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Wolfgang Bruno - Special guest contributor, international man of mystery. May make an appearance now and again.
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Muslims Want Mecca Mean Time
News from: BBC, Fox News, Asia News:
A conference was recently held in Qatar, entitled: "Mecca, the Centre of the Earth, Theory and Practice." The meeting was attended by scholars and scientists, though there was remarkably little science on show. The scholars suggested that Mecca was the real "centre" of the earth.
Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawy, spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, claimed that "modern science" had "evidence" to show Mecca was the center of the earth.
Another speaker, a geologist, claimed that the English had imposed Greenwich Mean Time on the world, and it was time that the situation changed. He also claimed that the longitude of Mecca placed it in perfect alignment to magnetic north.
The geologist obviously does not understand what current notions of longitude represent. Greenwich is the site of the "meridian", a line that is used in maps to indicate 0 degrees of longitude. It also represents the point from which all other time zones are measured.
The meridian that crosses at Greenwich does not point to magnetic north. It points to the geographic North Pole, which is a fixed point on the earth's surface, representing the axis around which the globe spins.
Magnetic north, on the other hand, is not a fixed point. It is constantly moving. In May 2001, data showed the North Magnetic Pole is currently moving northwest at 25 miles per year. In 2001, the North Magnetic Pole was located at Latitude 81 degrees and 3 minutes North, Longitude 110 degrees and 8 minutes West.
The geologist at the Qatar conference who said that Mecca was in perfect alignment to magnetic north was either a fool or a liar. On the current co-ordinates (where Greenwhich has longitude 0), Mecca is situated at 21 degrees 29 minutes North, 39 degrees, 45 minutes East. There is no longitudinal correlation with the position of the North Magnetic Pole.
What is shameful is that the claims of these Islamic experts have to be challenged, broken down and refuted. There will be many Muslims around the world who will accept the claims as fact, and sadly these will not be caring about what science states.
Already there are websites and YouTube videos which appear desperate to prove Islamic traditions that Mohammed split the moon in half.
Lines Of Longitude
The philosopher Aristotle (384 - 322 BC) argued that the earth was round. Previous philosophers such as Thales (624 BC - c 546 BC) asserted the earth was flat, while Anaximander (c 610 BC - c 546 BC) claimed the earth was a stone cylinder. Aristotle's proof came from the shadow of the earth on the surface of the moon during a lunar eclipse. The earth's shadow is always circular and never elliptical, as may happen if the earth were a flat disc, indicating that our planet is spherical.
In the Natural History of Pliny the Elder (who died in the eruption of Vesuvius, 79 AD), the shape of the earth is described in Book 2, chapter 2, paragraph 2 thus: "That it has the form of a perfect globe we learn from the name which has been uniformly given to it, as well as from numerous natural arguments. For not only does a figure of this kind return everywhere into itself and sustain itself, also including itself, requiring no adjustments, not sensible of either end or beginning in any of its parts, and is best fitted for that motion, with which, as will appear hereafter, it is continually turning round; but still more, because we perceive it, by the evidence of the sight, to be, in every part, convex and central, which could not be the case were it of any other figure."
Eratosthenes of Cyrene (276-194 BC) had measured the earth's circumference to be 250,000 stadia. If one takes the value of one stadium to be 157 metres, the result is surprisingly accurate. He also measured the tilt of the earth's axis and was the first person to devise a map system based upon latitude and longitude. The latitudes were named after certain locations, such as Alexandria, Syene and Meroe in the south of his "map", and the longitudes similarly, after the Pillars of Hercules (Gibraltar), Carthage, Rhodes and others.
The work of Eratosthenes was expanded b Hipparchus of Nicaea (190 - 120 BC). Using spherical geometry, Hipparchus placed existing locations onto a grid of latitude and longitude. Hipparchus also calculated the distance of the moon from the earth as being between 59 and 67 earth radii, when the actual figure is 60 earth radii).
Strabo (c64 BC to 24 AD) had a coherent concept of the world that survives in his Geography. A map based upon his writings can be found here. Shortly after 43 AD, Pomponius Mela wrote a short treatise on geography. His unique contribution was the mention of "Antichthones" a region of land in the southern hemisphere. He asserted that this could never be reached by man as the heat of the equatorial zone would be too hot.
Around 130 AD, Claudius Ptolemy wrote Megale Syntaxas tes Astronomias, or "Almagest" which gave accurate details of star positions and eclipses. Ptolemy was a geographer, mathematician, astronomer and astrologer. His "Geography" used a system of Longtitude where the Meridian of 0 degrees passed through the "Islands of the Blessed" (The Canary Isles). His Latitude began with the Equator (0 degrees) and extended only 10 degrees into the southern hemisphere. A 1482 Renaissance interpretation of his world map, called the "Ulm map" can be seen here. The furthest location in the south (and east) is Cattigara, which is located at 177 degrees of longitude 8 degrees 30' of south latitude. This could be a reference to China.
After 1492 the notion of the earth being round was accepted in Europe, even though Columbus had failed to arrive in China as expected. The 16th century saw an expansion of exploration. There was still a problem for navigators.
