Tom Chavez

Gregg,
          I will share here what I learned looking into your ideas. I’m not trying to change your views, since you don’t accept evidence from recognized scientists if it doesn’t agree with your thinking. I asked how you know the photon’s fine structure, and you said you ‘figured it out’, but offered no supporting experimental evidence. Apparently, for you, your mind gives the best evidence.

Gregg: Le Sage’s theory of gravitation is accurate, and is based upon an omni-directional flux of invisible superluminal particles (“gravitons”). Gravitons could provide faster than light propulsion for spacecraft.

Tom: Gravitons are referred to in science, but not as you describe. They are hypothetical particles in theories of quantum gravity, spin-2 bosons, and travel at the speed of light. They have not been detected, and may or may not exist according to Fermilab and other sources.
         Perhaps it is inappropriate to use the term ‘graviton’ for LeSage’s particles. Van Flandern uses the term “ultra-mundane corpuscles”. In any case, what evidence do you have that such particles exist? Is it that you just ‘figured it out’? Do you accept them based on Van Flandern’s authority?

Gregg: Gravity propagates at least twenty billion times faster than light, or possibly infinitely fast. Gravitons have mass.

Tom: In college Van Flandern was told that nothing travels faster than c, the speed of light, but was also told that in Newtonian gravity the speed of gravity is is assumed to be infinite, a contradiction.
         In 1998 he wrote a paper asserting that gravity propagates at least 20 billion times the speed of light. Einstein’s equations, as understood at the time, gave wrong planetary orbits.
         However, in 1999 S. Carlip showed that Einstein’s equations do give accurate orbits because the apparent aberration is canceled by velocity-dependent interactions. Therefore, the speed of gravity is equal to the speed of light, as further experiments confirmed.
         Carlip’s paper can be found on the Cornell University arXiv.org website (https://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/9909087).
         All mainstream scientists now agree that gravity propagates at the speed of light, as confirmed by recent LIGO results. Of course, you have said that “grand authorities” or even a “consensus” of scientific authorities do not determine reality. Apparently, your mind and thinking tell you what reality is. Your mind tells you that Einstein is wrong, and massive particles can exceed the speed of light. What further evidence is needed than that?

Gregg: The Big Bang model of the universe is wrong. A steady-state cosmology is correct.

Tom: Well, if it is a competition between your mind and the world’s best scientists, there is no contest. Your mind tells you what to believe. How can there be any doubt?

Dennis Morse

In response to Tim Jones message on the pollution caused by the Tacoma Selter operated by ASARCO I do have some very relevant knowledge of that history of pollution as I worked there 14 years.  My last position there included caculatting the dust loses in various flues and dust loses on the main stack during the last years of operation. The formula for calculatting these loses were in fact developed by ASARCO and were an industry standard and were and still are used by agencies and companies worldwide.

That being said, I was not involved in forwarding the figures on loses to government agencies. I reported to management and they wrote the reports that were sent to different government agencies. Just before they closed the smelter my supervisor told me he thought we were wasting our time because management changed the lose reports that we calculatted to appease those government agencies. Although those agencies did some of their own testing, ASARCO knew when they were testing and lowered production. They knew because those agencies had to enter the smelter to do testing and gather samples. These agencies depended on information ASARCO gave them. Despite this the loses were still too high to continue operation and so the smelter was closed.The pollution caused by the smelting process included not only Arsenic but many heavy metals that are known carcinogens.

The cleanup of the area around  the smelter included replacing the topsoil as Tim has stated but I'm sure there are  still alot of contaminated areas that were not covered by the cleanup. I don't know if  testing was done on soil in the Burien area but it was certainly an area that was downwind. My personnal legacy of working 14 years there is COPD although I never smoked.

Dennis Morse

Al Peffley

Gregg,

Elon Musk's Space-X team might upstage NASA by completing a few unmanned missions with his latest resuable launcher/lander spacecraft project:

https://www.oann.com/elon-musk-unveils-new-mars-rocket-prototype-expects-missions-in-months/

A trip to Mars using advanced chemical rocket fuel and a "slingshot" orbit around the earth would take about three years of transfer travel time if my memory serves me correctly. Setting up a spaceport on the moon would conserve spacecraft fuel and reduce the launcher mass because the launch from the moon would only require transfer stage quantity fuel stores. A reactor propulsion system with electrical thrusters for a modified moon-stationed launcher could be assembled at the moon's spaceport instead of using International Space Station and space tug resources in low earth orbit (as was originally proposed in several early 1990's NASA studies.)

Musk is certainly not afraid to push the space transportation envelope with his young staff of creative engineers and technologists. He is implementing USAF/McDonnell Douglas (MD)/Scaled Composites' proven X-33 reusable launch vehicle system technology that NASA failed to capitalize on when "Bubba" was in office as POTUS. The Lockheed Martin X-33 winged hypervelocity vehicle (that was never tested in full scale size) was cancelled by NASA due to cost overruns and technology implementation issues. A prototype of the MD X-33 (see drawing below) was flown successfuly to low altitude and back at White Sands when the Advaced X-33 Development Program was under USAF management. NASA tried to leapfrog over the USAF technology development and Elon Musk made it a reality by utilizing the USAF precurser X-33 design features.

I worked at McDonnell Douglas' Huntington Beach facility (now Boeing) on the NASA X-33 proposal to NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center until we lost to a team of Lockheed Martin & Rocketdyne. Jim Albaugh, the Rocketdyne Propulsion System Program Manager, left Rocketdyne and soon became a very successful VP at Boeing Space & Communications (S&C Group at Seal Beach, CA) after NASA cancelled the hypervelocity X-33 Program. Jim was a wonderful executive manager to work for on military (Army-DARPA's Future Combat Systems Program), space systems, and high energy laser R&D projects. Albaugh soon became the president of the S&C Group (former North American Rockwell Company that Boeing purchased from Rockwell International during the X-33 Program competition.) Jim Albaugh retired from Boeing S&C shortly after I did from Phantom Works (I think in 2005).

