reported that angel hair evaporates or disintegrates within a short span of time of forming.

 It is an important aspect of Raelism, UFO religion and one of its theories is that it is created from ionized air sleeting off an electromagnetic field surrounding a UFO. This cobweb and jellylike substance slightly radioactive often falls to the ground after UFO sightings, has been dubbed `angle hair’ which when held in the hand that seems like cottony tufts have an offensive smell.

 American ufologist refers it as angel hair, while Italian considers it as siliceous cotton and the French call the term `the Madonna’s present, describing the semitransparent threads that fell from heavens.

Phenomenon of Shining Flying Spindles started in 1954

Discussions of the phenomenon first started in 1954 when two men known as Gennaro Lucetti and Pietro Lastrucci stood on a hotel balcony in the vicinity of St. Mark’s Square of Venice on October 27, 1954 when suddenly they saw two shining spindles flying across the sky.

These objects left behind a fiery white trail while they moved along and flew at high speed each at some distance away from the other taking a U turn to fly away in the direction of Florence. It was also reported that an unexpected interruption in a soccer game played in one of the stadiums of Florence took place when the players, referees along with 10 thousand spectators stood gazing into the skies at the two objects making their rounds over the stadium with a couple of unidentified objects flying over the city thrice from 14.20 to 1429 and a number of strange cobweb like threads dropping to the arena as these objects disappeared.

Fibrous Material Highly Resistant to Tension 

Since the substance would disintegrate when held in hand, a student called Alfrede Jacopozzi was the only one to have picked up a few threads and seal them in a hermetic test tube and handed over the tube to Professor Giovanni Canneri, the director of the Chemical Analysis Institute, University of Florence. His colleague, Professor Danilo Cozzi, carried out a series of test on the mysterious substance and his conclusion was that it was a fibrous material which was highly resistant to tension and torsion and once subjected to heat, the material would tend to grow dark and evaporate leaving transparent sediments which melted away. These sediments were found to contain boron, silicon and magnesium which hypothetically speaking could be some kind of boron-silicon glass according to Professor Cozzi.

Comprehensive Analysis Conducted

Charles Maney, an American ufologist suggested that the material was the UFO excess energy which materialized and according to him the threads returned to their dimension or some other space time continuum while fading away.

 Another British ufologist suggested that the angel hair was a variety of ectoplasm that emanated during a spiritualistic session. A Soviet researcher, B.V.Lyapunov, who had done much contribution to popularize science, received sample of angel hair from New Zealand in 1967 in a tightly sealed tube which contained some unknown stuff measuring less than one tenth of a cubic centimeter. A comprehensive analysis was then conducted by a team of scientist on the substance.

Physicist, L.V. Kirichenko, specialist in radiometry was of the opinion that the substance was a fine fibered material where some of its fibers were less than 0.1 micron in diameter and most of the fibers were tangled in the bundles or separate threads measuring 20 microns in diameter looking whitish and semitransparent. Analogues are unknown to the analyzed substance. Academician I.V. Petryanov Sokolov on summing up the study of the material stated that the sample is of considerable interest as a material with extremely fine fibers and it is unlikely that the material was formed by nature.

Flying Web Type Substance

The entire substance unfortunately was used during the research and no fresh samples of angel hair were obtained inspite of repeated reports in the country. British Society for UFO Studies reported in August 1998, that mysterious cobwebs fell to the ground shortly after an UFO sighting in North Wales and a sixty old woman and her daughter-in-law sighted about 20 silver balls in the sky before taking note of cobweb like material which fell to the ground.

In 1898, residents of the city of Montgomery in United States reported angel hair which fell from the clear blue sky stating the fall as `flying web type substance’ and according to eyewitness, the threads of the material resembled fluorescent asbestos fibers. A large number of sticky fibers were seen falling from the sky for two hours on February 10, 1978, in the vicinity of the coastal city of Samaru, New Zealand where the fibers appeared to be quite finer than cobwebs though clearly visible against a clear blue sky.

History mystery: Kryptos - Mysterious Encrypted Sculpture

Kryptos, a mysterious encrypted sculpture located on the ground of CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia was installed in 1990. It was designed by artist Jim Sanborn and its thousands of characters contain encrypted messages and out of its four messages, only three have been solved till date while the fourth section consisting of 97 characters still remains unsolved.

The first section consist of poetic phrase composed by Sanborn himself, while the second hints at something buried, the third section is from the archaeologist Howard Carter’s diary describing the opening of a door in King Tut’s tomb on November 26, 1922. The sculpture continues to create a diversion for cryptanalysts, for professionals as well as amateur who are keen on attempting to decrypt the final section.

