I decided that I needed a new book to read and managed to find one on my bookshelf that I’d only half read so thought I’d finish it off: Tower, An epic History of the Tower of London by Nigel Jones. I just wondered what everyone else is reading at the moment? What does everyone else like to read?
I have been reading a lot recently. I recently finished Sapiens, by Yuvul Noah Harari, who thinks that Science will sooner or later, virtual gods of us will make and beyond whether or not that doesn't smell a tad of Hubris, it is certainly worth questioning whether or not we have the wisdom to go there. Now I am reading Utopia for Realists - I definitely recommend that. A basic income would solve so much, interestingly Nixon very nearly made it so. It is easy to forget beyond the scandals and other of his less admirable traits, how humanitarian he could be.
Before that, I read a fascinating account of an archaeological dig - of a Bronze Age settlement found not far from The Dead Sea. Apparently it was incinerated by something so searing that some of the pottery remains found there was fused to create trinitite - a green glass found after a nuclear bomb was detonated off Trinity Island. Steven Collins is the archaeologist who commissioned this book.
It is suspected the culprit was not a nuke though, but rather a blast from an exploding meteorite. In that case, didn't we just dodge a bullet when one blew over Siberia recently.
The story of Lot's wife turning to a pillar of salt, retold so tersely, always did have the feel of an eye witness having recounted a massive tragedy. I was disappointed though that the writer, after all the science be brought to this discovery, then insists that Sodom and Gomorrah really did displease an alien god.
Did the people of Pompeii deserve what happened to them? Then again, if we ever do, do it to ourselves, who would need a vengeful Yahweh then.
Either way, it is a fascinating read and there is no doubt that Collins is onto something with his dog at Tall el Hammam and at other ruined settlements discovered nearby.
We like our vitrification Nexus! Trinitite can also be found in Indus Valley ruins of the Bronze age. Harrapa, Mohenjo-Daro, and an even older city Kot Diji have traces of it, along with radioactive areas.
As you say it's similar to Sodom and Gomorrah in respect to it being tied in with religious texts. The Vedic texts go into detail about an 18 day battle that was ended by a big explosion. The Mahrabharata makes references to many battles, and contains a part called the Book of Drona which details the "magical weapons" that were utilised. One being the "Brahmastra".......
Here's a few passages on it.
“a single projectile charged with all the power in the universe. It was an unknown weapon, an iron thunderbolt, a gigantic messenger of death which reduced to ashes an entire race. There was neither a counter attack nor a defense that could stop it.”
“an incandescent column of smoke and flame as bright as 10,000 suns that rose in all its splendor. After, corpses were so burned as to be unrecognizable. Their hair and nails fell out; pottery broke without any apparent cause, and the birds turned white… After a few hours, all foodstuffs were infected."
“Any target hit by the brahmastra would be utterly destroyed; land would become barren and lifeless, rainfall would cease, and infertility in humans and animals would follow for aeons of time.”
Yes, I saw those references to the Brahmanastra!
I wonder how such a civilisation might have intuited how to split the atom, if that is what they did manage to do. I mean, without our kind of technology, could there be an equivalent of running two sticks together that could have provided these early Hindus with the understanding of how to create a nuclear weapon out of Uranium?
I heard it suggested that the Sodom and Gomorrah story was based on the story of an early nuclear war. And the Trinitite finds are more what you might expect there, but the science of it seems to concur more with the exploding meteriorite idea, whose plume might as well have been a nuke from the point of view of the temperatures produced, needed to melt pottery on one side to glass.
It seems untapped, but due to it's nature, there have been talks of disposing of nuclear waste inside it. The chemical conditions are ideal for diffusion, and containment of Uranium-235.
I'd say that it's not really a case for over-ambitious tinkering though. Let's hope it's just left as an idea!
No I haven't heard of natural nuclear reactors, could this have been harnessed or usedss s weapon in earlier times is still the question
No I haven't heard of natural nuclear reactors, could this have been harnessed or usedss s weapon in earlier times is still the question
It seems untapped, but due to it's nature, there have been talks of disposing of nuclear waste inside it. The chemical conditions are ideal for diffusion, and containment of Uranium-235.
I'd say that it's not really a case for over-ambitious tinkering though. Let's hope it's just left as an idea!
