The Recent Organization  of the Solar System by Patten & Windsor  ©1995 CHAPTER 1 Go to Main:  Patten Index

Planning For A 70-Story Skyscraper of Cosmology

Introduction

This treatise treats the subject of cosmology - not of astronomy. Astronomy is a study of the present conditions, present positions, and related physical data. This data is of the Sun, the nine planets and their various satellites, plus the short-term comets, the spray of asteroids and the meteor streams that are observed in our time.

Cosmology is a study of the past conditions, past positions and the evidence thereof, of the solar system as it once was. It was from those earlier conditions that the present arrangements and circumstances have developed. Were those past conditions gradual and serene, or were they disastrous and catastrophic?

The heart of the issue is what the evidence indicates. The surfaces of such planets as Mercury, Venus and Mars have now been photographed. In addition, the satellites of Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune have been photographed. Those photos point to unexpected episodes of violence for each of these inner planets as well as for our home planet system, the Earth-Moon system. What was the nature of these ancient sudden and violent episodes?

Modern day astronomers have played their role of describing the solar system as it is. Next, with few objections, they have assumed the role of cosmologists. They study no ancient literature wherein violent episodes were described as happening to the Earth. They study no ancient history where said violent episode also were recorded. They study none of the umpteen known ancient 360-day calendars.

Where, then, is their academic foundation to assume the role of cosmologist? Almost unanimously, they adopt one variation or another of the idea known as the "nebular hypothesis". From this dogma, they find no reason to study ancient calendars, ancient literature or ancient history.

Their motto, taken from James Hutton 200 years ago, is "the present is the key to the past." "Gradualism" for solar system history is their dogma. But what if the evidence, much of it new from space probe photography, indicates otherwise? What would "otherwise" involve?

The original nebular hypothesis suggested that matter from the Sun somehow was discharged into the cosmos, some four billions of years ago, or more. It was from that discharge the planets accreted, somehow got spin rates, somehow captured satellites, somehow acquired orbits. What if this entire approach is found unsound?

This dogma for cosmology was "born, bred and buttered" in the l8th century by such l8th century figures as Emanuel Swedenborg, Immanuel Kant, Pierre Simon Laplace. From what we now know, they were "taking a stab in the dark." They had virtually no evidence from which to work other than a limited knowledge of the present orbits of six planets and their satellites.

The l9th century featured very little in cosmology, and that little was George Darwin's (son of Charles) mathematical extensions of 18th century thought.

By the early part of the 20th century, physicists, chemists and mathematicians were having some input, and were discovering problems. Those problems surprised the advocates of the nebular hypothesis. However the nebular hypothesis as a basic concept continued, and new objections were handled by tinkering with the dogma, not by challenging or changing it.

Encouragement to convert this dogma of gradualism into academic cement came from persons in the humanities who were rather negative to Biblical dogmas and ethics. They welcomed "scientific" grounds to upend or discredit Biblical accounts. Luminaries of the French Revolution and their coterie of followers were particularly negative to Biblical literature, as well as Biblical history. In 19th and 20th century science, there were only a few prominent "Protestants" to the dogma of gradualism.

The modern latter 20th century outgrowth is that first, astronomers assumed the secondary role of cosmologist as well, with few objections. Second, almost to a man, astronomers followed the themes, if not the details of the nebular hypothesis. Third, their message was welcomed by the growing majority of social scientists who like the results of upending Biblical teaching.

Now, fourth, astronomers review with great interest and surprise the evidence of recent scars on Venus, Mercury, Mars and it satellites. Suddenly there has been a need for apologists of gradualism to explain, in non-catastrophic interpretations, the new and exciting evidence of planetary catastrophism. They acknowledge the new, fascinating evidence but do not change the widely-accepted mold. The nebular hypothesis and the dogma of gradualism continue to reign.

