Stonehenge: A Universe in Stone Part Two: A Sonic Pattern of the Universe
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Abstract
In part one we saw how the production of sound might have been a key component in the design of Stonehenge. We saw also how its layout appears to reflect the use of a unit of measure equaling 9 imperial feet (2.74 meters), while various of its individual components conform to a decagonal geometry based upon both the regular dodecahedron and the small stellated dodecahedron. If these surmises are correct, then how might Stonehenge’s underlying geometry relate to the monument’s potential role as a sonic temple?
Answering this question requires us to explore the ancient Greek belief that the universe possesses a dodecahedral structure. Moreover, that the universe emits a primordial sound that, although inaudible to the human ear, can be reproduced using musical harmonies.
The most enigmatic "foreign" stone at Stonehenge is its Altar Stone. Long thought to have been sourced from the Old Red Sandstone beds of South Wales, new studies have focused on its origin in the Orcadian Basin of northeastern Scotland, either in the Caithness region or in the Orkney Isles. Despite one paper (Bevins et al, 2024) providing compelling evidence that the Altar Stone does not exactly match the composition of Old Red Sandstone beds on the Orkney Mainland, those responsible for transporting the stone to Stonehenge were almost certainly its original builders, the Grooved Ware culture, who first emerged on Orkney during the Late Neolithic. We look at everything known about the Altar Stone and how its presence at Stonehenge might relate to its construction. We also go in search of its lost companion, and examine where both these huge monoliths might have stood within the monument, and how all this might relate to the monument's underlying geometry.
Plato used a dodecahedron as the quintessence to describe the cosmos. In this paper wewill prove the shape of the Universe is Poincaré dodecahedral space. From thedimensionless unification of the fundamental interactions will propose a possible solutionfor the density parameters of baryonic matter,dark matter and dark energy. The sum of thecontributions to the total density parameter at the current time is Ω0=1.0139. This resultanswers the ancient question of whether space is finite or infinite,while retaining thestandard Friedmann–Lemaître foundation for local physics.
Many of the world’s volcanoes are hidden beneath the ocean’s surface where eruptions are difficult to observe. However, seismo‐acoustic signals produced by these eruptions provide a useful means of identifying active submarine volcanism. A literature survey revealed reports of 119 seismo‐acoustically recorded submarine eruptions since 1939. Submarine eruptions have been recorded in all major tectonic settings, with a range of geochemistries, and at a variety of water depths, but the reports are dominated by eruptions in the Pacific and at only a few locations. Many of the reports offer little detail, with over half of the observations made from distances >500 km, and only about half were confirmed as eruptions by non‐seismo‐acoustic evidence. The reported seismo‐acoustic signals cover a wide variety of processes, including earthquakes, explosions, various types of tremor, signals related to lava extrusion, and landslides. Recorded signals can sometimes be difficult to classify or confidently associate with an eruption, although there has been progress in this regard. Real‐time monitoring of submarine eruptions has been on‐going for several decades on regional and global scales with growing interest and effort in local networks. Real‐time networks are complemented by short‐term instrument deployments that often give more detailed insights into the dynamics and processes of submarine eruptions. Thorough seismo‐acoustic monitoring and study has increased our understanding of submarine eruptions, especially of deep‐sea volcanoes and spreading centers. Despite this, there are still many outstanding questions that need to be addressed for submarine volcanoes to be as well understood and monitored as their terrestrial counterparts.
With social rituals usually involving sound, an archaeological understanding of a site requires the acoustics to be assessed. This paper demonstrates how this can be done with acoustic scale models. Scale modelling is an established method in architectural acoustics, but it has not previously been applied to prehistoric monuments. The Stonehenge model described here allows the acoustics in the Late Neolithic and early Bronze Age to be quantified and the effects on musical sounds and speech to be inferred. It was found that the stone reflections create an average mid-frequency reverberation time of (0.64 ± 0.03) seconds and an amplification of (4.3 ± 0.9) dB for speech. The model has a more accurate representation of the prehistoric geometry, giving a reverberation time that is significantly greater than that measured in the current ruin and a full-size concrete replica at Maryhill, USA. The amplification could have aided speech communication and the reverberation improved musical sounds. How Stonehenge was used is much debated, but these results show that sounds were improved within the circle compared to outside. Stonehenge had different configurations, especially in terms of the positions of the bluestones. However, this made inaudible changes to the acoustics, suggesting sound is unlikely to be the underlying motivation for the various arrangements.
