Megalithic manufacturing in Britain

[Boreades]

Here's some anecdotal evidence of the very best kind:

On the back of a dollar bill, you can see a pyramid with a flat top. No one has been able to explain why the Great Pyramid would have been built without a capstone. This is an interesting story associated with a visit to the top of the great pyramid. Many tourists have climbed to the top, which is not an easy journey. One such person was Sir Siemen's, a British inventor. He climbed to the top with his Arab guides. One of his guides called attention to the fact that when he raised his hand with outspread fingers, he would hear an acute ringing noise. Siemen raised his index finger and felt a distinct prickling sensation. He also received an electric shock when he tried to drink from a bottle of wine that he had brought with him. Being a scientist, Siemen than moistened a newspaper and wrapped it around the wine bottle to convert it into a Leyden jar (an early form of a capacitor). When he held it above his head, it became charged with electricity. Sparks then were emitted from the bottle. One of the Arab guides got frightened and thought Siemen was up to some witchcraft and attempted to seize Siemen's companion. When Siemen's noticed this, he pointed the bottle towards the Arab and gave him such a shock that it knocked the Arab to the ground almost rendering him unconscious. When he recovered, he took off down the pyramid shouting loudly. What kind of natural phenomena on the top of the Great Pyramid could produce such an electo-static effect? It would be interesting to conduct additional physics experiments on the top of the Great Pyramid.

http://www.gizapyramid.com/gip2.htm

What could cause this? The shape and height of the pyramid might explain it. Simply because of the difference in height between the top and base, there will be an electrostatic potential between the two.

The electrical field (in terms of the potential) is given by: E⃗ =−∇V⃗

On an ordinary day over flat desert country, or over the sea, as one goes upward from the surface of the ground the electric potential increases by about 100 volts per meter. Thus there is a vertical electric field E of 100 volts/m in the air. The sign of the field corresponds to a negative charge on the earth’s surface. This means that outdoors the potential at the height of your nose is 200 volts higher than the potential at your feet! You might ask: “Why don’t we just stick a pair of electrodes out in the air one meter apart and use the 100 volts to power our electric lights?” Or you might wonder: “If there is really a potential difference of 200 volts between my nose and my feet, why is it I don’t get a shock when I go out into the street? We will answer the second question first. Your body is a relatively good conductor.

So the higher the pyramid, the great the electric potential.

Another thing that can be measured, in addition to the potential gradient, is the current in the atmosphere. The current density is small—about 10 micromicroamperes crosses each square meter parallel to the earth. The air is evidently not a perfect insulator, and because of this conductivity, a small current—caused by the electric field we have just been describing—passes from the sky down to the earth.

That current density is across the very wide area at the base. At the top of the pyramid, that current becomes greatly focused into the much smaller area. The shape of the pyramid effectively acts like a lens.

Incidentally (and significantly I think) those last two quotes come from one of the Feynman Lectures. Feynman is arguably the greatest genius able to communication Physics the modern world has ever known.

http://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/II_09.html

[TisILeclerc]

Are you trying to tell me that if I paid a visit to London and went to the top of the gherkin with a bottle of wine, a newspaper and a wet finger I could fuse all the lights in the building?

And having tried to read the article it appears that the best time is 7 o'clock in the evening.

Which is the best time to go to the pub. Get in early before the rest of the boozers and get to the beer before it's been watered. Er, modified by the landlord.

So it's all down to ions. Which is why London is the centre of the universe and has the worst beer to ever call itself thus.

[Boreades]

Sadly no. On any tall building in London, built of ferro-concrete and full of electrical wiring from top to bottom, any electrostatic charge is likely to be earthed immediately. Let alone the lightning rods that all tall buildings have as routine. We have to find a tall building built entirely of stone with no modern things attached.

[Boreades]

And having tried to read the article it appears that the best time is 7 o'clock in the evening.

I'm glad you mentioned that, I'd missed it first time round. It's something special, worth quoting in full.

Each piece of information we can get should give a clue or, at least, tell you something about it. Here is an interesting phenomenon: If we measure the current (which is more stable than the potential gradient) over the sea, for instance, or in careful conditions, and average very carefully so that we get rid of the irregularities, we discover that there is still a daily variation. The average of many measurements over the oceans has a variation with time roughly as shown in Fig. 9–5. The current varies by about ±15 percent, and it is largest at 7:00 p.m. in London. The strange part of the thing is that no matter where you measure the current—in the Atlantic Ocean, the Pacific Ocean, or the Arctic Ocean—it is at its peak value when the clocks in London say 7:00 p.m.! All over the world the current is at its maximum at 7:00 p.m. London time and it is at a minimum at 4:00 a.m. London time. In other words, it depends upon the absolute time on the earth, not upon the local time at the place of observation.