The time has come to end that charade and examine the exciting evidence from the mold of planetary catastrophism. This examination is the mission of the volume in hand. Except, the evidence is so significant, so broad, so inter-connecting, that one volume will not hold it. Four might. Five might. Our existing research fills four volumes on planetary catastrophism. Our ongoing research on ancient Earth atmospheres holds promise for a possible fifth volume.

We shall cast the massive evidence into a framework of 70 stories. Each story builds on the previous one, like building a skyscraper, until our 70-story skyscraper of catastrophic cosmology is completed.

Ancient Chaldean Cosmology

The first step is to review the thoughts in cosmology of the ancient Sumerians and Chaldeans. They viewed the seven planets in the heavens as seven deities. These seven deities were the Sun, the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. They added other deities form other aspects of natural events, pan-continental floods, hurricane-type winds, etc.

They named the days of their seven-day week after these seven astronomical bodies, and sometimes some of their twelve months were named after the planet deities also.

They recorded and reported their day count per year, which was 360, not the modern 365.256. The Sumerians adopted this number from their calendar into their measures and standards. For the arc of a circle, they established a division into 360°. Next they divided the day into sixty 24-minute periods, which in turn was subdivided into 24-second periods, which in turn was subdivided into, for us, .4-second periods. They divided the degrees of their circle also into minutes and seconds, sixty in each case.

The Chaldean system of counting degrees (360 of them) in a circle, and minutes (60 of them) in a degree, survives today in an Eastern Civilization. This system of counting time survives today in India, where time is counted by days, divided into subdivisions of 60 (not into 24 hours), and by days multiplied also into super divisions of 60.

That system in India, by Western perspective, is a Chaldean relic. However by the standards of India, the Chaldean system was an off-shoot of their even more ancient system of counting which they view as the oldest.

Evidence from ancient Persian surveying systems indicate that they were based on earlier Chaldeans standards and norms. Like their predecessors, they also viewed the Earth as a sphere.

Ancient Persian surveying practices show an accurate knowledge of the Earth's diameter and circumference. They surveyed according by using a certain triangular system of right triangles, with the angles being 36°, 54° and 90°. These angle ratios were easy to handle, being 2:3:5. Persian survey crews surveyed from the shores of the Indian Ocean almost to the Arctic Ocean with such triangles.

Persepolis, the Medo-Persian capitol, for instance, was built astride the 30th latitude N. This was exactly one-third of the distance from the equator to the North Pole. Also it was exactly one-third of the distance from the North Pole to the South Pole.

Nearby, also on the 30th latitude N. they placed the Tomb of Darius the Great. Like our modern Greenwich Meridian (0°), they considered the Tomb of Darius to be the "Navel of the Earth". All longitude was measured east or west from it. All latitude was measured north or south of it.

The ancients liked to survey with right triangles, , measuring 3 units, 4 units and 5 units on its three sides. Thus their surveying triangle had angles, 36°, 54° and 90°.

The Persian surveyors of the 5th century planned an architectural monument for the tomb of Darius the Great (- 558? to - 488.) In addition to architectural value, it had locational value.

Darius' Tomb was located not only on their 30th latitude north of the equator, but also on an line angle 54° north of horizontal and 36° west of vertical, on a diagonal pointing to the historic Ark of Noah location. It was still well-known at that time. The Persians, like the Chaldeans, considered the ancient Ark Site was of historic significance. It was where their ancestors survived the great flood.

Modern geologists consider Noah's Flood to be an impossible story. It included the floating a large barge into the mountains of Armenia, 6,000 feet and higher above sea level, and more than a thousand miles from the nearest ocean. Moreover it was in a region where major rivers were few and far between. An utter impossibility. Therefore the story was deemed unacceptable, regardless of how widespread was the evidence of tradition.

On the other hand, the ancient Persians considered Noah's Flood to have been a reality, and many of them made pilgrimages to the Ark site. So did peoples of many other languages.

This method of surveying, involving their employment of the 360° circle, 1° for each ancient day of the year, provides a solid clue that the earlier Sumerians knew the circumference of our planet. By understanding the value of "pi", they also could calculate the Earth's diameter. That system also provides a solid clue that an ancient 360-day year was a reality, not a miscount.