Al Peffley

Tim - Greta is a [fanatical] "young woman", as you call her, that comes across as being an immature "little girl" in the videos I have seen. She would get more respect and consideration if she presented her environmental cleanup proposals in a more convincing and calm manner. Tom's last graphic to Gregg may be appropriate for Greta. Some "migration" societies don't share your concern about climate change but don't get much criticism by UN environmental zealots. We are cleaning up America much better than other nations who pollute the world more than we presently do by our citizens and companies trying to be responsible producers and consumers.

You don't need to convince me that the Tacoma Asarco(sp?) Smelter induced health problems. One of my former bosses at Boeing grew up near the smelter and died of colon cancer. They suspected he was poisoned by vegatables he ate that were grown in a small contaminated soil garden (that tested positive for heavy metal contaminants) behind their house. The whole Tacoma Port area is a well known, nationally-recognized toxic waste dump site. China will have to address the same issues if they don't stop creating more toxic waste in products the world consumes in mass quantites. You can learn from the past, but you can't change the past. Many people died from lead poisoning due to lead being used to seal food cans in the 1800's. The learning curve is steep. Big pharma band-aide medicine is not the answer, enabling better cell health is the answer.

I am not a 1960's Woodstock type person any more. I realized my 1960's bad habits and emotional rants on religion were counter-productive for me to become a reasonably responsible and productive adult in America (not perfect). It still amazes me as a supposedly, "environmentally-conscious" society we can legalize pot and also condemn cigarette products when inhaling both are proven to be hazardous to our health! On top of expanding lung health probems, we allow the homeless to defecate and spread decaying trash on our major city streets and in public property parks without health regulations enforcement. Tainted drug problems are rampant in my county. Stupid is as stupid does, I guess. The victims have become the guilty by politically-correct and emotionally-inspired phobic labeling in our upside-down world of chaos and social change. Right is wrong, and wrong is excused or ignored for political and wealth gains.

Tom Chavez

Tim and Dennis, thank you for the input of your personal experiences. I lived in Normandy Park for a few years, oblivious to the environmental hazards. I lived on Vashon Island as a kid, and I’m a little shocked to know about the contamination of Maury Island. Those islands were a playground paradise for me.

We all are too well acquainted with the sadness of this world.

    Solitude
Laugh and the world laughs with you,
    Weep and you weep alone;
For the sad old earth must borrow its mirth,
    But has troubles enough of its own.
    —Ella Wheeler Wilcox

For Whom the Bell Tolls
No man is an island entire of itself.
Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind.
Therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee.
    —John Donne

Here, a few sayings I need to learn to apply:

There is so much good in the worst of us, and so much bad in the best of us
That it ill behooves any of us to find fault with the rest of us.
—unknown

Speak ill of no man, but speak all the good you know of everybody.
        — Benjamin Franklin

And a more optimistic turn:

         Auguries of Innocence
To see a world in a grain of sand,
    And a Heaven in a wild flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand,
    And Eternity in an hour.
    —William Blake

Life is the childhood of immortality.
—Daniel A Poling

Whoever it was who searched the heavens with a telescope and found no God would not have found the human mind if he had searched the brain with a microscope.
    —George Santayana

I can see how it might be possible for a man to look down upon the earth and be an atheist, but I cannot conceive how he could look up into the heavens and say there is no God.
            —Abraham Lincoln

Gregg Wilson

Tom,

Are you reading thinks carefully?

The proton, not the photon.

"Recognized scientists". By whom?

Le Sage, in 1748, described them as "ultra-mundane corpuscles". Astronomer Tom Van Flandern had always decribed them as gravitons. There are quite a number of scientists who accept gravitons as the cause of gravity.

See Pushing Gravity. Perhaps you should do more reading.  Astronomer Tom Van Flandern's specialty through his career was Celestial Mechanics - kind of a hint about gravity. Tom wrote a number of articles about gravity - very complex and thorough. Others have also written about gravitons.

In college Van Flandern was told that nothing travels faster than c, the speed of light, but was also told that in Newtonian gravity the speed of gravity is is assumed to be infinite, a contradiction. This was not his contradiction.

I use my mind to think through matters using logic. I do not claim that it is right because I said it is right. Who has the right to think? Everyone and anyone.

Who are the worlds best scientists? Do you have an objective definition for that?

Gentlemen, do not worry. I have sent for my credentials. It is only $29.95!!!!

Tom Chavez

Gregg,

I apologize if I did not read everything as closely as I should. I can’t keep up with your mind, which travels faster than a speeding graviton.

I respectfully accept those scientists as great who are acknowledged by their peers and by history. They are more qualified than I am. Although I have some background in math, molecular biology, formal logic, etc. I did not specialize, I’m a lazy generalist. I’m just not interested enough (or smart enough) to get into the details.

Some scientists go unrecognized during their lifetime, but are later recognized as pioneers. George Cantor was scorned by many of his contemporaries who thought that he was literally insane for his work on infinities. Now his ideas about infinity and set theory are foundational in mathematics, and transfinite math is an established branch of mathematics.

Perhaps someday you and Tom Van Flandern will be recognized as correct about faster than light particles and hollow pyramidal protons. I doubt it, and I have expressed my honest doubts. If you are right, I’ll consider my suspicions about your alien identity to be confirmed, regardless of whatever bogus credentials you foist.

As you say, we all have a right to think. I have enjoyed exercising my somewhat atrophied intelligence in exchange with you, on this forum. It’s been fun. Thanks for the challenge and thanks to our classmates for the forum.

