Requiem for Relativity

Another key fact ignored by science is the people who erected Stonehenge were just as intelligent as us modern people and they had less distractions like computers,cell phones,tv and cars. So, they had lots of time for other activities like moving rocks. They must have had thought patterns somewhat different than anything we can conceive of. Also it must have been possible to walk from England to Giza back then. North Africa was wet and green 5,000 years ago so trip would have been very easy.

Stonehenge - marker of present Declinations of Procyon, Spica, Regulus, Rigel


(Some of this content is review of my previous post to Dr. Van Flandern's messageboard.)

According to VizieR's online Bright Star Catalog, the epoch 2000.0, J2000.0 coordinate, Declinations of Procyon, Spica, Regulus, and Rigel, are

+5.225, -11.161, +11.967, and -8.202 degrees, resp.

According to my ruler, straightedge and right angle measurements (done twice and averaged, once by estimating the standing stone centers and again from their best faces) on the map on p. 109 of Balfour's popular book, "Stonehenge and its Mysteries" (1979) the angles north of the "Avenue", formed by horseshoe trilithon stones 51-52, stones 53-54, stones 57-58 (fell in 1797 & re-erected in 1958), and stone 60-?59A (59A has fallen; base position estimated) are

+6.89, -13.75, +18.63, -10.61

Here I use Richard Atkinson's azimuth for the "Avenue"; it is only 0.087 deg north of my measurement of the Heel stone - base of Slaughter stone line. The ratios of these angles to the Declinations above, are

1.319, 1.232, 1.557, 1.294; mean 1.350

The trilithon corresponding to Regulus was re-erected; the restorers perhaps were unduly influenced by the overall curve of the horseshoe, which makes a greater angle with the Avenue than do the separate trilithons (see below). Omitting Regulus leaves 1.319, 1.232, and 1.294, mean 1.282.

Perhaps a more accurate way to find an azimuth at one of the horseshoe trilithons, is to fit an ellipse to the horseshoe trilithons (as done by Alexander Thom; see Balfour p. 44) and find the angle on the ellipse. I chose to fit the ellipse to only the four points which I judged to be at the centers of the four trilithons discussed above. My fifth constraint for choosing the ellipse, was that its axes be orthogonal to my measurement of the Stonehole A-B line (this line is 2.01deg farther north than Atkinson's, but my fitted ellipse is so nearly circular, b/a = 0.990, that this hardly alters the resulting ellipse). At the midpoints of the trilithons, the tangents to this nearly circular ellipse are resp.

+18.778, -40.191, +33.249, -22.436 (these angles would be 2.01deg more positive if Atkinson's Avenue azimuth were used)

and the ratios to the 2000.0 Declinations are

3.594, 3.601, 2.778, 2.735

So on the southeast side of the horseshoe, the ratio is about 3.60 and on the northwest side, about 2.76. Note that 3.60/2.76 = 1.30, near the 1.35 (or 1.28 if Regulus is omitted) found above. According to the information given in Balfour, the ratio of the main Sarsen circle to the bluestone circle, is 29.6 meters / 76 feet = 1.28. According to my measurement on Balfour's map, the ratio of the Aubrey hole circle to the main sarsen circle, is 2.83. The product 1.28 * 2.83 = 3.62.

The relationship of Earth to Venus makes the integers 8 and 13 obvious choices; their sidereal period ratio is 365.256/224.701 = 13.0042 /8. The square root of 13 is 3.606 and the square root of 8 is 2.828. These small multiples, sqrt(13), sqrt(, and sqrt(13/, of the Declinations, improve the net accuracy possible for us, surveying the damaged stones millennia later. It was natural to have the Aubrey circle with 8 times the area of the main sarsen circle, and the Aubrey circle with 13 times the area of the bluestone circle.

Regarding the choice of stars, Regulus and Spica are obvious choices because they are bright and lie so near the ecliptic. Of all the stars brighter than Spica (and Regulus), Rigel is the southern star nearest the (2000.0 epoch) equator and Procyon the northern star nearest the (2000.0 epoch) equator, so they also are obvious choices.

The foregoing suggests that Stonehenge is another "precessional alarm clock" (phrase popularized by John Major Jenkins) indicating our present epoch.

Proof that "The Younger Dryas" was a catastrophic local astrophysical event

Simon et al (Astronomy & Astrophysics, 1994; p. 669, sec. 3.4.(a.1.) ) give fourth degree polynomials for the lunar mean perigee and node referred to J2000 coordinates. These polynomials imply that a maximum rate of progression of the mean perigee, occurred at t = - 12,809 years before 2000.0 AD, and that a maximum rate of retrogression of the mean node, occurred at t = - 12,683 years before 2000.0 AD.

Fiedel (Quaternary International, 2011; pp. 262-266) says that the highest resolution ice cores (the "NGRIP" study) date the sudden (reaching minimum within a year) and persistent drop in North Atlantic ocean surface temperature near Greenland (based on deuterium isotope levels) as t = - 12,897 +/- 3 years before 2000.0 AD. NGRIP also found that the initial drop in temperature on Greenland itself (based on oxygen isotope levels) occurred at t = - 12,925 +/- 59, and that the minimum temperature in Greenland occurred about two centuries later at t = - 12,712 +/- 74.

The similarity of all these dates suggests that the Younger Dryas was caused by an astronomical catastrophe which reset the celestial clockwork.

At such large t, the truncation error of the series seems large. So, I fitted a sinusoid, to the polynomial for the rate of progression of the perigee, by matching all three of its derivatives at t=0: the resulting sinusoid has period 76,888.5 yr, and its most recent extremum is a maximum at t = - 14,232. Likewise for the rate of retrogression of the node, the resulting sinusoid has period 76,399.0 yr, and most recent extremum a minimum (i.e. large negative) at t = - 14,088. So the agreement is not merely an accident of truncation error.

Hi Dr Joe, Your latest post is exciting to me in that the ice age cycle can be understood by applying blackbody law to solve the problem. The idea that some event in the cosmos can be eliminated by doing the math. Being a math major you must see forming and melting ice requires the movement of energy from one place to another. It is clear to me that energy flows within the mantle of our planet cause this ice cycle. This is just another fact not yet known to science and yet another indication how poor our standard science really is. It is not even yet known that enough heat does flow from the mantle to effect the climate in any way.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Jim</i>
<br />...energy flows within the mantle of our planet cause this ice cycle. ...
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

This idea of yours, seems likely to me now too. Some powerful physical phenomenon would have been required to reset the lunar ephemeris, at the time of the Younger Dryas.

Dr Joe, I wish you would apply your education and talents on figuring how much energy is needed to force the ice cycle. I figure it only requires a few degrees of temperature change at ~273K to go one way or the other. The energy flux can be moved by plate tectonics under the ocean. That would explain how North Africa and the American SW were green and wet 15,000 years ago. The ocean warm spots migrate north and south over time.