Berossus, a historian of the 3rd century B.C.E., and a self-described priest of Bel (Mars), stated in one of the fragments of his history that has survived, that Bel caused the Flood. Berossus was attempting to teach the Greeks the glories and values of ancient Chaldea, but in so doing, he also affirmed that planetary catastrophism was his idea of cosmology. ^F1

Roman Empire Cosmology

Originally, the cosmology of the Roman State revolved around the veneration of the planet Mars. They had two days of national "celebration", or more to the point, of national "concern." One was their Armilustrium, on October 24. It correlated with one type of Mars ancient flybys, including the Long Day of Joshua and Noah's Flood. The other was their Tubulustrium, on March 20 or 21. This correlates with the ancient Hebrew "Passover." Both were days of fear, and days of blood sacrifices, a pair of black horses to Mars.

Rome was founded within a year or two of - 750 according to Livy and his modern analysts. The Italian Peninsula had been ravaged periodically by forces resulting from close Mars-Earth flybys. Later in this series, we shall demonstrate that those celestial crises occurred on these two days faithfully, and had cycles of 108 years from one flyby to the next. Such cycles of catastrophism pre-dated Noah's Flood by thousands of years.

We shall lay a basis of understanding that the Final Flyby occurred in March, - 701. This was some 50 years after the town of Rome and the Roman state had been founded. Within 50 years of its founding, citizens of Rome already had reserved the Campius Martius for Mars-related sacrificial rites. In addition they already had built temples venerating Saturn and Jupiter. Why these planets also were venerated is an issue which shall be addressed in volume III.

Some six or seven centuries later, Rome had captured and acquired, as tax-paying provinces, Sicily, Carthage, Spain, Greece, Egypt, Asia Minor, Gaul, Armenia, Syria, Palestine and even to some extent, distant Parthia. Greek cosmology followed Persian cosmology, which followed Chaldean cosmology. The Earth was a sphere, which sometimes had been assaulted by another sphere from space, red or electum (silverish gold) in color.

But, the Mars-Earth flybys ceased. In Greece, monthly prognosticators, Areopagites (professors of Mars), seers and star-gazers gradually had been replaced by philosophers. Among them were Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Epimenides, Apollodorus, Heraclides, etc. Heraclides specifically taught that the Earth rotated about its own spin axis, and that the Earth was not circled by any revolving stars.

In Greece, star gazers, monthly prognosticators, Areopagites and seers were replaced by philosophers increasingly given over to themes of stability in the cosmos. As it was in Greece, so it was also in Judah. Fire and brimstone prophets once were high level consultants to kings and priests. No more. Now rabbis, who weren't particularly interested in the planets and their motions, were becoming the scholars of the nation and its schools.

And so, too, it was in Egypt and Rome. Mars had settled down as a mere pinpoint of light in the heavens, never threatening the Earth. Claudius Ptolemy was an astronomer, geographer, mathematician and map-maker in Alexandria in the 2nd century A..D. . He published his Megale Syntaxis tes Astronomias, commonly known as the Almagest.

Eratosthenes (-276 to - 196) had taught that the Earth was a sphere with a circumference of 25,000 miles. Actually our planet's equatorial circumference is 24,902 miles. Posidonius (-135 to - 50) reduced this estimate by 32% and Ptolemy adopted the estimate of Posidonius into a flat Earth system of thought.

Ptolemy copied more errors made by one Marinus, who viewed the Earth as a flat pancake, and he reduced even further the distance estimates of Marinus. He considered the length of the pancake some 8,500 to 9,000 miles, from China to Ireland. The Sun circled the flat Earth in 24 hours; the Moon in slightly over 29.5 days. Ptolemy was part astronomer, part geographer, and was outstanding at neither.