Al commented that whether or not black holes exist doesn’t really affect our life here and now. (Although if one shows up near earth it will!) I would add that whether gravity is a curvature of the space-time continuum or mediated by a flux of theoretical particles traveling 20 billion times the speed of light is irrelevant too, except as an intellectual armchair exercise.

Tim Jones (Jones)

Youthful Idealism.

One of the reasons I'm applauding Greta is her youthful idealism. Thinking freely, thinking outside the box. Expressing her idealism.  I've had that idealism which has been tempered by seventy plus years of reality. Looking back on my oldest son who between the age of about 17 and 24 was extremely idealistic. He use to talk down to me as thought I didn't know anything. I resented that part, but in hindsight miss that optimism and idealism.  Today he is 42, married, three kids and a mortgage. That optimistic / idealism is gone.  

Idealism of youth can be contagious. It can renew our focus on what is important.....NOW! 

Through the past couple decades I've come to think of the United Nations as a sort of toothless tiger. After wastching/listening to some speeches by current Sectretary General Antonio Guterres (Portugal) my faith and positive opinion of the UN is changing to the positive.  We (all nations) now have a common topic, issue, goal which is climate. Climate as you might suspect knows no boundaries. It is affecting us all. Listening to Secretary Guterres speeches, I believe he understands the myriad issues facing all of us today.  

On the subject of Boomer Bashing, I'm beginning to realize that younger generations, Mllennials, Generation X and Generation Zers are blaming us for everything. I started by watching or trying to watch a video by Stephan Molyneux (Canadian) titled Laziness, Greed, Entitlement- Boomers Defined. It was so negative, I couldn't get through it. Type in to your browser Boomers vs Millennials and see what comes up? I had no idea the negative opinion of us Boomers was so bad. 

Our parents most of whom grew up in the great depression and secondarily the second world war entered smooth sailing post war and  I think just wanted peace and a nice calm world for us to grow up in. For a lot of us that was the case.  The Nelsons, the Cleavers, Father Knows Best, Andy Griffith. We as a generation had our share of optimism and idealism. We did believe that music (the universal language) could save the world and our generations did succeed in stopping the Vietnam conflict. 

So many of us went to work, got married, raised a family, essentially living the American Dream. Did it all go wrong and if so where did it go wrong?  Did we allow out gonvernment to get away from us? I think that one of the mistakes our governmet has made is allowing foreign nationals to own real estate.  This has attracted speculation into the housing market and driven home prices out of reach of many young families. Take a 1950's two bedroom fixer-upper bungalow in San Francisco, $1.4 million. Seattle is going the same way. That's why there are so many homeless people out there. Priced out of the housing market.

I started watching videos on homelessness. In particular I like the videos by Mark Horvath (Invisible People). The first video of Mark's I watched was about a young woman, Manda, living under a bridge in Seattle. https://youtu.be/xYShiXMGULE

I don't think I've ever seen more emotion expressed in a human face than in Mandas. Mark helped Manda find an apartment in Seattle, helped her set up a Go Fund Me Page and helped her get a grant from Hanes, the underwear people. There is a second video of Mark taking Manda shopping to get furniture, etc. for her new apartment. It's a really heartwarming story. I hope you will watch it. https://youtu.be/ICdi6W7TUhw

Thank you Mark Horvath and your YouTube channel Invisible People.  You sir are a prince!

Cheers and take care all

Tim

PS  I'm missing spell check here so there are probably plenty of spelling errors....

Tom Chavez

Very thoughtful post, Tim.

Where did the American dream go wrong?

When Bob Bramel and I were at the UW, his father got us a job at Boeing over Christmas vacation. From that experience I knew I did not want to work there. I was not attracted by the American dream. I did not want a car, house, TV, swimming pool, etc. At least, not enough to work hard for them. I valued my freedom too much.

Some of our classmates are very patriotic, please don’t be offended. I read that our government was dumping grain and other food (milk?), to keep prices up. The Viet Nam war, consumerism, competition to “keep up with the Joneses”, DDT, built-in obsolescence, Kennedy and King assassinations, many things turned me off.

I appreciate the great innovative accomplishments of the American people, and I very much appreciate growing up in a peaceful country with liberal freedoms. America is a wonderful place, to this day people around the world still look up to America, although that is changing.

The last several years I spent mostly in China and India. I’m studying Chinese and Sanskrit. The Chinese name for America is two characters: “beautiful” and “country.” We were fortunate to be born here.

I guess, if I had to put my finger on the reason I am doubtful about America, I think we are too materialistic. What little spiritual culture we have is commercialized and dwindling. It’s not just America, of course. It’s the whole westernized world.

I don’t think we can engineer a solution to our problems simply with material science. The crux is that our hearts are polluted with greed, passion and ignorance. I’m not saying that everyone is demoniac, and I’m not trying to make you feel guilty, Al. But we need purification, to be satisfied with basics, to be peaceful, to appreciate nature and to be in “harmony with heaven.”

We need a clearer understanding of the spiritual nature of consciousness, how to purify consciousness of material contamination. To know the difference between temporary material values and eternal spiritual values. We need enlightenment. We need spiritual science to complement our material advancement.

That’s my considered opinion. I  sincerely hope that I have not offended anyone or written inappropriately.

pamelaAKASilvermoon Johnson (Johnson)

I stumbled  onto these posts while  on the way to get something  done for a change, but hope that the day will come when i can get back here to your shared thoughts, so kindly laid out . This makes me  happy to know that this communication  is being shared  with great respect .For me, this is the kind of communication that can bring growth  to us all .Thank you  thank you! .I am proud of our generation and our class and  ongoing  search for truth in which Life on  our Earth nursery can flourish once again.would be my ultimate goal and right action.silvermoon/ Pam johnson

Tom Chavez

Hey Pam Johnson! Here's more for you! And any other interested party. Just in time to go to India!

We are turning to the Vedic knowledge of ancient India to see what it can offer.

Voltaire (1694-1778), the French Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher: “I am convinced that everything has come down to us from the banks of the Ganges…. 2,500 years ago, Pythagoras went from Samos to the Ganges to learn geometry... But he would certainly not have undertaken such a strange journey had the reputation of the Indians' science not been long established in Europe.”

Will Durant (1885-1981), American historian and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Story of Civilization: "India was the motherland of our race, and Sanskrit the mother of Europe's languages: she was the mother of our philosophy; mother, through the Arabs, of much of our mathematics… mother, through the village community, of self-government and democracy. Mother India is in many ways the mother of us all… India will teach us the tolerance and gentleness of mature mind, understanding spirit and a unifying, pacifying love for all human beings…. Even across the Himalayan barrier, India has sent to the West such gifts as grammar and logic, philosophy and legend, hypnotism and chess, and above all, numerals and the decimal system."

Arnold Toynbee (1889-1975), British historian whose magnum opus was the 12-volume A Study of History, which chronicles the rise and fall of 26 civilizations in human history: “It is already becoming clear that a chapter which had a Western beginning will have to have an Indian ending if it is not to end in the self-destruction of the human race. At this supremely dangerous moment in history, the only way of salvation for mankind is the Indian way."

Max Müller(1823-1900), the German-born Oxford University philologist and Orientalist who was responsible for the Sacred Books of the East, a 50-volume set of English translations, and was one of the founders of the academic field of Indology: “If I were asked under what sky the human mind has most fully developed some of its choicest gifts, has most deeply pondered over the greatest problems of life, and has found solutions… I should point to India. And if I were to ask myself from what literature we who have been nurtured almost exclusively on the thoughts of Greeks and Romans, and of the Semitic race, the Jewish, may draw the corrective which is most wanted in order to make our inner life more perfect, more comprehensive, more universal, in fact more truly human a life... again I should point to India.”

Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), American transcendentalist writer, poet and philosopher: "In the great teaching of the Vedas, there is no touch of sectarianism. It is of all ages, climes, and nationalities, and is the royal road for the attainment of the Great Knowledge. When I read it, I feel that I am under the spangled heavens of a summer night."

Mark Twain (1835-1910)—aka Samuel Clemens—American author and humorist: “This is indeed India; the land of dreams and romance…of a thousand nations and a hundred tongues…cradle of the human race, birthplace of human speech, mother of history, grandmother of legend, great-grandmother of tradition…the one land that all men desire to see, and having seen once, by even a glimpse, would not give that glimpse for the shows of all the rest of the globe combined… So far as I am able to judge, nothing has been left undone, either by man or nature, to make India the most extraordinary country that the sun visits on his rounds."

Sir William Jones (1746-1794), Anglo-Welsh philologist, Supreme Court judge at Fort William in Bengal, and scholar of ancient India, who discovered a relationship among European and Indian languages, eventually known as Indo-European: “The Sanskrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of wonderful structure, more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin and more exquisitely refined than either.”

William James (1842-1910), American philosopher-psychologist; the first educator to offer a psychology course in the United States: "From the Vedas, we learn a practical art of surgery, medicine, music, house-building under which mechanized art is included. They are encyclopedia of every aspect of life, culture, religion, science, ethics, law, cosmology and meteorology."

Werner Heisenberg (1901-1976), German theoretical physicist,  pioneer of quantum mechanics, who was awarded the 1932 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work in quantum mechanics. Heisenberg recalled, “After the conversations about Indian philosophy, some of the ideas of quantum physics that had seemed so crazy suddenly made much more sense."

Carl Sagan (1934–1996), American astronomer, cosmologist, astrophysicist, astrobiologist, author and creator of the award-winning television series, Cosmos: “The Hindu religion is the only one of the world’s great faiths dedicated to the idea that the cosmos itself undergoes an immense—indeed infinite—number of deaths and rebirths. It is the only religion in which the time scales correspond to those of modern scientific cosmology. Its cycles run from our ordinary day and night to a day and night of Brahma, 8.64 billion years long, longer than the age of the Earth or the Sun, and about half the time since the Big Bang.”

Tom Chavez

About iPhones and Vedic Knowledge

Pardon me for hogging the bandwidth.

My wife and I will go the the Apple store this morning to replace our old iPhones 6s with new models 11. Does anyone reading this forum know how an iPhone works? We take them for granted, but the technology is so sophisticated and advanced that most of us have no clue.

To understand how an iPhone works we would need to understand Claude Shannon’s Information Theory as it applies to digital signaling. And for the electronics we need to understand Quantum Mechanics. What to speak of the extreme engineering that goes into the design and manufacture of each iPhone.

You fans of Isaac Asimov will all the more appreciate Arthur C. Clarke’s dictum, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

Can you imagine trying to explain an iPhone to natives living in the Amazon jungle? They, of course, would be highly knowledgeable about life in the jungle, what plants to eat, which are medicinal or poisonous, how to coexist with dangerous animals, snakes and insects, etc. We probably couldn’t survive in the Amazon without their help.

The Amazon native, although far more knowledgeable than us about his native environment, can only accept on faith what we tell him about an iPhone. It would be practically impossible to communicate the science behind it, even in a lifetime. To him it would be pure magic and, if we had no sample to demonstrate, he might think it totally fabulous and fictitious.

I hope to share with you something of the ‘legends’ of India, which to us in our modern materialistic age may appear as imaginative stories—something like our Superman, Wizard of Oz, or fairy tales. And that is how most western academics see them. But these legends are records by great sages of ancient civilization, not fable and fiction.

We will benefit by accepting the possibility, at least theoretically, that Vedic writings represent the remnants of human and trans-terrestrial civilization, advanced in ‘subtle’, ‘paranormal’ and other sciences. Seen this way, they reveal a Vedic world view which appears magical and miraculous to us simply because we are unfamiliar with it.

