Thankyous

The Curse of King Tut

Among the world's most famous curses is the "Curse of the Pharaoh," also known as King Tut's Curse. Ever since King Tutankhamun's tomb was discovered in Egypt's Valley of the Kings, stories circulated that those who dared violate the boy king's final resting place faced a terrible curse.

Though not as dramatic as a murderous mummy, it is widely claimed that many people associated with opening the tomb fell soon victim to the curse, dying under mysterious circumstances. The legend gained traction because a few of the people who were involved in finding the tomb did, in fact, die not long after it was opened.

Did financier pay with his life?

The highest profile death associated with the curse is probably that of George Edward Stanhope Molyneux Herbert, the fifth Earl of Carnarvon, a British aristocrat and amateur Egyptologist who helped finance the search. His death on March 25, 1923 — a year after the tomb was opened — is widely regarded as mysterious, but, in fact, he suffered from poor health before he arrived in Cairo, and in any event died from a decidedly mundane mosquito-carried disease. The idea of a curse was promoted by no less a prominent person than Sherlock Holmes creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (who also wrote a book explaining that fairieswere real).

There were many dozens of people connected in some way to opening Tutankhamun's tomb (ranging from security guards to archaeologists), and out of that many people some unexpected deaths would be expected by random chance. In his book "An Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural," investigator James Randi notes that "the average duration of life for ... those who should have suffered the ancient curse was more than twenty-three years after the 'curse' was supposed to become effective. Carnarvon's daughter died in 1980, a full fifty-seven years later. Howard Carter, who not only discovered the tomb and physically opened it, but also removed the mummy of Tutankhamun from the sarcophagus, lived until 1939, sixteen years after that event."

Not only did Carter live to a fairly ripe age of 64 before succumbing to cancer, but Sgt. Richard Adamson, a member of Carter's team who guarded the burial chamber round the clock for seven years and was the European closest to Tutankhamun's remains, lived for another 60 years until his death in 1982. And he is not alone; Randi notes, "This group died at an average age of seventy-three plus years, beating the actuarial tables for persons of that period and social class by about a year. The Curse of the Pharaoh is a beneficial curse, it seems." [Photos: The Life and Death of King Tut]

Why a curse?

So where did the curse come from? According to Randi, "When Tut's tomb was discovered and opened in 1922, it was a major archaeological event. In order to keep the press at bay and yet allow them a sensational aspect with which to deal, the head of the excavation team, Howard Carter, put out a story that a curse had been placed upon anyone who violated the rest of the boy-king." Carter did not invent the idea of a cursed tomb, but he did exploit it to keep intruders away from his history-making discovery.

In fact, the tombs of all royalty — not just Tutankhamun's — were said to have exactly the same "curse" and had been opened with no resulting evil effects. Howard Carter was far from alone in making an effort to scare away potential grave robbers with the threat of supernatural wrath. Indeed, a famous writer offered a very similar curse:

Good frend, for Iesus sake forebeare

To digge the dust encloased heare.

Bleste be ye man [that] spares these stones,

And curste be he [that] moves my bones."

"Blessed be the man that spares these stones, and cursed be he that moves my bones": This is William Shakespeare's epitaph, dating back to 1616. Though the world's best-known dramatist, Shakespeare was not being dramatic when he wrote these words. Instead, he was trying to prevent something unsavory that neither his fame nor fortune could deter: his corpse being dug up by grave robbers. These "anatomists" did not covet the Bard's body out of spite or malice but instead wanted it for the sake of science, to sell to doctors for medical use in schools.

Shakespeare was only one of many at the time concerned about post-mortem theft; grave robbing was quite common during Shakespeare's time and long before. Whether Howard Carter, King Tut, or William Shakespeare truly believed in curses is irrelevant; the important thing is that those who might disturb their graves believe in them. And it worked: nearly a century after Tut's tomb was opened, many people still believe in it

who was Babylonian?

ancient cultural region occupying southeastern Mesopotamia between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers (modern southern Iraq from around Baghdad to the Persian Gulf). Because the city of Babylon was the capital of this area for so many centuries, the term Babylonia has come to refer to the entire culture that developed in the area from the time it was first settled, about 4000 bce. Before Babylon’s rise to political prominence (c. 1850 bce), however, the area was divided into two countries: Sumer in the southeast and Akkad in the northwest.

A brief treatment of Babylonia follows. For full treatment, seeMesopotamia, history of.

