One of the tragedies in the history of human learning is the destruction of the Library of Alexandria. There are conflicting accounts of the library’s destruction attributed to various perpetrators, beginning with Julius Caesar in 48 BCE and ending with the Muslim invaders in 642 CE. However it was destroyed, it was a tremendous loss. […]
This Reuters article: Centennial time capsule car found ruined | Oddly Enough | Reuters Got me thinking about a couple of things. First, how might the time capsule have been done better (please confine speculation to approximately mid-century technology), and second, what would constitute “an advanced product of American industrial ingenuity with the kind of […]
I brought three books with me on vacation this week: Guns, Germs, and Steel Lost Discoveries Uriel’s Machine The first two books – Guns, Germs, and Steel and Lost Discoveries – are solid popular science books. They might be controversial, but I doubt that any critic would characterize either book as wacky. Uriel’s Machine is […]
It’s got some of the same vibe, sans the wonky conspiracy theories, of course. But what makes it truly compelling is that it’s real: Ancient scroll may yield religious secrets ATHENS, Greece – A collection of charred scraps kept in a Greek museum’s storerooms are all that remains of what archaeologists say is Europe’s oldest […]
The mystery surrounding the pyramid-shaped hill in Bosnia deepens. Its dimensions seem a little too precise for it to be a natural formation. And now diggers have apparently found carefully cut stone blocks and what appears to be a paved entrance to the structure. Egyptian geologist explores the site But not everyone is buying the […]