But he had an outstanding publishing house for his "world" maps and his regional maps. His maps and astronomical works were widely published and circulated, and perhaps because he had no protesters, he came to be viewed as the authority of the Roman Empire. From Erastothenes through Posidonus and Marinus to Ptolemy, science took one large-large-large step backward. Following Ptolemy's "success," so did cosmology of the late Roman Empire, the Dark Ages and the Medieval Age.

The older sources and better sources, describing another age, were discarded. Now the Sun circled daily rather than having the Earth rotate. So also the Moon circled the Earth monthly (which is true.) Ptolemy merely accepted the "more modern" ideas of his century. Nobody knew for certain, but perhaps Egypt, the Nile, the Sinai Peninsula and the Suez Isthmus were at or near the pancake's center.

One of the supporting mathematical arguments for Ptolemy's system involved the lunar "epicycles". The Moon's orbit involves certain irregularities, to the human eye. These were categorized as "epicycles" or "deferentís" from "to defer". Ptolemy had these lunar scheduled irregularities, deferentís and epicycles, down pat, as an regular integral part of his system. These "regular irregularities" thus helped to give his system authenticity.

Copernicus

Nicholaus Copernicus, or Mikolaj Kopernik, (1473-1543) was an independent, creative thinker, and his analysis led him in another path. He is claimed as a native son both by the Poles as Kopernik and by the Germans as Copernicus. Both sides have good logic.

He lived in the early part of the 16th century, during the historic sailingís of Diaz, Vasco da Gama and Columbus. Da Gama was the first to sail around Cape of Good Hope and directly across the Indian Ocean, arriving at Calicut on May 19, 1498. By 1502 Columbus was on his fourth voyage to "New Spain". Portugal already was planting colonies along the East African coast at Mozambique, etc. By 1522, Magellan and de Cano had circumnavigated the globe.

Copernicus had studied the stars in the heavens as a youth, and had lectured on astronomy in 1500 in prestigious Rome at the young age of 27. Soon thereafter, in 1503, he received a degree in law at Ferrara.

After much questioning and investigating, Copernicus probably conceived his basic concept about the order of the solar system as early as 1503, by his thirtieth birthday. Working diligently and quietly, he had his revolutionary work practically complete for publication only four years later, by 1507. Its title was De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestrium.

But he delayed publishing because first, it was controversial and most publishers felt safer steering clear of controversy. (Among publishers, there is ever a reputation to be maintained). Secondly, he was genuinely afraid of the possibility of being burned at the stake by overzealous, uninformed accusers. Thirdly, by 1525, the "wild fire" spread of the Reformation had already begun spreading across Germany and Switzerland, and into Poland.

Copernicus feared for his life for over 30 years, while trying to play it semi-safe. Potential publishers were hard to find. On one side, Luther castigated Copernicus from Lutheran pulpits in Germany, although Melancthon, a close associate, wisely advised Luther to be more cautious.

Luther appealed to the 10th chapter of Joshua, that it was the Sun that was reported to have stood still in the skyscape and not the Earth, and that was that. (Neither Copernicus nor Luther had heard of uncertainties in old Hebrew as to what length of time the Hebrew word for "about a day" precisely meant. And knowledge of gyroscopes and their odd behavior, when experiencing torques, was some 300 years in the future.

Papal prelates also castigated Copernicus from Italy to France to Spain to England and Poland, and back again. We aren't really sure whether it was primarily Copernicus or primarily his publisher who elected to play it safe during those stormy years in Northern Europe. At any rate, after Gutenberg, printing presses had become a fact of life in Northern Europe, and printing houses were proliferating.

By 1542, Copernicus, now 69, realized he didn't have very long to live. Thus, being burned at the stake held less and less fear for him. And getting published held more and more importance. He found an agreeable publisher, a Protestant publishing house, and authorized the publishing. The typesetting proceeded promptly.

The next year, 1543, the first few copies arrived at the home of Copernicus in Frauenburg, some 50 miles south of Linz... on May 24, l543, the very day he died. He died happy, having fingered through the pages of his new book. His happiness was marred only by the fact his publisher, Osiander, slipped in an anonymous preface aimed at disarming or defusing the expected prejudice.