In the present study, the brain’s response towards near- and supra-threshold infrasound (IS) stimulation (sound frequency < 20 Hz) was investigated under resting-state fMRI conditions. The study involved two consecutive sessions. In the first session, 14 healthy participants underwent a hearing threshold—as well as a categorical loudness scaling measurement in which the individual loudness perception for IS was assessed across different sound pressure levels (SPL). In the second session, these participants underwent three resting-state acquisitions, one without auditory stimulation (no-tone), one with a monaurally presented 12-Hz IS tone (near-threshold) and one with a similar tone above the individual hearing threshold corresponding to a ‘medium loud’ hearing sensation (supra-threshold). Data analysis mainly focused on local connectivity measures by means of regional homogeneity (ReHo), but also involved independent component analysis (ICA) to investigate inter-regional connectivity. ReHo analysis revealed significantly higher local connectivity in right superior temporal gyrus (STG) adjacent to primary auditory cortex, in anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and, when allowing smaller cluster sizes, also in the right amygdala (rAmyg) during the near-threshold, compared to both the supra-threshold and the no-tone condition. Additional independent component analysis (ICA) revealed large-scale changes of functional connectivity, reflected in a stronger activation of the right amygdala (rAmyg) in the opposite contrast (no-tone > near-threshold) as well as the right superior frontal gyrus (rSFG) during the near-threshold condition. In summary, this study is the first to demonstrate that infrasound near the hearing threshold may induce changes of neural activity across several brain regions, some of which are known to be involved in auditory processing, while others are regarded as keyplayers in emotional and autonomic control. These findings thus allow us to speculate on how continuous exposure to (sub-)liminal IS could exert a pathogenic influence on the organism, yet further (especially longitudinal) studies are required in order to substantialize these findings.
This paper investigates the acoustic culture of Stonehenge, an iconic British prehistoric stone circle. It addresses references to the structure within popular music culture, as well as Thomas Hardy’s discussion of the site. It investigates ritual activities in prehistory from an analytical consideration of its acoustics, using theoretical, digital modeling, physical modeling and field measurement approaches. Stonehenge in prehistory is found to have significant acoustic features that are likely to have had an impact in prehistory. Conclusions are drawn about what we can learn from the similarities between ritualistic musical culture in prehistory and in contemporary popular culture.
The discovery of a dismantled stone circle—close to Stonehenge's bluestone quarries in west Wales—raises the possibility that a 900-year-old legend about Stonehenge being built from an earlier stone circle contains a grain of truth. Radiocarbon and OSL dating of Waun Mawn indicate construction c. 3000 BC, shortly before the initial construction of Stonehenge. The identical diameters of Waun Mawn and the enclosing ditch of Stonehenge, and their orientations on the midsummer solstice sunrise, suggest that at least part of the Waun Mawn circle was brought from west Wales to Salisbury Plain. This interpretation complements recent isotope work that supports a hypothesis of migration of both people and animals from Wales to Stonehenge.<br/
In line with the growing recognition of fifth century Pythagoreans as the main developers of a Pythagorean philosophy , the article offers a reconstruction of Philolaus’ metaphysical framework, arguing for its potential explanatory power and anticipating some key notions in ancient metaphysics. Starting from the scala naturae in B13, I reconstruct Philolaus’ overall metaphysical framework from his fragments, exploring how it might have worked when applied to micro-macrocosmic ontology. Key to this reconstruction is musical harmony. It is shown how, by using musical harmony as a paradigm and making explicit its mathematical structure, Philolaus (a) possessed a rather sophisticated explanatory framework, capable of accounting for the complex structure of the cosmos and of living beings; and (b) began to grasp the importance of a normative, abstract, structural principles working at a different metaphysical level from the constituents of things, thus anticipating Aristotle’s distinction between material and formal causes.
By means of frequencies derived from the mathematics of the Mereon Matrix, the CymaScope (a sonic visualising technology presented in Appendix B) was used to make the matrix visible in the predicted medium, water (see the Preface to the First Edition). It revealed minute details of the complex structure and the dynamics of Mereon Matrix. This chapter summarises a series of related investigations made using the CymaScope. This technology revealed how the difference of only 1/100th of a hertz makes a remarkable distinction; cymatic images of living matter are shown to display the Mereon symmetry, expanding our understanding and increasing our ability to consider how this vibratory pattern relates to how everything is connected. © 2018 by World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved.