Tuesday, August 25

Bang goes the Theory! BBC

I am about to ask the BBC programme Bang goes the Theory to see if they can test my hypothesis. Of course, we know it works - see Epilogue links above!

Maths Plays a Part - excerpts

………………………………….“That’s all very well” Alex complained, as Artemis sank gracefully back onto a rock, “but you still haven’t really explained what and how we are to be the answer too.”

“Grammar, dear boy, grammar. Though I suppose that in the modern form of Greek in which you are used to conversing, it is parsed correctly. The essence of the matter is this. The Darksiders have enmeshed a comet, which draws off power from the vortices, from evil doers and evil thinkers. At a point when Earth and Mars are in conjunction, which I believe I mentioned before, the power of the comet will be at such a point that its magnetic fields and the magnetic fields of the earth will clash, causing the earth to implode. If the linear alignment is right, Mars will receive the energy output, and once again a big bang will have made a planet habitable.”

“And we are supposed to stop that!” Sandy almost wailed, as Lexie said “Big Bang? It sounds a bit weak to call it a big bang, something of such significance. Bleve, that sounds better. Sorry, my Mother works at the Fire Service College, so I know some funny words, although I admit I’m not sure what you are describing really is a bleve.”

Alex was drawing with a stick in the sand. “What do you know, my maths lessons are actually of some use. All that mugging up on speed, velocity, angles, immoveable objects and irresistible force.” He beamed at them.

“Alex, we’re delighted for you” Lexie said, sounding, Sandy thought, not unlike Artemis “but maths is not my strong point and you’ve lost me.” She glanced at Artemis, who didn’t look in the least lost. She looked, it occurred to Lexie, smug.

“I think I’ve got it right “Alex said slowly “I’ve got the theory, anyway and that’s a start. If we can use a force from the earth, here” he pointed to his drawings in the sand, “and send it up against this comet, it should slow the spinning of the earth, irresistible force meets immovable object. I assume the comet is immoveable, you said they had enmeshed it?” He looked at Artemis.

“It’s dangerous to assume, it makes an ass out of you and me, get it?” Sandy declared. You took the stick from Alex’s hand and in her turn, demonstrated in the sand.

“No, I think we can, must assume, that the comet has been fixed in its present location by the Darksiders. If it was following its own trajectory it would be impossible to use it as a storehouse or to ensure that the mathematics of the, erm, what was it Lexie, the bleve are functional.”

“But the comet will still be there” complained Sandy “they’ll be able to start all over again, collecting power, speeding up the earth. And we might be dead by then, who’ll there be to stop it next time?”

“No, Sandy,” Alex explained “because, and this isn’t Maths, it is something I read, might have been on that Vortex theory website, we’re going to be altering the physical states, the magnetic fields and the forces. The comet will probably be attracted to another planet, or even the sun, and will be taken out of earth’s orbit.”

Lexie sounded doubtful “I’m not sure that ‘probably will be attracted etc. is really very reassuring. Don’t we need to be able to guarantee that this can’t happen again?”……………………………………………….

……………………………………………………..

Before Artemis could answer Alex broke in excitedly “See Sandy, you worked that out. Mind you, I did too. But what I thought” he started drawing in the sand again, “near where I live there’s something called a hotspot. Its something I think the Darksiders use to help them. A couple of times I think they’ve used this particular one to scare me. Anyway, my brother told me about them. Sometimes, when they erupt, like a volcano, or an earthquake, they create waterspouts, which are a sort of tornado, a vortex,” He drew a vortex, spinning, in the sand. “I thought maybe, if we could, we could summon up vortices, each of us, and project them towards the comet. The spinning effect will increase the power, or the force, which will help in slowing down the spin of the earth.”

………………………………………………

………………………………………………………………………

“Meanwhile, to get back to what Alex was saying” Lexie changed the subject “what happens if we slow the earth down too much….”

“We’ll all fall off” Sandy suggested.

“No, I guess what I mean is, how do we tell when we’ve got it right, how to get it right?”

”There must be a Lighbringer who can work out how long we need to hold it in place for it to have the right effect. Of course, they will have to do it at the time, because I don’t think there is a way for us to calculate exactly how much force we can produce.”

“I’m sure there’s more than one amongst the pantheon who can work out the answers to both those questions. I just hope they all come up with the same answer.”

“The thing is” Alex clearly hadn’t finished, “the things is, I found a map of the world on which someone had plotted suspected hotspots. You probably wont believe this, I know I thought I had spots in front of my eyes” Alex eyed them to make sure they had appreciated his joke “there are three hotspots in conjunction, the one I’ve already mentioned, one off Tasmania’s south coast…”

“Tasmania may not look very big on the map” interrupted Sandy, “but it is roughly the same size as England and I can’t see . . “

“Look” Alex drew what looked like an apple in the sand “this is Tasmania, sort of, and the hotspot I’m talking about is about here. There is another one…”

“No,” said Sandy, “that looks like it could even be about where I live, off Surf Beach even.”

“That’s the thing “Alex said “I bet it is. If all this is meant to be, it would be, wouldn’t it.”

“Err,” Lexie ventured, “I don’t want to spoil things, but I don’t live anywhere near the sea.”

“I know” Alex agreed “that’s been puzzling me. The hotspot off England is near a place called, oh what was it, I had a mnemonic for it, ‘as things go’, asthings…”

“Hastings?” Lexie was amazed.

“Yes, Hastings, that’s it.”

“My Gran lives in Hastings” said a confounded Lexie.

“Then that has to be it. Look, look at the trajectory.” He drew again in the sand.

“That’s fine” objected Lexie “if the comet happens to be sitting there” she pointed to the apex of the three lines” but what if it is over here!” Pointing again.

“But it won’t be, will it?” said Alex firmly, “not if it’s meant to be.”

http://marijsak.googlepages.com/thestonesummons


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Friday, August 21

Climate change could change Earth's tilt BUT otoh, Changes in Earth's Tilt Control When Glacial Cycles End

"And climate change can also affect the Earth's spin. Previously, Landerer and colleagues showed that global warming would cause Earth's mass to be redistributed towards higher latitudes. Since that pulls mass closer to the planet's spin axis, it causes the planet to rotate faster..." New Scientist

Changes in Earth's Tilt Control When Glacial Cycles End
- Tilt is a 100,000-year Planetary Pacemaker [from Nature]

and then of course,

there is the effect of interfering with the earth's rate of spin as I well know (Please! - Παρακαλώ!)


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Saturday, June 6

The Winner!

1st


Guido Fawkes, Malaga, Spain

[We chose this one as the winner because it turned the competition on it's head. Here it is the stone itself that is being summoned, rather than doing the summoning.]



Saturday, May 2

New entries!

Sorry, I've fallen a bit behind on this - and I still have more to do.  If you wanted to see the entries full-size, sort of, you could have a look here

I really like Nemo and the cat, I wouldn't have understood the Dr. Who one, but luckily it came with a lengthy explanation.

Monday, April 20

Stone faces galore!

This wasn't supposed to be a competition for stone faces, per se!

But see today's (above in slide show) from Spain for a slightly different take and I really like both the Malaysian and Norwegian entries - see if you can work out which is which!

In case you can't see it, details on entering the Competuition can be found HERE!


Friday, April 3

Aussie Competition entry

Do watchfor this one in the slideshow above. I am almost tempted to post it here because I think it might be my favourite so far!

It uses a stone, but almost it looks as if it could be a koala - meant or coincidence?

Friday, March 20

Competition Update

I've removed the competiton entries I'd posted here, and put them into a slide show - see above.

So I will just acknowledge that Barney was the first to enter. People haven't on the whole, made a clear indication of their origin, so you can try and match them up from the following list (no prizes for this!)

  • Canada
  • Italy
  • Greece
  • England
  • Wales
  • New Zealand

It's interesting how similar some of the entries are - makes it harder to judge. (Hint!)

Tuesday, February 3

Competition! Competition! Competition!

Lexie sent me some photos (taken on the Malvern Hills, near where she lives) and it gave me an idea for a new project;  you've probably heard or read of travelling dwarves, whoops, no, wrong word, travelling gnomes, if not see here:
 http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/weblog/comments/3859/ 

This is not exactly the same but it made me think of it - my idea is to have a competition along the lines of Lexie's photos below.  Hopefully we'll get  entries from all over the world, and the competition will end when 50 individuals have entered.  You can enter more than once and you will score higher if it is obvious where your photo was taken.  Me and my panel ("one in three and three in one") will judge it.  And no, we can't be part of the competition.

Email emtries to atheothoros@gmail.com 

Monday, February 2

Hektomori! Also Wow!

Sandy has just pointed out this, and whilst I realise you can all see it when you click on the map, I'd missed it, so maybe you did too.  Iam well impressed, if that doesn't sound pig-headed (that's what Barney called me after I got a distinction for this blog)

Current Country Totals
From 20 Mar 2008 to 23 Jan 2009


United States (US)224
United Kingdom (GB)83
Australia (AU)58
Greece (GR)37
Canada (CA)19
France (FR)12
New Zealand (NZ)10
Germany (DE)8
Cyprus (CY)8
Turkey (TR)8
India (IN)7
Europe (EU)7
Malaysia (MY)7
Singapore (SG)7
Netherlands (NL)6
Switzerland (CH)6
Italy (IT)6
Brazil (BR)4
Thailand (TH)4
Sweden (SE)4
Chile (CL)3
Hungary (HU)3
Ireland (IE)3
Spain (ES)2
Czech Republic (CZ)2
Finland (FI)2
Denmark (DK)2
Poland (PL)2
Belgium (BE)2
Korea, Republic of (KR)2
Japan (JP)2
Colombia (CO)2
Indonesia (ID)2
South Africa (ZA)2
Pakistan (PK)2
Philippines (PH)2
Egypt (EG)2
French Polynesia (PF)1
Peru (PE)1
Mauritius (MU)1
Reunion (RE)1
Argentina (AR)1
Norway (NO)1
Gibraltar (GI)1
Mexico (MX)1
Israel (IL)1
Qatar (QA)1
Slovenia (SI)1
United Arab Emirates (AE)1
Serbia (RS)1
Slovakia (SK)1
Algeria (DZ)1
Romania (RO)1

Monday, October 20

One year on!

I was doing a Google search, because it just seems so incredible, what happened a year ago, and yet no-one seems aware, or even to realise that now the earth doesn't spins so fast, time has slowed. I found this, which amused me, because of headlines last year:

Thousands enjoy brilliant Hastings bonfire
Sussex Express, UK - 18 Oct 2008
The fire was lit by the Mayor on Hastings seafront making it the only bonfire in the UK to have the fire on a beach. Click on the gallery button to view all ...

and here is last year's:

Thousands watch spectacular fireworks display (breathtaking!) – The Hastings Observer, 15th October

Hastings - Thousands of onlookers packed the the seafront on Saturday night to watch the Hastings Week annual fireworks display.
This year’s display, watched by record crowds along The Esplanade, was truly breathtaking – it was as if the sky itself was taking part, with darting lights and what may have been thunder and lightning. The Hastings Meteorological Station says there was no indication of a storm but there was unusual meteorological action.........................................


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Monday, September 15

WOW! Room to read!

This project, my blogging for an IT credit, is over, officially. I received a distinction, but I am disappointed because I didn't reach the 1,000 mark in visitors yet, though if you look at the small map, it looks like many visitors - and I thank you all, especially now I have some from Africa also now. (Yes, I know it is a continent!)

But now our Academy (remember, faithful readers, we are a virtual school, with students and tutors from all across the world, coming together via technology) has started a new project and I am so excited about it the first thing that occurred to me was to put it on my blog!

It is about an organisation called "Room to Read"; the person who set it up has written a book, which is to be one of our set texts this year, but I have already read it because Stefan gave it to me for my birthday in August. It is called "Leaving Microsoft to Change the World", isn't that a groovy (Addendum 1: Barney says 'groovy' is so totally passe - bet he just wants to show off his French!) title but Bill Gates might be a bit miffed (thank you Giagia for that word!), he probably thinks he changed the world already!

Anyway, these people raise money and set up schools and libraries and computer rooms and give girls scholarships, in really poor countries, and I think it is a megaliterous idea. I hoped we might be able to do something for Greec e (we are a very poor country!) but it doesn't seem to be happening here.
But, as I was saying, there's a section called Students helping Students, set up after the Tsunami, and we are to come up with bright ideas to raise money and contribute - so if you have any, please let me know. And you can find out more about the student bit at http://www.roomtoread.org/involvement/shs.html

Friday, August 22

Seems only Fair!

Having given thanks to my NZ visitors it seems only fair to say the same to my welcome visitors from various areas of Africa - so many thanks.

Lexie has been holidaying in Hastings with her Gran and has sent me a link to some photos - http://picasaweb.google.com/marijsak/Hastings2008?pli=1

Tuesday, February 19

Oh Happy Day! Welcome NZ visitor.

A bit over the top, maybe, but I was so pleased when Sandy emailed me to point out that at long last I had a visitor from New Zealand. You can see on the cluster map. Africa (yes, the whole of Africa) still looks disappointingly bare.

Sunday, October 21

Summons stones lost!

I found my stone on the beach, Sandy found hers on the bottom of the sea off the southern Tasmanian coast (well, the D'Entrecasteaux Channel) and Lexie found hers on the top of the Malvern Hills.

And now we have all lost them, well, not lost exactly, but we don't have them anymore.

Please, is you find a stone like this, email me and tell me where and when.

Many, many thanks.
Find out more at

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Wednesday, October 17

Aurora Australis unleashes southern spectacle – The Mercury, 16 October

Hobart - An explosion on the Sun's surface wowed Tasmanians with a spectacular night sky .

The Aurora Australis, also known as the Southern Lights, was visible from most of the southern half of Tasmania, and it was a truly stunning spectacle.

Astronomer at University of Tasmania Mt Pleasant Observatory at Cambridge, Dr. Kit Saklat, said the lights, which were unusually active, dancing across the night sky, were caused by activity on the Sun that sent gases towards Earth.

"It's basically an explosion on the Sun which throws a cloud of gas outwards. Earth's magnetic field channels it to the north and south poles," he said.

However, some experts have cast doubt on this explanation for the fireworks show, and believe there to be some other cause. At the moment, they are not committing themselves to further explanation.

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Tuesday, October 16

Thousands watch spectacular fireworks display (breathtaking!) – The Hastings Observer, 15th October

Hastings - Thousands of onlookers packed the the seafront on Saturday night to watch the Hastings Week annual fireworks display.
This year’s display, watched by record crowds along The Esplanade, was truly breathtaking – it was as if the sky itself was taking part, with darting lights and what may have been thunder and lightning. The Hastings Meteorological Station says there was no indication of a storm but there was unusual meteorological action.

One onlooker told The Observer: "It was a fantastic display – surely the best ever. We did wonder if it was the Northern Lights in the sky."

(Our reporter respectfully pointed out that this was unlikely, but to be sure he checked with Hastings Meteorological Station, who confirmed his opinion, but conceded there was definitely some meteorological activity going on, and they had fielded hundreds of phone calls reporting an unusually large waterspout.)

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Heavenly Firework Display may have been result of activity in Europe's most destructive seismic hotspot. – Kaθημερινη, 16 Οκτωβρίου

Athens - Skies lit up over Southern Greece and the islands, giving rise to the rumour that the Aurora Borealis was once again playing in our skies.

But meteorologist, Christos Nikolaidis, of National Observatory of Athens, Institute of Geodynamics, said that while certainly something unusual was going on, he understood the authorities were awaiting confirmation from The Seismological Laboratory, University of Athens, that in fact the display related to a localised hothouse of seismic activity.

Aurora Borealis is named after the Roman goddess of the dawn, Aurora, and the Greek name. for the north wind, Boreas.

Plutarch gave a description of the northern lights in 467 BC but it may have been a quotation from missing writings of Anaxagoras rather than his own observation: "During seventy days there was an enormous and furious figure in the sky. It was like a flaming cloud, which did not stay at its position but moved windingly and regularly, so that the glowing fragments were flying in all directions and fire was blazing as the comets do. Those fragments came loose during rushing and unexpected movements."

The northern lights occurred one to three times per decade on the horizon of ancient Greece. Altogether dozens of reliable observations of the northern lights are known from the years BC.

There are very few references to the northern lights in the Middle Ages in Europe. Every written text is more or less superstitious and often they are embellished with warlike predictions. The northern lights seen on the 3rd of March, 451 were connected to the historic defeat of Attila at Chalons-sur-Marne, in what is now France.

Often, the blood of martyrs flowing up into the sky was seen in the northern lights. Such was the case when Thomas Becket died in 1177.

Some observations of the aurora borealis in Greece found that the appearances of the phenomenon aurora borealis are not exceptionally rare. These appearances coincide with the years of maximum solar activity and especially 1–2 years after it. Except of two appearances of this phenomenon all the others were observed in Spring and Autumn or near these seasons. The most southerly geographical latitude at which at least hints of the aurora borealis have been observed in Greece is the latitude of 35 N.