The history of Sumer and Akkad is one of constant warfare. The Sumerian city-states fought one another for the control of the region and rendered it vulnerable to invasion from Akkad and from its neighbour to the east, Elam. Despite the series of political crises that marked their history, however, Sumer and Akkad developed rich cultures. The Sumerians were responsible for the first system of writing, cuneiform; the earliest known codes of law; the development of the city-state; the invention of the potter’s wheel, the sailboat, and the seed plow; and the creation of literary, musical, and architectural forms that influenced all of Western civilization.

This cultural heritage was adopted by the Sumerians’ and Akkadians’ successors, the Amorites, a western Semitic tribe that had conquered all of Mesopotamia by about 1900 bce. Under the rule of the Amorites, which lasted until about 1600 bce, Babylon became the political and commercial centre of the Tigris-Euphrates area, and Babylonia became a great empire, encompassing all of southern Mesopotamia and part ofAssyria to the north. The ruler largely responsible for this rise to power was Hammurabi (c. 1792–1750 bce), the sixth king of the 1st dynasty of Babylon, who forged coalitions between the separate city-states, promoted science and scholarship, and promulgated his famous code of law.

After Hammurabi’s death, the Babylonian empire declined until 1595 bce, when the Hittite invaderMursil I unseated the Babylonian king Samsuditana, allowing the Kassites from the mountains east of Babylonia to assume power and establish a dynasty that lasted 400 years.

During the last few centuries of Kassite rule, religion and literature flourished in Babylonia, the most important literary work of the period being the Enuma Elish, the Babylonian epic of creation. During this same time, however, Assyria broke away from Babylonian control and developed as an independent empire, threatening the Kassite dynasty in Babylonia and on a few occasions temporarily gaining control. Elam, too, grew powerful and ultimately conquered most of Babylonia, felling the Kassite dynasty (c. 1157 bce).

In a series of wars, a new line of Babylonian kings, the 2nd dynasty of the city of Isin, was established. Its most outstanding member, Nebuchadrezzar I (reigned c. 1124–1103 bce), defeated Elam and successfully fought off Assyrian advances for some years.

For several centuries following Nebuchadrezzar I’s rule, a three-way struggle developed among the Assyrians and Aramean and Chaldean tribesmen for control of Babylonia. From the 9th century to the fall of the Assyrian empire in the late 7th century bce, Assyrian kings most frequently ruled over Babylonia, often appointing sub-kings to administer the government. The last ruling Assyrian king wasAshurbanipal, who fought a civil war against his brother, the sub-king in Babylon, devastating the city and its population.

Upon Ashurbanipal’s death, a Chaldean leader, Nabopolassar, made Babylon his capital and instituted the last and greatest period of Babylonian supremacy. His son Nebuchadrezzar II (reigned 605–562 bce) conquered Syria and Palestine; he is best remembered for the destruction of Judah and Jerusalem in 587 bce and for the ensuing Babylonian captivity of the Jews. He also revitalized Babylon, constructing the wondrous hanging gardens and rebuilding the Temple of Marduk and its accompanying ziggurat.

The Persians, under Cyrus the Great, captured Babylonia from Nebuchadrezzar’s last successorNabonidus in 539 bce. Thereafter, Babylonia ceased to be independent, passing eventually in 331 bce toAlexander the Great, who planned to make Babylon the capital of his empire and who died in Nebuchadrezzar’s palace. After Alexander’s death, however, the Seleucids eventually abandoned Babylon, bringing an end to one of the greatest empires in history.

WHAT CAME BEFORE THE BIG BANG?

Astronomers are pretty sure what happened after the Big Bang, but what came before? What are the leading theories for the causes of the Big Bang?

About 13.8 billion years ago the Universe started with a bang, kicked the doors in, brought fancy cheeses and a bag of ice, spiked the punch bowl and invited the new neighbors over for all-nighter to encompass all all-nighters from that point forward.

But what happened before that?

What was going on before the Big Bang? Usually, we tell the story of the Universe by starting at the Big Bang and then talking about what happened after. Similarly and completely opposite to how astronomers view the Universe… by standing in the present and looking backwards. From here, the furthest we can look back is to the cosmic microwave background, which is about 380,000 years after the big bang.

Before that we couldn’t hope to see a thing, the Universe was just too hot and dense to be transparent. Like pea soup. Soup made of delicious face burning high energy everything.

In traditional stupid earth-bound no-Tardis life unsatisfactory fashion, we can’t actually observe the origin of the Universe from our place in time and space.