Which is completely counter-intuitive. I (for one) would have bet (and lost) that the variation was local all around the world. My best guess at the moment is this is truly a global phenomenon, and it is in effect a heartbeat for the whole planet in sync.

And this affects the timing of the lightning we get.

People have made estimates of how much lightning is striking world-wide at any time, and perhaps needless to say, their estimates more or less agree with the voltage difference measurements: the total amount of thunderstorm activity is highest on the whole earth at about 7:00 p.m. in London. However, the thunderstorm estimates are very difficult to make and were made only after it was known that the variation should have occurred. These things are very difficult because we don’t have enough observations on the seas and over all parts of the world to know the number of thunderstorms accurately. But those people who think they “do it right” obtain the result that there are about 100 lightning flashes per second world-wide with a peak in the activity at 7:00 p.m. Greenwich Mean Time.

[TisILeclerc]

Sadly no. On any tall building in London, built of ferro-concrete and full of electrical wiring from top to bottom, any electrostatic charge is likely to be earthed immediately. Let alone the lightning rods that all tall buildings have as routine. We have to find a tall building built entirely of stone with no modern things attached.

A building made of stone and no modern things attached?

Like a broch perhaps? Or possibly like this?



http://www.climbonline.co.uk/roseberry_topping.htm

It's collapsed of course but although there are obviously fractures in the rock you can make out regular joints at certain places.



http://www.walkingbritain.co.uk/walk-photo-133003

And another one.

It could be natural of course. The official explanation is that it is hard sandstone which protected the rocks beneath it while the surrounding soft shale was washed away and eroded over the centuries.



https://ixquick-proxy.com/do/spg/show_p ... d375b2a600

And here it is at a distance. He looks a bit surprised. Perhaps it's to do with the lightning rod?



http://www.sleepeatrun.co.uk/hardmoors- ... on-report/

American archaeologist Alfred Kidder thought Roseberry Topping was a pyramid. A few miles to the east there is Freebrough hill and a few miles the other side is Whorl hill. Both of them round but natural 'outlyers'



http://www.gtleisure.co.uk/walks/cc06/cc060957.htm

And here is whorl hill with Roseberry on the far horizon. Almost in a line with the little stone marker to the right of the signpost. Perhaps Rosberry was the main power plant and the other two substations?

[Boreades]

Is there a quality in limestone that could have some kind of insulating purpose?

Indeed there is.

I was idly thinking Avebury isn't going to be a good example, because it's covered in earth and grass. The earth would be damp enough to conduct, and not be an insulator. But silly me I'd forgotten that drawing of what Avebury would have originally looked like. On dry days, it might have accumulated a fairly big electrostatic charge,.

[Mick Harper]

And it seems like the Russian Academy of Sciences is involved in pyramid research. They've been building them all over Russia.

You may be too young to remember but this was quite big back in the nineteen-seventies -- the last time Russian psycho-stuff was fashionable. The upshot then was that you placed your razor blades in a little pyramiddy-thingy and it stayed sharp for longer. Then along came Wilkinson Sword and nobody bothered any more.

PS People have been trying to get electro-magnetism out of Stonehenge (et al) for donkeys without much success (except for claims by the experimenters).

[TisILeclerc]

My brother had one of those things made out of cardboard. He never knew whether it worked or not. Something to do with the influence of the moon on metal edges an ions or something.

In any case they all turned hippy and grew beards.

Stonehenge is not a pyramid though. Although now you've mentioned it perhaps it was the foundations for a pyramid except they couldn't get the sides straight.

Then pyramids went out of fashion and were so yesterday.

Tesla's pylons were the pyramid for the modern day. And they actually worked until he was shut down.

[Boreades]

Just thinking aloud, quartz rocks are good for piezoelectricity.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quartz#Piezoelectricity

https://museum.wales/mineralogy-of-wale ... ineral=253

[TisILeclerc]

Didn't Epson develop that technology for their printers?

Instead of heating the ink up as usual it was given a little jolt and out it popped.