PREDICTIONS – 10 Years Later - Santa Fe Institute

8. A COSMIC HEARTBEAT
not unreasonable to suppose that human activities follow suit. In fact,
observations have linked climatic changes and human affairs. 19
Men and women of all ages have been fascinated by cyclical phenomena
and have looked for them in all disciplines, from astrology to
science and from ecology to economics. Most recently their existence
has been doubted and even denied, not necessarily for lack of proof but
because of a refusal to accept the degree of predetermination ingrained
in such a concept.
Does our planet pulse to a fifty-six-year beat? It is interesting to note
that far in the dark past, around 2698 B.C., on the other side of the
Earth, the Chinese Emperor Hoang-Ti organized the Chinese calendar in
a sixty-year cycle. He set his society’s pace to this rhythm, defying the
obvious shorter lunar and solar cycles often used for calendric purposes.
In so doing he displayed a certain wisdom. Whether or not his people
would have been better off with another calendar is an open question.
At any rate, to its credit the calendar has been used for the longest period
ever. It is still in use today.
Some time ago a colleague gave to me a book, Stonehenge Decoded
by Gerald Hawkins, which claimed that the architects of Stonehenge
possessed an amazing knowledge of the periodic movements of the
moon, the Earth, and the sun. There are fifty-six holes, the so-called
Aubrey holes, equally spaced in a circle around Stonehenge. In Stonehenge
Decoded , Hawkins explains:
It has always been obvious that the Aubrey holes were important:
They were carefully spaced and deeply dug; they served, sporadically,
the sacred purpose of tombs; filled with white chalk, they must
have been compelling spectacles. But they never held stones, or
posts—and, being so numerous and so evenly spaced, they could
hardly have been useful as sighting points. What was their purpose?
I think that I have found the answer.
I believe that the fifty-six Aubrey holes served as a computer. By
using them to count the years, the Stonehenge priests could have
kept accurate track of the moon, and so have predicted danger periods
for the most spectacular eclipses of the moon and the sun. In
fact, the Aubrey circle could have been used to predict many celestial
events. 20
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