Damn you… place in time and space.

Fortunately, the thinky types have come up with some ideas, and they’re all one part crazy, one part mind bendy, and 100% bananas. The first idea is that it all began as a kind of quantum fluctuation that inflated to our present universe.

There was universe “here”, that isn’t our universe, then that universe became a black hole… and from that black hole formed us and EVERYTHING around us. Literally, everything around us. In every direction we look, and even the stuff we just assume to be out there.Something very, very subtle expanding over time resulting in, as an accidental byproduct, our existence. The alternate idea is that our universe began within a black hole of an older universe.

I’m gonna let you think about that one. Just let your brain simmer there.

Here’s another one. We see particles popping into existence here in our Universe. What if, after an immense amount of time, a whole Universe’s worth of particles all popped into existence at the same time. Seriously… an immense amount of time, with lots and lots of “almost” universes that didn’t make the cut.

What caused the financial crisis in 2008?

The United States slipped into a minor recession right after 9/11, so the government used its control over how much money is circulating to make it cheaper to borrow money. Because interest rates were low, people borrowed a lot of money and used much of it to buy houses. While this was happening, home prices were increasing year after year, and everyone assumed this would continue forever.

But then the government decided the 9/11 recession was over and decided to raise interest rates nationally. Suddenly people owed creditors more money each month for their home loans, because their personal interest rates were not set in stone and instead were set to fluctuate with national rates. As the cost of paying creditors back increased, a lot of people all at the same time found themselves without enough money to keep paying for their homes. The creditors responded by taking ownership of these houses with the intention to sell them to someone else. But all of these homes going up for sale at the same meant that houses were suddenly abundant. With everyone looking to sell newly acquired houses, home prices fell. For people still paying their mortgages, payment schemes reflected the old, higher home values, so many individuals simply allowed creditors to take possession of their homes rather than pay creditors more than their homes were suddenly worth.

As these houses went up for sale, home prices were driven down even further and created a self-perpetuating cycle.

The continued fall in the home prices affected homeowners and those still committed to paying off their mortgages because the worth of their most valuable asset dropped. Importantly, the banks that originally arranged the mortgages that so many Americans were unable to pay or had walked away from no longer owned the debt of their one-time customers. They sold the right to people's future interest payments to larger financial institutions that put the mortgages of many, many people together and allowed investors to in effect invest little slices of these huge mortgage bundles. This meant that investors were betting that people would keep paying their mortgages and would earn money so long as that was the case.

When people either couldn't pay their mortgages or decided it was smarter to just stop paying, investors who had bet on these mortgages came to realize their earlier bets were much riskier than many of them had understood and lost a lot of money. This was the collapse of the investment banks and their related insurance organizations.

It wasn't just investment banks who had a stake in these mortgages, though. Many ordinary Americans' savings were to some extent tied up them through stock ownership and where their pensions were invested. As a result, many people became poorer than they had been only a few months before and reacted by spending less. Now Americans were spending less because their homes were worth less, their stock was worth less, and their savings were worth less. Businesses reacted to decreased interest in buying their products by producing fewer products. Because businesses were earning less revenue, they lowered salaries and fired employees no longer necessary for lower levels of production.

As people across the country adjusted to lower incomes and joblessness, they too cut back on their spending, which compounded the situation and led even more businesses to lower salaries and fire workers. This brings us to pretty close to where we are now. As a country, we have begun creating more jobs each month than we lose but just barely. And these new jobs pay much less than the old jobs did and are largely temporary as businesses wait to see if Americans' demand for their goods increases to levels that justify permanent hiring.

There's a ton more to the story about exactly why everyone was so sure housing prices would keep rising, where regulatory organizations failed, how banks encouraged reckless lending, and a bunch of other really important stuff, but this is a chain of cause and effect at the center of a lot of the mayhem.

Could time travel soon become a reality?

If a time traveller went back in time and stopped their own grandparents from meeting, would they prevent their own birth?

That’s the crux of an infamous theory known as the 'grandfather paradox', which is often said to mean time travel is impossible - but some researchers think otherwise.

A group of scientists have simulated how time-travelling photons might behave, suggesting that, at the quantum level, the grandfather paradox could be resolved

The research was carried out by a team of researchers at the University of Queensland in Australia and their results are published in the journal Nature Communications.

The study used photons - single particles of light - to simulate quantum particles travelling back through time.

By studying their behaviour, the scientists revealed possible bizarre aspects of modern physics

In the simulation, the researchers examined two possible outcomes for a time-travelling photon.

