388 WORLDS IN COLLISION
it is not gravitation that makes the electrons go round the nucleus, but electricity" (H. N.
Russell).
Besides this, another difference was found: an electron in an atom, on absorbing the energy of a photon (light), jumps to another orbit, and again to another when it emits light and releases the energy of a photon. Because of this phenomenon, comparison with the solar system no longer seemed valid. "We do not read in the morning newspapers that Mars leaped to the orbit of Saturn, or Saturn to the orbit of Mars," wrote a critic. True, we do not read it in the morning papers; but in ancient records we have found similar events described in detail, and we have tried to reconstruct the facts by comparing many ancient records. The solar system is actually built like an atom; only, in keeping with the smallness of the atom, the jumping of electrons from one orbit to another, when hit by the energy of a photon, takes place many times a second, whereas in accord with the vastness of the solar system, a similar phenomenon occurs there once in hundreds or thousands of years. In the middle of the second millennium before the present era, the terrestrial globe experienced two displacements; and in the eighth or seventh century before the present era, it experienced three or four more. In the period between, Mars and Venus, and the moon also, shifted.
Contacts between celestial bodies are not limited to the domain of the solar system. From time to time a nova is seen in the sky, a blazing fixed star which until then had been small or invisible. It burns for weeks or months and then loses its light. It is thought that this may be the result of a collision between two stars (a phenomenon that, according to the tidal theory, occurred to the sun or to its theoretical companion). Comets arriving from other solar systems may have been born in such collisions.
If the activity in an atom constitutes a rule for the macrocosm, then the events described in this book were not merely accidents of celestial traffic, but normal phenomena like birth and death.
The discharges between the planets, or the great photons emitted in these contacts, caused metamorphoses in inorganic and organic nature. Of these things I intend to write in another volume, where problems
WORLDS IN COLLISION 389
of geology and paleontology and the theory of evolution will be discussed.
Having discovered some historical facts and having solved a few problems, we are faced with more problems in almost all fields of science; we are not free to stop and rest on the road on which we started when we wondered whether Joshua's miracle of stopping the sun was a natural robin-bobin
phenomenon. Barriers between sciences serve to create the belief in a scientist in any particular field that other scientific fields are free from problems, and he trusts himself to borrow from them without questioning. It can be seen here that problems in one area carry over into other scientific areas, thought to have no contact with each other.
We realize the limitations which a single scholar must be aware of on facing such an ambitious program of inquiry into the architectonics of the world and its history. In earlier centuries philosophers not infrequently attempted a synthesis of knowledge in its various branches. Today, with knowledge becoming more and more specialized, whoever tries to cope with such a task should ask in all humility the question put at the beginning of this volume: Quota pars operis tanti nobis committitur—Which part of this work is committed to us?
robin-bobin
SELECTIVE
Aaron, 133, 166, 293
Abihu, son of Aaron, 56
Achaeans, 247-249
Acosta, J. de, 339
Adam, city of, 139
Adar, month of, 351