I'll try to limit my enthusiasm to not more than one post a day. Stand by!

Tom Chavez

Mahabharata
I’d like to tell a few stories from the Vedic classic Mahabharata. First a little background.

Bharat is the Sanskrit name of India. Still today Indians call their country Bharat. Mahabharata means ‘Great Bharat’ and is the longest epic in human society, containing 100,000 verses. It’s said to have one million verses on the planets of the demigods. Most English translations are abbreviated. The two best, in my opinion, are by Krishna Dharma and by Kamala Subramaniam. The unabridged translation by Ganguli is four volumes, which I would recommend only for scholars.

Mahabharata was written around the end of the bronze age and beginning of the iron age (kali yuga), over 5,000 years ago. The Vedas in previous ages were simply memorized and recited, but in this age people’s memory, strength, intelligence, longevity, etc., are reduced. The Vedas were written down, therefore, for the people of kali yuga. The cycle of four ages—gold, silver, bronze and iron—are cyclical like spring, summer, autumn and winter. Kali yuga is 432,000 years, and one cycle of all four ages, called a kalpa, is 4,320,000 years.

In the iron age people seldom reach 100 years old. In the bronze age they would live up to 1,000 years. The Bible records that Methuselah, the grandfather of Noah, died at the age of 969. Abraham is said to have lived 175 years. In the silver age people lived up to 10,000 years and in the golden age up to 100,000 years, according to the Vedas.

The Vedic literatures were written in the Sanskrit language. Sanskrit means ‘perfectly done’ and refers to the scientific design of the language. It is also called Devanagari, which means the language spoken by the devas, or demigods.

 An Austrian missionary, Father Paolo Bartolomeo, published the first Sanskrit grammar in the west, in Rome, in 1790 AD. He wrote: “It is clearly evident that Sanskrit is a most adequate medium for discussing any subject whatsoever. It also appears more brightly than day itself that before the birth of Christ there was a very highly developed degree of learning, cultivation of sciences and arts, exchange of opinion, a variety of systems, a refinement of life, and a most  intensive study of logic and metaphysics.” —Dissertation On the Sanskrit Language, trans. Ludo Rocher.

The first German to study Sanskrit was Fredrick von Schlegel: “Sanskrit has the greatest affinity with the Greek and Latin, as well as the Persian and German Languages.… It is further proved by comparison, that the Indian is the most ancient, and the source from which others of later origin are derived.”—On the Language and Wisdom of the Indians; trans. E.J. Millington, p 428

Von Schlegel noted that Sanskrit provided a counter-example to the evolutionary theory that language evolves from crude to more rational, well-structured forms. Sanskrit “rather confirms the opposite, proving the most profound study and clearest intelligence were early called into operation, for Sanskrit, even in its simplest form, exemplifies the loftiest ideas of the pure world of thought in direct and immediate clearness and precision.”—ibid, p.454

The following chart of the Sanskrit alphabet shows its systematic design to represent the sounds which the mouth can form. First come the vowels, and then the consonants organized according to how they are formed. For example, the ‘Gutterals’ are formed by the back of the tongue against the roof of the mouth. And the ‘Labials’ are formed with the help of the lips. The pronunciation is always well defined. For example, ’a’ is always pronounced as the a in ‘organ’ or u in ‘but’.

“Needless to say, the discovery of the Vedic literature and the Sanskrit language had tremendous impact on 19th Century civilization. For example, the Prussian minister of education, Wilhelm von Humboldt, a brilliant linguist and the founder of the science of general linguistics, learned Sanskrit and published an extensive study of Bhagavad-gita which he described as ‘the deepest and loftiest thing the world has to show.’”—Winternitz, A History of Indian Literature, Vol. I, p. 15.

Bhagavad-gita is a small chapter of Mahabharata (about 700 verses out of 100,000), and is the most famous of all Vedic texts. (If you want one I recommend Bhagavad-gita As It Is translated with purports by A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami.)

A huge debate flared up in Europe over the age and authenticity of Vedic civilization, and whether or not India had derived the knowledge found in the Vedas from some other source, such as ancient Greece. Religious considerations played a major role, influenced by religious missionary prejudices and motivated by desire to protect Christian beliefs which calculated the age of the earth to be 6,000 years.

In determining the age of Vedic writings great effort was made to evaluate the evidence of Sanskrit astronomical observations, which were recorded in many places including the Rig Veda and Mahabharata.

“The antiquity and originality of Indian astronomy… has been discussed by the greatest astronomers in Europe and is still unsettled. Cassini, Bailey and Playfair maintain that observations taken upwards of 3,000 years before Christ are still extant, and prove a considerable degree of progress already made at that period. Others …deny the authenticity of the observations, and thus, the validity of the conclusions. All astronomers, however, admit the great antiquity of the observations.”—Hon. Monstuart Elphinstone, The History of India, 1874, p. 139

Tom Chavez

Mahabharata: Satyavati and Veda Vyasa

A highly place Apsara (celestial dancer), named Adrika, was cursed to take birth on earth, where she gave birth to a beautiful daughter. After giving birth she was freed from her curse and returned to her place in the heavens.

The abandoned daughter was taken to the king who, in turn, gave her to the leader of the fishermen who lived on the banks of the Yamuna River. That girl was known by the name Satyavati. She had great beauty, every virtue and a sweet smiling face. Owing to contact with fishermen, however, she also had a fishy odor.

Wishing to serve her foster father she plied a boat on the waters of the Yamuna to help people cross the river. While thus engaged, Satyavati was seen one day by the great Rishi (holy man), Parasara, in course of his wanderings. The wise sage, seeing her great beauty, attractive even for a religious recluse, immediately desired to have her. And that bull amongst sages addressed Satyavati of celestial beauty and tapering thighs, saying, “Accept my embraces, O blessed one!”

Satyavati replied, “O holy one, behold the other Rishis standing on both banks of the river. Being observed by them, how can I grant your wish?”

Thus addressed by her, the ascetic thereupon created a fog, which enveloped the whole region in obscurity. And the maiden, amazed by the fog, became suffused with blushes of bashfulness. And she said, “Holy one, I am a maiden under the care of my father. By accepting your embraces my virginity will be sullied. O sage, if my virginity is sullied, how can I return home? Indeed, I shall not then be able to bear life. Reflecting upon all this, O illustrious one, do that which is right.”

That best of Rishis, gratified with all she said, replied, “You shall remain a virgin even if you grant my wish. And, O timid beautiful lady, ask from me whatever wish you may desire. O maiden of fair smiles, my blessings have never proved fruitless.”

Thus addressed, the maiden asked for the boon that her body might have a sweet scent instead of the fishy odor. And the illustrious Rishi immediately granted her heartfelt wish.

Having obtained her boon, she became delighted, and her season immediately came. She accepted the embraces of that Rishi of wonderful deeds. And she thenceforth became known by the name of Gandhavati (possessor of sweet fragrance). Her scent could be perceived from the distance of a yojana (eight miles). Thus, she was known by the name Yojanagandha (one whose fragrance extends for a yojana).

The illustrious sage Parasara, after his encounter with Satyavati, went his own way.

Satyavati, gratified to have obtained the excellent boon of being sweetly-scented and having her virginity remain intact, conceived through Parasara's embraces. And she brought forth that very day, on an island in the Yamuna, a child gifted with great energy. The child, with the permission of his mother, set his mind on asceticism. Before going away he told Satyavati, “Dear Mother, should you ever be in difficulty, then simply think of me. I shall come to you at once from wherever I may be.”

Thus, Vyasa was born of Satyavati through Parasara. Because he was dark complexioned he was called Krishna, and because he was born on an island, he was called Dwaipayana (island born). Krishna Dwaipayana became a greatly learned sage.

Vyasa knew that virtue is reduced by one-quarter in each successive yuga from the golden age to the iron age. Foreseeing the imminent descent of human society into quarrel and confusion in the iron age of kali yuga, in which even truthfulness is challenged, Vyasa arranged the Vedas in literary form. For this he became known as Veda Vyasa, compiler of the Vedas. Through Veda Vyasa this Mahabharata and other Vedic knowledge has been preserved for human society.

Tom Chavez

Hmmm. Things are quiet on this forum.… Speech is silver, silence is golden. Speech is human, silence is divine. I'm only human….

Mahabharata 2: Ganga and Santanu

Mahabhisha was born in the race of Ikshvaku. He was emperor of all the earth, truthful and heroic. He performed a thousand Asvamedha-sacrifices and a hundred Rajasuyas and ultimately attained heaven.

Once, all the celestials and great sages assembled with Lord Brahma, and Mahabhisa was also there. Ganga, Queen of rivers, was present and the wind displaced her garment. The celestials averted their gaze when she was thus exposed, but Mahabhisha stared at her with eyes of desire, and she reciprocated with her own glances.

The celestials did not appreciate their behavior. Brahma then cursed Mahabhisha to be born on earth for his impropriety. He told Ganga to also go for reciprocating his offense, but she would be free to return if ever he should become angry with her.

In the meantime, Ganga met the eight Vasus who had been cursed by Vasishtha to take birth on earth also. They made an agreement that she would give them birth and then drown them so they could return immediately and not have to remain on earth.

………

One time a king named Pratipa was doing penances on the bank of the Ganges when Ganga, assuming the form of a beautiful female, arose from the river and sat upon his right thigh.

The monarch inquired, “What do you want?”

The damsel replied, “Please accept me as your wife.”

He said, “I cannot, because I have vowed never to join with a woman who is not of my order. Also you are seated on my right thigh, which is for daughters or daughters-in-law, whereas the left thigh is for a wife. Therefore, I accept you for my son!”

Although the son was not yet born she agreed, on the condition that the son should not judge the propriety of her acts.

Pratipa later got a son, who was none other than the former Mahabhisha, and named him Santanu, who was dedicated to virtue. Pratipa told Santanu that if he should meet a celestial damsel who solicited him for children, he should accept her and not judge the propriety of her actions.

After Pratipa installed Santanu on the throne and retired to the forest, Santanu would frequently hunt along the banks of the Ganges. It was a passion with him.

One day on the banks of the river he saw her. She was like a vision of beauty, with sparkling ornaments and refined dress. Her complexion glowed golden, her eyes large and lustrous, and her hair, which she combed with her fingers, was long. He stood rooted to the spot drinking her beauty with his eyes. It seemed to him that a goddess from the high heavens had descended on earth.

Santanu approached her. She turned on hearing a noise and looked at him. A blush suffused her face as she shyly looked at the ground. Her toe traced patterns in the dust as her beautiful fingers twined and untwined in her hair. Then, she also glanced at at the monarch with eyes expressing affection.

He took her reluctant hand in his and said, “You are so very beautiful. Please be my queen. I am Santanu, the king of Hastinapur [Delhi]. I love you. I cannot live without you.”

The maiden smiled and said, “The  moment I looked at you I knew that I had to be yours. I will become your wife and obey your commands, but there is a condition. You must not interfere with anything I do, be it agreeable or disagreeable, nor ever speak to me unkindly. As long as you agree to this I will stay with you, but if you interfere or speak an angry word I shall immediately leave you, never to return.”

“So be it,” said the love-lorn monarch and he led her to his city.

They were both pleased to obtain each other as spouses. They enjoyed life together without thought of the passing time. Ganga bore the king a son. His joy was immense. At last, a son and heir had been born to adorn the time-honored throne of the great Pauravas. Santanu hastened to the queen’s chambers. He was told that she was not there, that she had gone to the banks of the river Ganges with the new-born child clasped in her arms. He could not understand.

He hurried to the river bank. There his horrified eyes saw a scene which he could never blot out from his memory. Ganga, his dear beloved Ganga, had just flung their new-born child into the river. She looked as though relieved of a great burden. He wanted to ask, but he dared not, remembering the promise he had given her, that he would never oppose her or displease her.

Santanu begot seven beautiful male children, shining like celestials. But as soon as each was born Ganga threw the baby in the river, and they all drowned. The king, although greatly distressed, spoke not a word lest he lose his wife.

But when the eighth child was born and his wife was about to throw it into the river, the king, desiring to save the child, spoke.

“Don’t kill him! Who are you? How can you murder your own sons? Your sins are great!”

A strange smile came to the lips of Ganga. She spoke very gently to the king. She said, “My lord, by our agreement, the time has come when I must leave you. You have broken your promise. I will not kill this child. I am Ganga, daughter of Jahnu. I have lived with you to accomplish the purpose of the celestials. The eight Vasus were cursed by Vasishtha to assume human forms. Only a celestial could become their mother. I promised to free them from the curse as soon as they were born. Be blessed, O King. This child shall remain as your son. I will take him with me and give him back to you when the time comes. I will call him Devavrata. His other name will be Gangeya (given by Ganga).”

Santanu asked, “What was the fault of the Vasus that they were cursed by Vasishtha?”

Ganga said, “The sage Vasishtha had his hermitage on the bosom of Mt. Meru. That sacred spot was full of blooming flowers all year round, and the woods abounded with fruits, berries, sweet roots and water.”

“Virtuous Vasishtha had a cow named Nandini, a surabhi cow of plenty, capable of granting all desires. One day the Vasus, with their wives, came to enjoy those delightful woods and mountains. One wife saw that cow possessing large eyes, full udder, fine tail, beautiful hooves and other auspicious signs and pointed it out to her husband Dyu.

Dyu said, ‘This cow belongs to the Rishi who uses this hermitage. Any mortal who drinks the sweet milk of this cow will remain in unchanging youth for ten thousand years.’

Hearing this, Dyu’s beautiful wife implored, ‘My friend Jitavati resides on earth as the daughter of the sage Usinara. I desire to have this cow for her so that by drinking this milk she alone on earth can remain free from disease and decrepitude. Please grant this desire. Nothing could be more agreeable to me.’

Commanded by his lotus-eyed wife, forgetting the ascetic merit of the sage who owned the cow, Dyu and his brothers took the cow without proper thought.

When sage Vasishtha returned and could not find his cow, he saw by his ascetic vision that she had been stolen by the Vasus. Therefore he cursed them to take birth on earth.

When the Vasus learned of this curse, they speedily came to the sage to apologize and pacify him. The sage allowed that they would only have to remain on earth for less than a year, except for Dyu, who was the instigator. He would have to remain on earth a long time.”

Ganga continued, “Then the Vasus came to me and begged that I would throw them in the water as soon as they were born. I did as they desired in order to free them from the sage’s curse. Only this child remains, who is Dyu himself. I will take him with me and return him to you when the time is ripe.”

The king was dumb-founded when he heard all that Ganga had to say. Ganga, the goddess from the heavens, thought fit to play wife to him. But Santanu, a mere mortal, could hardly bear that honor. It was too much for him. He could see just two things. First, his Ganga would leave him forever, never to come back. The other realization was that he had a son now, a son to uphold the name of the Pauravas.

It was easy for Ganga to follow the emotions that passed through the mind of Santanu. With a look of pity mingled with love she spoke to the king in a gentle voice, “My beloved, please do not grieve. I will take excellent care of our son. He will be a great hero. He will be greater than all the Pauravas who have graced the throne of the race of the Moon.”

Ganga faded away from sight. Santanu spent hours re-living those moments filled with pain, his last time with Ganga. With a sigh of resignation and a sorrowful heart he slowly wended his way homewards, where utter loneliness awaited him.

Ganges sunset in Mayapur

Virginia Wolfe (Scheffer)

Nice sunset pic.  I don't think I did this much reading at HHS.....very enlighting, though.

Marty Ellison

Hmmm. Things are quiet on this forum.…

Might have something to do with Bandwidth.

Tom Chavez

Okay, today I wanna take a break from the heavy schedule and lighten up.

Winston Churchill proved to be a great leader for Britain during WWII, but he was also a controversial figure not always welcome or liked. He was famous for his wit and speeches and won a Nobel Prize basically for talking! The Nobel Prize in Literature in 1953 went to him “for his mastery of historical and biographical description as well as for brilliant oratory in defending exalted human values.”

His most famous comeback involved Lady Nancy Astor, the first woman elected to Parliament. They were always opposed and one time she told him, “Winston, if I were your wife, I’d put poison in your coffee.” He immediately quipped, “Nancy, if I were your husband I’d drink it.”

A few other famous lines:

“We can always count on the Americans to do the right thing, after they have exhausted all the other possibilities.”

“Don’t interrupt me while I’m interrupting.”

“A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.”

“The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.”

“I am easily satisfied with the very best.”

Gregg Wilson

A lady entered Churchill's office and exclaimed "Mr Churchill! You have drank enough scotch to fill this room to a height of seven feet!"

Winston stared up at the ceiling and said "So far to go. So little time."

Al Peffley

Gregg, your 1950's life style sounds appealing to me. My family owned a cabin on Mason Lake in the '50's and I enjoyed the outdoors very much in the day. The lake property area has changed greatly and my mother sold the cabin to a man and wife who retired there. That is why we bought property away from western Washington/Oregon urban life. The Wallowa Mountains and local rancher community living provide the peace of mind and soul that Bon and I seek. There are about 40 church parishioners at the little church we attend in Enterprise. The only fast food chain restaurant in the entire Wallowa County area is a Subway sandwich shop in downtown Enterprise.

The mountains view is fantastic and the sound of mooing cows and cooing doves is wonderful in the early morning hours. Deer (white tail & mule deer) come through our lot in small groups to graze on wild grass and thistles. The sunrises and sunsets are awesome. Snow is beginning to cover "America's Little Alps" and the air is crisp at night. We winterized the trailer last week.

View of the southern Wallowas from the future house site on our view lot in Enterprise, Oregon. Town is just below us to the left of this photo view. God's beautiful earth and purple mountains majesty above the fruited  plain...America!

Robert Bramel

Canada-born James Peebles was honoured [this week, Nobel Prize!] for his contributions to the understanding of the evolution of the Universe and Earth's place in the cosmos.

With others, he predicted the existence of cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation, the so-called afterglow of the Big Bang.

By studying the CMB, scientists have been able to determine the age, shape and contents of the Universe.

"Cosmic background radiation was discovered in 1965, and turned out to be a goldmine for our understanding of how the Universe developed from its early childhood to the present day," said Mats Larsson, chair of the Nobel physics prize committee.

"Were it not for the theoretical discoveries of James Peebles, the wonderful high-precision measurements of this radiation over the last 20 years would have told us almost nothing."

Way to go, Peebles!

Gregg Wilson

In the Beginning there was Nothing.

Then God said "Let there be light!"

There was still nothing, but now you could see it!

Gregg Wilson

Hi Al,

My wife's name is also Bonnie! I am with you on countryside Oregon and the 1950s. My grandfather had a farm on Bull Mountain a few mile outside of Tigard, Oregon. It was heaven on Earth. Filbert orchard, wheat field, God knows how many fruit trees, the largest Walnut Orchard I have ever seen, corn field. We 17 cousins were having a ball. Grandpa didn't see it the same way. He had two mules to plow with. I stayed with him the Summer of 1955. That is where I learned to cuss.

A little house was there where Aunt Alice lived. She invited us over for breakfast and to watch TV. She could not understand how radio waves could come through the air, down the antenna and into the TV box. But then, she was born in 1867!

Now it is all gone.

I love the picture you have posted.

Tom Chavez

Hey guys, let's take a closer look at the Nobel Prize in Physics. I'm not so sure that it is such a big deal.

One half of the 2019 Nobel Prize in physics was awarded to James Peebles “for theoretical discoveries in physical cosmology,” and the other half of the prize was awarded to Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz “for the discovery of an exoplanet orbiting a solar-type star.”

Here we will briefly summarize Peebles’s ideas about physical cosmology. Cosmology has developed into a more precise science through more accurate measurements of temperature variations in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), studies of the expansion rate of the Universe, and sky surveys mapping large-scale structures.

Modern cosmology, based on Einstein’s theory of general relativity, assumes an early era, the Big Bang, when the Universe was extremely hot and dense. After about 400,000 years the Universe became transparent to light. The light from this time is now visible as the CMB (Cosmic Microwave Background).

In figure 1, the source of the CMB can be seen as a screen (labeled D in the above diagram) that prevents us from easily looking back in time further than to a few hundred thousand years after the Big Bang.

In figure 1, the 'hot Big Bang' is the fire toward the middle of the diagram, indicating that a preparatory phase, such as inflation, 'might exist' before the hot Big Bang. Inflation is postulated as a period of rapid expansion, which would help explain several properties of our Universe, such as its flatness.

Flatness refers to the universe remaining almost the same over time. If the universe were ‘closed’ it would collapse back into itself, and it it were open it would just keep expanding forever. But scientists think the universe is almost ‘flat’ or ‘steady state’, but with gradual (and accelerating) expansion.

Initial fluctuations in density during the Big Bang led to acoustic waves in the hot plasma, which in turn left an imprint in the CMB. Peebles and Yu analyzed the acoustic waves, and calculated the peaks they cause in the power spectrum of the CMB. They presented a curve which is quite similar to measurements by the Planck satellite, obtained more than four decades later.

The curve below is similar to one presented by Robert Bramel earlier on this forum. It shows the temperature fluctuations measured by the Planck satellite.

From these peaks Peebles theoretically calculated that the amount of matter in the universe is only 5% of the critical density required for a flat universe. He also calculated that ‘dark matter’ contributes another 26% of the critical density. It is called ‘dark’ because it is invisible in the electromagnetic spectrum. Scientists infer its existence from its supposed gravitational influence.

Therefore, 69% of the critical density is missing. Peebles and other scientists hypothesize a ‘cosmological constant’, representing the missing energy density. It is sometimes called ‘dark energy’ because it may not be constant over time and space.

There are many problems with this theory of ‘Physical Cosmology’. Some are listed below:
1. No explanation is given for the beginning of the universe, at time A on Diagram 1.
2. No explanation is available for ‘inflation,’ which has been introduced to make the theory viable.
3. Only 5% of the critical density of the universe, regular matter and energy, is actually perceived by empirical science.
4. No one knows what ‘dark matter’ is. Some scientists propose that ‘dark matter’ is not needed. They suggest that information and entropy form correlated fields like electricity and magnetism. These fields, using the entropy of galaxies, negate the need for dark matter.
5. The ‘cosmological constant’ or ‘dark energy’ are simply creative suggestions to fill a void in the theory. No one knows what they are.

Another problem is that Gregg Wilson has ascertained that the universe is a perfectly flat ‘steady-state’ and has no beginning or end. Existence exists. It’s axiomatic. We eagerly await the empirical scientific confirmation.

In any case, as Al has pointed out, what difference does it make to our lives? What is the relevance to human life here on planet Earth?

Robert Bramel

Nice pitch Tom! As you are well aware, that is the way science works: new information always creates new, unanswered questions. Always. Doesn’t mean that what has been discovered is wrong, just that new info always creates new questions.