In the simulation, the researchers examined the behaviour of a photon traveling through time and interacting with its older self.

In their experiment they made use of the closely related, fictitious, case where the photon travels through normal space-time and interacts with another photon that is stuck in a time-travelling loop through a wormhole, known as a closed timelike curve (CTC). 

Simulating the behaviour of this second photon, they were able to study the behaviour of the first - and the results show that consistent evolutions can be achieved when preparing the second photon in just the right way.

By definition ‘quantum’ refers to the smallest possible particles that can independently exist - such as photons.

However, for macroscopic systems time-travel still faces problematic paradoxes.

In 1991 it was first predicted that time travel would be possible in the ‘quantum world’ because quantum particles behave almost outside the realms of physics.

'The properties of quantum particles are "fuzzy" or uncertain to start with, so this gives them enough wiggle room to avoid inconsistent time travel situations,' said professor Timothy Ralph, one of the researchers on the latest study.

The results also give a better understand to how two theories in physics, on the biggest and smallest scales, are able to relate to one another.

'The question of time travel features at the interface between two of our most successful yet incompatible physical theories ' Einstein's general relativity and quantum mechanics,' said PhD student Martin Ringbauer from the University of Queensland.

'Einstein's theory describes the world at the very large scale of stars and galaxies, while quantum mechanics is an excellent description of the world at the very small scale of atoms and molecules.'

Einstein's theory suggests the possibility of travelling backwards in time by following a space-time path that returns to the starting point in space but at an earlier time - a closed timelike curve (CTC).

This possibility has puzzled physicists and philosophers alike since it was discovered by Austrian-American scientist Kurt Gödel in 1949, as it seems to cause paradoxes in the classical world.

These include the 'grandparents paradox', where a time traveller could stop their grandparents from meeting, thus preventing the time traveller's birth.

This would make it impossible for the time traveller to have set out in the first place.

But this new research suggests that such interactions might indeed be possible - albeit only on a quantum level.

Where Did Dragons Come From?

Around the world, people are celebrating the Chinese New Year and the start to the Year of the Dragon. This got us wondering: Where did the myth of the dragon come from in the first place? Scholars say that belief in dragons probably evolved independently in both Europe and China, and perhaps in the Americas and Australia as well. How could this happen? Many have speculated about which real-life animals inspired the first legends. Here’s our run-down of the likeliest suspects.

Dinosaurs. Ancient people may have discovered dinosaur fossils and understandably misinterpreted them as the remains of dragons. Chang Qu, a Chinese historian from the 4th century B.C., mislabeled such a fossil in what is now Sichuan Province. Take a look at a fossilized stegosaurus, for example, and you might see why: The giant beasts averaged 30 feet in length, were typically 14 feet tall and were covered in armored plates and spikes for defense.

The Nile Crocodile. Native to sub-Saharan Africa, Nile crocodiles may have had a more extensive range in ancient times, perhaps inspiring European dragon legends by swimming across the Mediterranean to Italy or Greece. They are among the largest of all crocodile species, with mature individuals reaching up to 18 feet in length—and unlike most others, they are capable of a movement called the “high walk,” in which the trunk is elevated off the ground. A giant, lumbering croc? Might be easy to mistake for a dragon.

The Goanna. Australia is home to a number of species of monitor lizards, also referred to as Goannas. The large, predatory animals have razor-sharp teeth and claws, and they are important figures in traditional Aboriginal folklore. Recent studies even indicate that Goannas may produce venom that causes bite victims’ wounds to develop infections after an attack. At least in Australia, these creatures may be responsible for the dragon myth.

Whales. Others argue that the discovery of megafauna such as whales prompted stories of dragons. Ancient humans encountering whale bones would have no way of knowing that the animals were sea-based, and the idea of such gargantuan creatures might well have led people to assume that whales were predatory. Because live whales spend up to 90 percent of their time underwater, they were poorly understood for most of human history.

The Human Brain. The most fascinating explanation involves an unexpected animal: the human. In his book An Instinct for Dragons, anthropologist David E. Jones argues that belief in dragons is so widespread among ancient cultures because evolution embedded an innate fear of predators in the human mind. Just as monkeys have been shown to exhibit a fear of snakes and large cats, Jones hypothesizes that the trait of fearing large predators—such as pythons, birds of prey and elephants—has been selected for in hominids. In more recent times, he argues, these universal fears have been frequently combined in folklore and created the myth of the dragon