Adrastus of Cyzicus, 158
Aegospotami, 289
Aeneas, 246
Aeschylus, 151, 282
Aethiopia, people of, 144
Africa, 76, 380, 383
Agassiz, Louis, 76
Agni, Vedic deity, 133, 134
Agog, King, 151, 158
Ahaz, King, 212-213, 216-219, 233,
237-238, 274, 322, 351, 353, 363 Ahaziah, King, 185 Ahriman, 183, 185
L'Aigle (the fall of meteorites at), 41 Ainu peoples, in Japan, 327 Ajalon, in Palestine, 39, 45
Akhet-Aten, in Egypt, 281 Alaska, 326-329, 383 Alexander of Macedonia, 53, 89, 382
Algonquin tribe, 309 Almagest, by C. Ptolemy, 195 Alps, 27
Amalekites, 130, 184 Amenhotep III, pharaoh, 323, 324 Ammizaduga, of Babylonia, 198 Amon, 289
Amon Temple (at Karnak), 323 Amos, prophet, 117, 176, 207-209,215,
239, 252, 263, 274, 381 Amur River, 327 Anaitis, goddess, 170 Anastasi Papyrus, 129 Anat, goddess, 177, 297 Anat-Yahu, in Elephantine, 297 Anaxagoras, 271, 317
AME INDEX
Anaximander, 29
Anaximenes, 29
Ancasmarca, mountain of, 61
Andes, 273
Angstrom, A. J., 22
Antarctica, coal deposits on, 20, 384
Antefoker, vizier of Sesostris I, 56
Anthesteria, feast of, 150
Anthesterion, spring month, 150
Anu path in the sky, 351
Anugita, Iranian book, 61
Apennine Peninsula, 269, 273, 278
Aphaca, town in Syria, 178, 289
Aphrodite, 247, 250, 251, 361
Apis, 180, 181, 182
Apollo, 248, 301
Apollodorus, 49, 79, 81, 171, 237, 306
Apollonius Rhodius, 161
Apop, King in Egypt, 151
Apopi, 50; see also Seth
Appalachians, 19
Appian Way, 264
Arabia, Arabs, 33, 119, 179, 180
Arabot (sky with the sun's rising point
robin-bobin
in the west), 114 Arago, D. F., 41 Archilochus, 216 Arctic Circle, 327, 328 Arctic Ocean, 26
Ares, 137, 185, 238, 263-264, 274,
281, 288; see also Mars Argive plain, 216-217 Argive tyrants, 216-218, 237, 307; see also Atreus and Thyestes Arimi, people of Syria, 79 Aristarchus of Samos, 29 Aristocles, 169
Aristophanes, 84 Aristotle, 18, 29, 41, 137, 162-163.
221, 271, 338 Arizona, 41
392
SELECTIVE NAME INDEX
Armenians, 33
Annilustrium, feast of, 240
Arno River, 273
Arrhenius, S. A., 22
Artapanus, 64, 86
AryaDhatta, Hindu astronomer, 257,
331 Arzachel, Arabian scholar, 316 Ascension of Moses, book, 294 Ashteroth-Karnaim, 166, 169, 179 Asia, 277, 328, 329 Asia Minor, 146, 269, 278 Assurbanipal, 165, 177, 180, 198, 350
Assyria, Assyrian, 212, 228, 230-232,
241, 242, 262, 265, 269, 292, 293,
310, 334, 335, 355 Assyro-Babylonia, 244, 354 Astarte, 166, 169, 289 Atharva-Veda, 136, 138, 181, 182 Athene, 138, 168-175, 179, 185, 196,
241, 247-251, 253, 258, 262, 297,
361 Athens, 170 Atlantis, 146-148 Atlas, 240
Atreus, Argive tyrant, 109, 216, 237 Atymnios, driver of sun's chariot, 160 Augustus, see Octavian Augustine, St., 57, 119, 158, 159, 171 Aulus Genius, 345 Averrhoes, Arab philosopher, 114 Avesta, see Zend Avesta Avienus, Latin poet, 83 Avila, Spanish author, 61 Aviv, month of, 65 Azazel, 156
Azekah, in Palestine, 42 Aztecs, 32, 118, 253, 269 Azza, angel, 156
Baal, 178, 197, 294, 295
Baal Zevuv, 183-186
Babylon, Babylonia, Babylonian, 177, 178, 200, 222, 223, 225, 242, 259, 261, 264, 268, 274, 275, 278, 281, 295-296, 315, 316, 318, 333, 334, 343, 345, 346, 351, 352, 354
Baffin Land, 326
Bahman Yast, 31, 62
Balaam, 151, 159
Bamboo Books, 235, 254
Bancroft, H. H., 253
Bantu tribes, 185
Baruch, disciple of Jeremiah, 354
Beelzebub, see Baal Zevur
Beke, Charles, 93
Belith, 179
Bereshit Rabba, book, 224
Bering Strait, 327
Berosus, Chaldean author, 231, 269-
270 Bertholon, P., 41
Beth-horon, in Palestine, 39, 42, 44 Bhaga Vedam, Hindu book, 31 Bhagavata Furana, Hindu books, 31 Biot, E., 234, 235 Bochart, Samuel, 85 Boghaz Keui, in Anatolia, 161 Bofsena lake, 273 Bolsena, town of, 273 Book of the Dead, 136 Book of the Lord, 220 Book of Sothis, 337, 338 Boothia Felix Peninsula, 326 Borneo, 35