The main sculpture is in the northwest corner of the New Headquarters Building courtyard, exterior of the Agency cafeteria comprising of four large copper plates with other elements which are made of red and green granite, petrified wood and white quartz. Since Sanborn installed the 12 foot high copper, granite and wood sculpture 15 years ago, it has been seven years now that anyone has ever made any headway in solving its code.

Kryptos – Hidden – Intelligence Gathering 

The word Kryptos is derived from the Greek word for `hidden’, while the theme of the sculpture is `intelligence gathering’, its most prominent feature being the large vertical S shaped copper screen resembling a scroll or a piece of paper which seems to be emerging from a computer printer, covered with characters of encrypted text.

The characters comprises of 26 letters of the standard Latin alphabet with question marks cut out of the copper and while the main sculpture consists of four separate mysterious messages, three have been solved. At the time of the installation of the main sculpture, Jim Sanborn the sculptor has also placed several other pieces around the CIA grounds with several Morse code messages which were engraved in the copper. One of the slabs has an engraved compass rose and a lodestone. Other Sanborn’s installations include landscaped area, a reflecting pool, a duck pond as well as several other unmarked slabs.

Kryptos – A Riddle Within a Riddle

Sanborn had worked with the retiring CIA employed called Ed Scheidt, who was the Chairman of the CIA Cryptographic Center to have come up with the cryptographic system that was used on the mysterious sculpture. It was Sanborn who revealed that the sculpture contained a riddle within a riddle which could be solved only after the four encrypted sections had been decrypted. He has provided conflicting information with regards to the sculpture’s answer.

At one point of time he states that the complete solution was given to the CIA, William H, Webster during the dedication ceremony and then again he had stated that he had not given Webster the entire solution though he confirms that in part two which says `who knows the exact location? only WW, who is referred to William Webster. Moreover Sanborn further stated saying that should he die before the entire sculpture becomes deciphered, there will be someone to confirm the solution.

Time Dilation - Einstein’s Experiment of Thought or Gedanken

  

The special theory of relativity proposed by Einstein saw little special about it and not much interest was shown towards it. Eventually the theory revolutionized the 20th century physics and hundred years thereafter Einstein’s life and work became well known by the general public all over the world. His proposal was based on two elements; namely that the speed of light in a vacuum is constant irrespective of how they are moving and that the laws of physics are the same for all systems which move relative to one another at a steady speed.

Einstein use the experiment of thought or Gedanken, to develop his ideas and many findings are recorded about how he imagine what things would look like if the option of riding on a beam of light was provided. Besides his ideas, he also acknowledged and built on the works of others like Poincare, Maxwell, Lorentz to mention a few as well as other scientists.

This theory of relativity is expressed in terms of the mathematical equations which are not within the understanding of most people and it is a most challenging concept to students of the theory. According to Einstein, he is of the opinion that the thinking ability was most suitable to a child and states that `the normal adult never bothers about space time problems. Everything there is to be thought about is done in early childhood and he developed slowly beginning to wonder about space and time when he had already grown up’.

Gravitational Time Dilation

According to Einstein, the concept of the special theory of relativity, if not mathematics, should be accessible to students of all age group and this work inclusive of student activity takes into consideration the consequence of the special theory. In general relativity, clock in a gravitational field of lower potentials like the proximity to a planet would be running slower, the gravitational time dilation is not reciprocal. At the top of the tower, the observer will find that clocks at ground level move much slower and the observer on the ground will also agree to the same.

 The gravitational time dilation thus is agreed by the observers with their own independent attitudes. Time dilation means that a process which takes certain time to take place in a moving system is observed to take more time by someone outside the system. Gravitational time dilation is the outcome of time passing at different rates in regions of various different gravitational potential. The higher the local distortion of space time because of gravity, slower would be the time that passes. Einstein had earlier predicted the effect of this theory of relativity and since then it has been confirmed by tests of general relativity.

To experimentally measure gravitational time dilation, atomic clocks on airplanes was used wherein the clocks that traveled abroad the airplanes, on returning were slightly fast with regards to clocks on the ground. This was significant that the Global Positioning System needs to be corrected for effects on clocks on artificial satellites with further experimental confirmation to the effect.

Babylon – Ancient Mesopotamia

Gwendolyn Leick has been successful in bringing together a group of international scholars each with the liberty of focusing on the topic and specialty of their choice and her survey portrays a great deal about the people of Babylon, their culture and the reality that lies behind the popular myth of Babylon. Some 1800 years ago, the history of the Babylonians right from the time of Hammurabi, who was famous for his Law Code till the time when Alexander and his heirs ruled the Near East, Gwendolyn’s archaeological discoveries as well as the cuneiform tablets which was discovered in the city of Babylon provides us some insight of the people of Babylon and their society, together with their intellectual and spiritual information.