Copernicus spent his last 30 years at Frauenberg, Austria, in the service of the Catholic church, as prelate and medical doctor. This was German-speaking territory. Thus, with respect to both birth and residence, it is correct to consider Copernicus a German as well as a Pole.

Claudius Ptolemy had driven cosmology a big step backward in the 2nd century A..D. Conversely, some fourteen centuries later, Copernicus gave cosmology a giant step forward, although few realized it at the time. His theory became foundational in the science of astronomy. But more to the point, in Northern Europe his theory also became foundational in the very concept of science itself.

Copernicus' concept was put into a Calvinist system. This new concept, a Calvinistic concept, was that if God created a system of spiritual laws, perhaps He created a system of natural laws also. This idea of a system of natural laws, according to Weber, Tawney and others, is an idea that occurred only once in the history of man. It happened in northern Europe, mostly among Calvinists.

This means that, despite scientific gadgetry, natural laws as a system of thought did not occur to the ancient Chinese, Chaldeans, Persians, Romans, Indo-Aryans, Greeks, Romans or Moslems. The sons of the Reformation were the first to ask the key question. The key question was that if God had established spiritual laws, perhaps He also had established natural laws.

Copernicus' work was then investigated by an open-minded astronomer, Tycho Brahe and his assistant, Johannes Kepler. Coupled with Kepler's proof, involving his three laws of planetary motion, this was the biggest of the birth pangs in the birthing of modern science. The West, and science with it, was in the process of taking another big step forward.

Let us also consider one of the warts and blemishes in the Copernican system; it was not perfect. For instance, Copernicus concluded that all planets orbit around the Sun in circles; circles were the perfection of curved geometry. It took l00 years to establish the proof of the Copernican system. That was achieved by Johannes Kepler (1571-1630), who also pointed out that all orbits are ellipses, not circles as Copernicus had presumed.

The Gradualists: SWEDENBORG, KANT AND LAPLACE

Next in cosmology came the gradualists in the 18th century, led by Swedenborg, Kant and LaPlace. They simply (and simplistically) assumed, and in that sense they claimed, that the astronomical conditions of the Solar System's present is merely a four billion year extension of astronomical conditions past.

They implied there was not much difference between the Solar System history over the last three billion years, that is, after the planets had accreted and found their current orbits. We are about to show that unique assumption is unsound. It does not mesh well with much, much evidence, available and widely scattered across our Solar System.

Much of the contradictory evidence we cite is less than 30 years old. It includes space mission photographs of the surfaces, and hence the physical geography, of such planets as Mars, Mercury, Venus, and various of the satellites of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.

Gradualists have not, do not and cannot forthrightly face the evidence we are about to present. Therefore, we shall point out what will become obvious. The evidence about to be displayed is that the gradualists of the l8th, l9th and 20th centuries, just like Claudius Ptolemy, Posidonius and Marinus, have given cosmology a second huge step backward. As Claudius Ptolemy did in the 2nd century, so also Swedenborg, Kant and Laplace did in the 18th century.

What cosmology needs is a third giant step forward. Catastrophes, in evidence in the surfaces of the planets throughout the Solar System (including the Earth) are superb clues as to WHAT happened, and also to some extent, WHEN they happened.

One book, even a very thick book, cannot contain the evidence, so voluminous as the physical evidence happens to be. Our design is therefore to present some of the basic solar system evidence in one book. Those volumes are:

To this trio, depending on the results of experimentation currently in process, perhaps there will be another work, "The Earth's Ancient Atmosphere, a Greenhouse Effect."

A Seventy Story Skyscraper

Our hope is to build a 70-story skyscraper. The plans are nearly complete. But before construction commences, the old mansion, on the desired property, on Cosmology Street, must be purchased, demolished, and its rubble hauled to the dump.

