The Cosmic Game ( PDFDrive.com )

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Cosmic Game © Douglass A. White, 2012 v151207 95 so that it passed through a notch in a large solar disk placed at or near the temple entrance at a distance of 500 meters from the inner sanctum wall. The beam broken into pulses by the notches on the disk would reflect back from a mirror hung on the inner sanctum wall and then after three such trips down the channel would pass back through another notch on the disk. The disk would then be rotated until a speed was reached at which the returning pulses of light were blocked by the teeth between the notches. When they increased the speed further, the light pulses would again as if magically pass through the notches and appear on the screen. That would indicate a time delay in the return of the reflected beam of sunlight from which they could calculate the speed of light. The angle of the mirror would have been adjusted just enough so that when the disk was at rest the pulses returning for the last time passed through notches on the opposite side of the disk, thus removing the need for a half-silvered mirror. When the disk was at rest, the beam would be unbroken and would shine steadily through both notches and show up as a little bright line on a smooth flat screen made of clay or stone that was placed next to the return-beam side of the disk. When the disk began to rotate, the line of light on the screen would flicker on when the notches lined up with the beam and off when it was blocked by the teeth between the notches. As the disk turned faster, the beam would seem to shift gradually out of the second notch on its return trip through the temple and eventually would be blocked by an intervening tooth. The flickers would stop and no line of light would appear on the screen. The Egyptians could thus see a kind of "relativistic distortion" of space and time due to motion. When the disk rotated at an even faster speed, the pulses of sunlight would shift completely past the blocking teeth on their return trip and each would pass on through the next notch that had moved into position during the interval. From the rotation speed at that time interval they could calculate the speed of light. For example, to get a strong horizontal beam of light the priests would have used a ray of sunlight when the sun was on the horizon. The light channel had to be shaded so that they could distinguish the pulses of sunlight during daylight. Let us suppose they used slightly concave mirrors to keep the beam focused and bounced it zigzag back and forth three round trips in the channel before sending it through the cogwheel again. The distance the beam traveled from going in through the wheel to going out through the wheel was thus 3×10 3 m. Let's say the number of teeth on the wheel were the ritual number 10 3 , and let's say they found the rotation speed for a shift of one tooth to be about 10 2 revolutions per second, and the mark on the pulley belt cycled two times per second. They used a pendulum to measure half seconds. c = (3×10 3 m) (10 3 teeth) (10 2 s -1 ) = 3×10 8 m/s. The Egyptians thus probably could have achieved around the same accuracy as Fizeau with their instruments, since they had sighting instruments, mirrors, and disks as well as a fascination with optical behavior. Below is a sketch (obviously not drawn to scale) showing the basic setup for the experiment with some sample numbers that might have been found by Egyptians.
Cosmic Game © Douglass A. White, 2012 v151207 96 Screen Returning light beam shifts along rim of spinning wheel. Notched Wheel Light Channel Mirror Rim spins at 10 2 rps 3×10 3 m in length 10 3 teeth The result is that light travels at 3×10 8 m/s. Recall that the Temple of Amen at Karnak displays the outline of the Senet Oracle Board over its main entry gate and Amen's name contains the glyph for the Senet Board. Sketch of the Temple of Amen at Karnak from The Dawn of Astronomy by Sir Norman Lockyer, London, 1894, p. 101. Reproduced by Robert Temple in The Crystal Sun, p. 337. This long sighting tube could be used to measure the speed of light with considerable accuracy.
Page 1 and 2:
Cosmic Game © Douglass A. White, 2
Page 3 and 4:
Page 5 and 6:
¯¯ Cosmic Game © Douglass A. Whi
Page 7 and 8:
Page 9 and 10:
Page 11 and 12:
Page 13 and 14:
Page 15 and 16:
Page 17 and 18:
Page 19 and 20:
Page 21 and 22:
Page 23 and 24:
Page 25 and 26:
Page 27 and 28:
Page 29 and 30:
Page 31 and 32:
Page 33 and 34:
Page 35 and 36:
Page 37 and 38:
Page 39 and 40:
Page 41 and 42:
Page 43 and 44:
Page 45 and 46: Cosmic Game © Douglass A. White, 2
Page 95: Cosmic Game © Douglass A. White, 2
Page 147 and 148:
Page 149 and 150:
Page 151 and 152:
Page 153 and 154:
Page 155 and 156:
Page 157 and 158:
Page 159 and 160:
Page 161 and 162:
Page 163 and 164:
Page 165 and 166:
Page 167 and 168:
Page 169 and 170:
Page 171 and 172:
Page 173 and 174:
Page 175 and 176:
Page 177 and 178:
Page 179 and 180:
Page 181 and 182:
Page 183 and 184:
Page 185 and 186:
Page 187 and 188:
Page 189 and 190:
Page 191 and 192:
Page 193 and 194:
Page 195 and 196:
Page 197 and 198:
Page 199 and 200:
Page 201 and 202:
Page 203 and 204:
Page 205 and 206:
Page 207 and 208:
Page 209 and 210:
Page 211 and 212:
Page 213 and 214:
Page 215 and 216:
Page 217 and 218:
Page 219 and 220:
Page 221 and 222:
Page 223 and 224:
Page 225 and 226:
Page 227 and 228:
Page 229 and 230:
Page 231 and 232:
Page 233 and 234:
Page 235 and 236:
Page 237 and 238:
Page 239 and 240:
Page 241 and 242:
Page 243:
show all

The Cosmic Game ( PDFDrive.com )

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?