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Monday, October 15

Slideshow Updated!

Heading says it all really, have added some new photos, including one of a sea urchin, under water!

Still no-one has visited from New Zealand, at least, nothing that shows, it is very strange! And no one from the whole continent of Africa.

Haven't had a lot of time lately to add much, such a lot going on, but it will soon be over.

On the other hand, the project (both projects, really) is coming to an end. I would just like to get a visitor from every continent in the world.

If you're reading this and know someone from a country not yet marked on the map of visitors, please email them, and ask them to take a peek. I will record the results here, no matter what else happens. - Σας ευχαριστούμε πάρα πολύ

Monday, September 10

Sorry, really busy!

Things have been going on, remember on my birthday, my brother Stefan and I saw this tornado. He described it to me and said something about a vortex. I had been meaning to check out this word for ages, because I had heard it earlier. I went online and I found some fascinating sites and information.

Apparently in the US (and in the old USSR) the scientists are experimenting with using weather to fight wars, and change the economy and things like that, really frightening if it is true, but I do know that a lot of what is on the Internet is based on false rumour and conspiracy theories (my brother, lots of our tutors, and my Yiayia, keep on going on about it) so I don't know whether to believe it.

But when I tried to blog some of the information I found out about vortices a couple of days ago, I got hit by a lightning ball! (Well, my PC did) Honestly, and the computer died on me. So I am not blogging about that (please note Artemis, if it was you) but just a few interesting sites I found, which might count towards a science credit - he said hopefully.

Like it says in the Business Week article "There's no shortage of such conspiracy theories on the Internet. Search for "weather warfare" on Google, and you'll get 68,000 hits." [So I just did that search, because this is a 2005 article and I wanted to see how it had grown. If you use the inverted commas to search it as a phrase, you only get 29,200 English hits - but if you just use the terms - 1,940,000 English hits - and a lot less in Greek!]

Κλιματολογικός πόλεμος
Θα ήταν δηλαδή ένα κανονικό Κλιματολογικό Όπλο (Weather Warfare), που θα προκαλούσε απότομη και μεγάλη άνοδο της θερμοκρασίας του πλανήτη μας! ...

New look for ball lightning (September 2003) - News - PhysicsWeb
Ball lightning - a slow-moving ball of light that is occasionally seen at ground level during thunderstorms - has puzzled scientists for centuries. ...physicsweb.org/articles/news/7/9/13 -

Ball lightning - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ball lightning is an atmospheric phenomenon, the physical nature of which is still controversial. The term refers to reports of a glowing, floating object ...en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball_lightning - 69k - 30 Jul 2007

The Vortex Theory (wasn't sure if that one was going to work for reasons mentioned above)

And this one didn't work - www.weatherwars.info but I've looked at it before; you can tell what it was about! I have found a link to at least one of the items, posted elsewhere - The Tsumami Called Katrina

http://www.gaiaguys.net/weatherwar.htm

NASA Funds Weather Modification Technology

WEATHER AS A FORCE MULTIPLIER: OWNING THE WEATHER IN 2025MILITARY APPLICATIONS OF WEATHER MODIFICATION

This site has a lot of other links - http://www.freedomdomain.com/weather.html

Who Controls the Weather? - BusinessWeek
Theories about Russian agents steering Hurricane Katrina may be off base, but research into weather manipulation has been going on for decades

Weather Engineering Over North America

Wednesday, September 5

12th Birthday

When I blogged before about my birthday I was still thinking about the other things I found out, and forgot to tell you about my birthday, which was really great. I woke really early and it was already hot. I went for a swim and my Pateras came too. After breakfast at the hotel we met Stefan off the ferry, and there were friends and family all day coming with presents and food and eating all day long.

In the evening we went to the taverna. There was this huge thunderstorm and Stefan and I saw a waterspout, tornado sort of thing out in the middle of the water.

The next day we went beachcombing; it was good fun to do it with Stefan, although I like to do it on my own as well. We found sponges that looked as if they had been ripped from the floor of the ocean, loads of driftwood, mis-shapen glass, bits of china, makes you wonder where it all comes from. No treasure though, or bits of galley or other shipwrecks.

I will try and find time to post some photos - but I don't know when!