We find the old mansion to be freshly painted on the outside. The most recent coat is its ninth or tenth coat of glossy, attractive paint. From a distance, the junker looks old fashioned, but attractive, almost elegant. Its yard is well-manicured. Nevertheless its support beams, its plumbing, its ventilation, its wiring and its roof need inspection.

Despite exterior attractiveness, we find plumbing and its heating are not in working order. The roof leaks, as does the basement. The joists and beams are filled with termites and ants. The doors creak. The rugs are soggy and split. The flooring is warped beyond repair. The place smells and the windows won't open. The wiring is lacking. This is the popular Swedenborg-Kant cosmology, the "nebular hypothesis," still taught as if it were fact.

Stage # 1, after the purchase of the property, is a long overdue demolition and removal of the rubble. Then, and only then, can construction of a skyscraper of cosmology commence.

PREVIEW. Stage 1 will address the fact that our solar system contains at least three pairs of spin rates. The Earth has a spin rate of 1436 minutes (23 hours, 56 minutes, sidereal time). Mars, our close neighbor, has a spin rate of 1477 minutes. Mars, the smaller planet, spins 2.8% slower. Gradualists, having no explanation, consider this striking similarity to be "an interesting coincidence".

Jupiter has a spin rate of 9 hours, 50 minutes, 30 seconds. Saturn, the smaller of the two, has a spin rate of 10 hours, 15 minutes. Saturn spins 4% more slowly than does its closest neighbor, the giant Jupiter. Are these twin spins another "coincidence"? If so, it now is "coincidence squared", or even coincidence to the third power. We do acknowledge coincidences occur, but coincidence squared? There must be a better answer, a standard process.

Neptune has a spin rate of once in 17.83 hours. Uranus, its nearest neighbor, has a spin rate in 17.20 hours. When gradualists appraise this, it becomes yet a third coincidence of planetary rotation.

If so, this trio of twin spins is "coincidence cubed," that is, "coincidence" raised to the third power. This is just the beginning of much evidence which misguided gradualists classify as mere "coincidence" or "chance". Perhaps twin spins actually are a result of a repeating catastrophic process. We raise this question.

We point out three pairs of neighborly spin twins.

That is the preview. Consider these words addressed to Job in ancient times:

Conclusion

The cosmology of the latter part of the Roman Empire was established by a geographer, Ptolemy. His system overturned a previous one of catastrophism inherited from the Greeks, the Persians and Chaldeans. Therein, the Earth was viewed as one of the seven spheres in the heavens, and the rampaging, ravaging Mars was viewed as another of those spheres circling the Sun in the cosmos.

Ptolemy's "flat Earth" cosmology was accepted, seemingly by default. It prevailed for 1,400 years, but was overturned eventually by Copernicus, and his followers such as Tycho Brahe, Johannes Kepler, Galileo Galilei, Isaac Newton, Edmund Halley, etc.

The cosmology of our 20th century was established in the 18th century by Swedenborg, Kant and Laplace. Its essence has been gradualism. Kant and Laplace were hostile toward traditional Biblical themes, whether it be in ethics, history, poetry or origins, whether it be old or new testament.

The new dogma was that no major orbital changes have occurred in the last 4,000,000,000 years, or perhaps more. The Sun was radiating then about as brightly as it is now. The Moon somehow slowly accreted and formed. Its orbit was near the Earth, and was captured on the fly. Both were some 93,000,000 miles from the Sun at the time. Twin spins among the planets occur by chance. Three cases of twin spins are merely chance raised to the third power. Given enough time, anything could happen and these spin rate coincidences did.

Perhaps, this 260-year old cosmology is overdue for either an overhaul, or perhaps for total demolition and replacement. Designing a new 70-story, tapered, pyramid-shaped tower will be difficult, intricate, and fun. Thus, the case for demolition of the old junker (the Nebular Hypothesis) is continued to Chapter 2 and beyond.

Footnotes

F1 Berossus, Babylonaica. 1978, Malibu, CA, Undina Publ.