The Cosmic Game ( PDFDrive.com )

Cosmic Game © Douglass A. White, 2012 v151207 97
Measuring the Charge Constant
Our next experiment is to consider how the Egyptians might have discovered electric
charge. The famous experiment by which we discovered the quantization of electric
charge was performed by Robert Millikan in the early years of the 20th century.
Millikan discovered that he could put a small static charge on oil droplets by spraying
them through an atomizer. He could then set up an electric field between two parallel
horizontal metal plates. He allowed the droplets to fall through a hole in the upper plate
and then adjusted the electric field until the droplets would hover in the air between the
plates. By repeating the experiment many times he discovered that the charge on the
droplets was always an integer multiple of 1.6×10 -19 C, suggesting that this was the
fundamental unit of charge.
We do not have evidence that the Egyptians possessed atomizers for spraying aromatic
essential oils. However, we do know that they placed great importance on the raising of
geese and had several names for them. The goose was the totem animal for Geb, the god
of Earth. One important name for a goose was "semen", which means to make solid and
contains the glyph for the Senet Board.
When harvesting a goose, the Egyptians had to pluck its feathers and in that process they
would have discovered the down feathers. The down is soft and extremely lightweight.
In dry weather, a common condition in Egypt, down can accumulate static charge and
cling to clothing and skin. The Egyptians already venerated the ability of birds to fly,
associating this with the spiritual ability to ascend to heaven. The ability of down
feathers to resist falling would add to the mystique of the spiritual ability of birds to fly.
Another special material that the Egyptians associated with heaven was iron. The
Egyptians first recovered iron from meteorites and thus had the idea that iron came from
heaven. Other ideas associated with iron were wonderfulness, strength, and solidity. In
the Pyramid Texts pharaoh is often described sitting on a throne of solid iron. The
Egyptians probably noticed that iron had special magnetic properties. They may also
have noticed how down feathers with static charge would tend to cling to magnetized
iron, and this would seem to be a natural affiliation between two materials highly charged
with heavenly influence.
The phenomenon of electric charge may have suggested to the Egyptians how materials
come to adhere into solids. The Egyptians were one of the earliest people to develop
cement, and used a form of it that was superior to that of the Romans and far superior to
the Portland cement we use today. They could use very thin layers of this mortar
between stones, and it would hold robustly, and it continues to function effectively in the
Old Kingdom pyramids even today. The Egyptians used crushed quarry rock to make
their cement, and the word comes down to us from Latin caementum, rough uncut quarry
rock. The root of this word is traced to caelum, the sculptor's chisel. This word plays
on caelum, which means "heaven" and may include the ancient Egyptian notion that iron
came from the sky as well as the spiritual quality with which the sculptor endows the
stone when he engraves it with his chisel. The root gets entwined with caed (to cut),
from which we have many derivatives in English. The Greek word κοιλος (koilos) means
hollow and probably derives from Egyptian "qar" (hole, hollow), and "qer-t" (a hollow