Interesting insight with regards to the lives of kings, merchants, women and slaves together with their social, historical, geographical as well as cultural context which flourished for many centuries have come to light, providing scholars and students a glimpse of this amazing world. Being the builders of a towering monumental urban city and the layers of the foundation of modern science and mathematics, the people of Babylon were an insistent lot of the ancient world at that time. From the discoveries of the cuneiform tablets, epigraphic research together with the latest archaeological advances, Leick’s findings relates reference resources as well as introductory text for university students.

The main areas, like ecology, urbanism, plurality and complexity, power relations; all these offer variety of insight reflecting their academic approach and focus and the Babylonian World portrays a kaleidoscopic view with patterns and fragments of the lost world in the most amazing way with information on the various aspects of Babylon details on the complexity and the richness of this country. The ruins of the most famous city from ancient Mesopotamian lie in modern day Iraq, around 59 miles southwest of Baghdad which according to Akkadian language at that time meant `Gate of God or Gate of the Gods’, Babylon was founded at some time before the reign of Sargon of Akkad or Sargon the Great who reigned from 2334 – 2279 BC claiming to have built many temples in Babylon.

The history of Babylon came to be known with the famous king Hammurabi who reigned between 1795 -1750 who ascended the throne on the death of his father, King Sin-Muballit and transformed the city into a powerful and influential country of Mesopotamia. His law codes have been very popular though they are only an example of the policies which he implemented to maintain peace and prosperity. He was also responsible in enlarging and heightening the walls of the city, engagement in great public works including temples, making diplomats an integral part of his administration. He was so successful in war and diplomacy that he managed to unite all of Mesopotamia under the rule of Babylon in 1763 BC, which at that time was one of the major cities of the world and named it Babylonia.

After the death of Hammurabi, his empire got disintegrated and Babylonia reduced in size and was taken over by Hittites in 1595 BC and later by the Kassites. Thereafter the Assyrians dominated the region and the Assyrian ruler, Sennacherib had the city razed, sacked with the ruins scattered and Babylon revolted against him. He was soon assassinated by his sons and succeeded by Esrhaddon who rebuilt Babylon returning it to its original glory. The city once again revolted against Ashurbanipal of Nineveh who had taken control though did not damage it but had made efforts to purify Babylon of the evil spirits prowling around that had been the cause of all the prevailing troubles.

Thereafter the Assyrian Empire fell and a Chaldean, Nabopolassar took charge of the throne of Babylon and created the Neo Babylonian Empire and his son Nebuchadnezzar in 604 -561, renovated the city covering an area of 900 hectares of land with some of the most impressive and beautiful structures in the whole of Mesopotamia where every ancient writer had made a mention of the city of Babylon with reverence and awe. The Neo Babylonian Empire prolonged after the death of Nebuchadnezzar II where Babylon continued to play an important role under the reign of Nabonidus together with his successor, Belshazzar. Towards 539 BC, the empire fell into the hands of the Persian under Cyrus the Great during the Battle of Opis.

 Since the walls of Babylon were impregnable, the Persians devised a plan and diverted the course of the Euphrates River that fell to a manageable depth and while the people of the city were engaged in their great religious feast, the army waded through the river and marched under the walls of Babylon unnoticed. It is believed that the city was taken over without a fight though the documents at that time indicate that the repairs had to be done to the walls as well as some areas of the city and hence the invasion was not much of an effort.

Geographically, Babylonia can be defined as the southern half of Mesopotamia where the rivers, Tigris and Euphrates meet each other forming a strip of land. Towards the south lies the marshes, beyond which lies the waters of the Persian Gulf and the northern half of Mesopotamia was known as Assyria. Though most of the Assyrian cities were situated along the Tigris, those of Babylonia located along the Euphrates were a major trade route or the intermediary canals.

The Arabian desert to the west and the Zagros Mountains to the east formed its natural border with its climate being hotter and drier in the southern Mesopotamia. Agriculture was possible only through irrigation while the landscape was marked by a dense network of canals and dams. Babylon city was considered as the seat of kingship which was lavishly endowed with temples and palaces which were so unique that it attracted the cupidity of far away ruler from distant place namely the Hittite king Mursili who came down to Euphrates to attack and plunder its riches.

The Old Babylonian language was replaced with the previously spoken Sumerian and only the learned scholars were familiar with that language. Another group of immigrants this time from the east known as Kassites took political control of the Babylonian culture, their kings bearing outlandish Kassite names while the later one adopted `good Babylonia’ titles and names.