Immanuel Velikovsky
Born Moscow 1895
M. D. 1921
Psychoanalysis Tel Aviv in 30’s
Worlds in Collision (Doubleday 1950)
Earth In Upheaval (Doubleday 1955)
AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science) debate with Sagan, Goldsmith, Mulholland (1974)
Honorary degree (Lethbridge, 1978)
Died 1985
Thesis: Basic 'experimental' input is vast array of myths from many cultures. These represent the incomprehensible as seen by primitive man, and hence can be interpreted as historically accurate data. Note there is a lot of evidence that even trained observers are incapable of seeing novel phenomena for what they really are.
Secondly: many myths tell the same story: e.g., many peoples tell of magical food falling from the sky.
Manna that sustained the Israelites,
Morning dew in the Icelandic Eddas,
Honey from the clouds in the Rig-Veda of the Hindus,
Honey from the clouds in the Finnish Kalevala,
Hera, symbolizing the Earth, was shrouded in ambrosia,
Maori legends have two magical dews, the heavy for eating and the light for drinking.
All these seem to be associated in the legends with times of great upheaval and darkness.
Velikovsky extracted the common features, and welded them into a history of primeval disasters.
e.g. Exodus
10 plagues of Egypt
- Nile turned to blood
- Plague of frogs
- Plague of Lice
- Plague of flies
- Death of Cattle
- Plague of Boils
- Plague of hail
- Plague of locusts
- Plague of darkness
- Death of first-born
Parting of Red Sea
Provision of Manna in the desert
Pillar of cloud by day, a column of fire by night
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~ 3000 BC Mars lay between Earth and the Sun. Venus created as a comet by an explosion on Jupiter (birth of Athene from the head of Jupiter, leaves the Great Red Spot. |
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1450 BC, 1400 BC Venus twice very close to Earth, nearly collided with Mars, ejecting it from its original orbit |
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Both Mars and Venus approached the Earth repeatedly Mars was thrown out into an elliptical one, and as a result, nearly collided repeatedly with the Earth in the years between 747 and 687B.C. |
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687 BC Final near collision sets them in their current stable orbits |
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To give one detailed example, we can take the Biblical story of Exodus.
10 plagues of Egypt
First entry into comet’s tail: ferric dust precipitated, poisons rivers, Babylonian myths have the blood of the monster Tiamat poured upon the earth->
Nile turned to blood
Warmth of the comet's tail
->
Plague of frogs
Plague of Lice
Plague of flies
Meteorites from cometary core: Annals of Cuahtitlan "sky rained, not water, but fire and red-hot stones" ->
Death of Cattle
Plague of Boils
Plague of hail
Plague of locusts
Plague of darkness
Interaction with Venus caused earth’s axis to be stopped and permanently shifted: Iran saw a 3-fold day and 3-fold night, Chinese legends speak of a holocaust during which the sun does not set for several days and the land was aflame ->
Death of first-born
Earthquakes triggered by Venus first drain Red Sea and then trigger tsunamis, which drown Egyptians ->
Parting of Red Sea
Hydrocarbons from comets tail are tuned into carbohydrates by bacterial action, allows survival of the Israelites in the desert ->
Provision of Manna in the desert
Earthquakes and volcanoes triggered by Venus -> volcanic explosions and earthquakes ->
Pillar of cloud by day, a column of fire by night
Eruption of Mt. Thera on Santorini destroyed the Minoan civilization on Crete: (Knossos is 120 km away). First explosion on scale of Mt. St. Helen, deposited ash over the eastern Mediterranean, followed perhaps 20 years later by a "paroxysmal eruption" which produced catastrophic tsunamis.
Atlantis legend: a land of great natural wealth and advanced civilization that sank beneath the waves in a single day and night of misfortune. Plato gave Atlantis dimensions of 200 kilometres by 400; pre-eruption Santorini was about 20 x 40.
Huge cloud of dust from Santorini had worldwide effects, extending as far as China, where the beginning of the Shang dynasty also dates from ~1620 B.C.
But Velikovsky predicts much more:
|
Prediction |
Velikovsky |
Astronomy |
Observation |
V |
A |
|
|
Temperature of Venus |
Hot |
Same as Earth |
800°C |
1 |
0 |
|
|
Cooling of Venus |
Still cooling |
Static |
Prob. static |
0 |
0.5 |
|
|
Clouds of Venus |
Hydrocarbons |
Not known |
Sulphuric acid |
0 |
0 |
|
|
Atmosphere of Venus |
Very thick |
Earthlike |
50 atmos. |
1 |
0 |
|
|
Craters on moon |
Formed in 1450 B.C. |
Prehistoric meteors |
3 billion years old |
0 |
1 |
|
|
Radioactivity on moon |
Strong |
None |
Little |
0 |
1 |
|
|
Magnetism on moon |
Large |
None |
Evidence in rocks |
1 |
0 |
|
|
Jupiter's temperature |
Hot |
Cold |
Clouds cold, Core Hot |
0.5 |
0.5 |
|
|
Radio waves from Jupiter |
Yes |
Never thought of it! |
Seen 1958 |
1 |
0 |
|
|
Jupiter's atmosphere |
Chlorine and sulphur |
? |
Both present |
0.5 |
0 |
|
|
Magnetic reversal |
850 B.C. |
No recent ones |
Maybe in pottery |
0 |
0.5 |
|
|
Martian atmosphere |
Argon/ neon |
Nitrogen, oxygen |
Carbon dioxide |
0 |
0 |
|
|
Total |
|
|
|
5 |
3.5 |
|
it is hard to escape the conclusion that, if we are to judge a scientific theory by its results, conventional astronomy is marginally worse.
Astronomers at Harvard suppressed the publication of Worlds in Collision, by forcing Macmillan's to reject the book, with the threat that no more academic textbooks would be sent to them for publication.
"frankly, …the publication must cut me off from the Macmillan Company" Howard Shapley, Director Harvard Observatory (Jan 1950)
Rights transferred to Doubleday
"Several attempts have been made to link such a move to stop the book’s publication to ..the Harvard Observatory. This idea is utterly false" Howard Shapley (Sept 1950)
"This was not only immoral, but a blunder." Isaac Asimov.
Then why are Velikovsky's ideas unacceptable?
The short answer is that his solar system doesn't conserve energy, or momentum or angular momentum. For example, one can calculate that if the earth was stopped from rotating, the energy stored in its rotation would be released as heat and cause a temperature rise (everywhere) of ~500C!
The second theme: sources of energy.
Perpetual Motion
Cold Fusion