Virtual Book Tour - Einstein and His Famous Equation (The Sage Age)

When most people hear the name Einstein, the next thought is usually his famous equation, E=mc2. Believe it or not, Einstein’s Nobel Prize was not awarded for this revolutionary discovery, but for his lesser known paper on the Photo-Electric Effect also published in the same year. A good deal of the confusion about Relativity Theory is that most folks think it is one theory. It is actually three different ideas submitted in three different papers. The equation showing the relationship of energy to mass can be found in an addendum he submitted three months after publishing the Special Theory of Relativity in 1905. He began work on the General Theory of Relativity in 1907 and finished it in 1915. With it, he added the effects of gravity to his original equations and revolutionized how we view the makeup of the universe. And then there’s the confusion about that light speed squared business. What’s that all about?

Einstein’s first paper was titled “On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies.” This eventually became known as the Theory of Special Relativity. It dealt primarily with how space and time were related, showing that they were actually two descriptions of the same phenomenon known as 4D spacetime. (A description of spacetime and how it differs from 3D space with an added element of time can be found in my article titled “Dimensions.”) It also explained the time dilation between objects which were moving near the speed of light and those that were moving very slow compared to the speed of light.

The paper showed time to be relative to its frame of reference. For example, if you and a buddy are standing in the aisle of a moving jet and tossing a ball back and forth, the two of you seem to be still and the ball seems to be moving at a normal, slow rate of speed. But, to an observer on the ground the ball, you, your friend, and the jet are all moving at 200 mph. The plane provides you with a different frame of reference than the one the observer on the ground has. Both Galileo and Newton understood this concept and called it an “inertial frame.” Einstein enlarged the inertial frame by stating that everything including you, the jet and the observer on the ground were all moving at speeds far below that of light. When one of the objects in the scenario gets ramped up to light speed, everything changes.

Because of this, no one observer had a privileged frame of reference. In other words, if an event happened and was observed in two different spatial locations, the event might appear to have happened simultaneously to one observer and as two separate events to another observer. The different perspectives were due to each observer’s motion in relation to the event. Therefore, both observations would be correct to each observer respectively. It would be impossible for either observer to claim they saw the event the “right” way.

Just as Einstein’s first paper showed that space and time were two descriptions of one phenomenon, similarly, the addendum to this paper showed that energy and mass were also two descriptions of one phenomenon. Energy and mass are not equal, as is often misquoted. They are intra-convertible. A very small amount of mass can be exchanged for a very large amount of energy, as demonstrated by experiments in atomic and nuclear physics. It’s considered one of the most elegant formulas in all of physics because a few characters demonstrate the complex concepts found in the original equation which is big enough to fill a blackboard.

Einstein applied this equation to whether or not an object of mass, any mass, could be accelerated to the speed of light. That’s also were the c2 part of the equation comes into play. The whole thing is about speed, not light. Let’s roll a rock to see how that works. It’s a rather large rock, so it takes a good deal of energy to get it rolling. The energy from that initial push is now stored in the rock as kinetic energy, which it dissipates as it rolls. Any additional pushes just store more kinetic energy than the can dissipate and now it has velocity. So, when we want to stop the rock from rolling, we have to absorb the extra energy it contains. The kinetic energy is proportional to the speed squared. So, if you give the rock twice the energy it can disperse, it will take four times as much energy to stop it from rolling (twice the energy squared is four times the energy). In Einstein’s equation, c represents the speed of light, emphasis placed on the word “speed.” His famous equation then, is the ratio of the energy required to move a mass proportional to the speed of light squared.

Some content excerpted from The Sage Age – Blending Science with Intuitive Wisdom
© 2008 MaAnna Stephenson
Content may be used freely with proper credit and a link to www.SageAge.net

To learn more about MaAnna Stephenson and The Sage Age, visit www.sageage.net and you can subscribe to The Sage Age Newsletter while you are there.

For more tour information, visit
http://virtualblogtour.blogspot.com/2008/09/sage-age-by-maanna-stephenson.html

You can order your own copy of The Sage Age at http://www.amazon.com/Sage-Age-MaAnna-Stephenson/dp/1933449632

Virtual Book Tour - How the Human Body Antenna Transceives Informed Energies (Sage Age)

The physical body is a multi-faceted antenna system. The shapes created from the bones to the cells can radically impact our health and state of well-being. Placing the body in certain ritualistic postures helps us “tune-in” to certain frequencies. Likewise, the conformational shape changes that occur in our cells facilitate the delivery of nutrients and the expulsion of toxins from our system.

As a graduate student in the 1960s, Felicitas Goodman was assigned to translate material for Dr. Erika Bourguignon who was conducting a study on behavior that occurred during religious experience, especially trance states induced by specific body postures. After graduation, Dr. Goodman continued the research and found that there were at least seventy ritual body postures that produced either subtle effects or full-blown altered states of consciousness.

Ritual body postures generally come in two forms: those that are held for long periods, such as yoga postures, and those that are formed by gentle, fluid movements from a previous position and held momentarily, such as those found in Tai Chi. The static positions are like rabbit ears on a television set. To get better reception of a specific channel, they are placed in a certain position and left stationary. It takes at least fifteen minutes of silencing the body and holding a position to enter an altered state. The more fluid movements are akin to a radio scanner. By constantly changing the position of the antenna, multiple frequencies can be received either serially or simultaneously.

The orientation of the antenna to the Earth plane contributes significantly to how well the antenna acts as a transceiver (transmitter/receiver). The most common type of antenna is called a dipole because it radiates from the center point out toward each end of the pole. Each end carries an opposite charge. Depending on what type of frequency they wish to transceive, Ham radio operators orient their antennas either vertically, horizontally, or at a 45-degree angle. Many ritual postures used in prayer also orient the body in these configurations. For example, prayer in the Islamic tradition requires the participant to first stand, then kneel, then bow with the head low and the hips high. Standing is a vertical antenna. Kneeling produces a combined vertical and horizontal antenna. Bowing produces an angled antenna.

The human body is a crystalline lattice that forms a dipole antenna which radiates from the gut area out toward the head and feet and/or out toward each hand. The head and feet carry opposite charges as do each hand. Piezo crystals, which convert electrical energy into mechanical energy and vice versa, are found in the bones, intestines, ligaments, tendons, and cartilage. The body is also full of liquid crystals and minerals that make up the lattice. Placing the body in different positions changes how the crystalline lattice is oriented to the Earth plane, affecting which frequencies it transceives. Changing positions also affects the length of the antenna, which is an important parameter in frequency selection.

The condition of the soil around an antenna also determines how well it transceives. Rich soil amplifies the antenna’s ability to radiate and increases the range of frequencies the antenna can receive. Perhaps this is why so many practitioners prefer to do their Tai Chi exercises in a park setting. Broadcast engineers have long known that using multiple antennas in specific arrays also enhances the ability to transceiver. Participating in group Tai Chi or meditation circles has this same effect.

Cell membranes are liquid crystal structures. A single cell in the body is a very small, very short antenna. Because it is so short, the frequency it transceives is very high and loaded with energy. Individually, each cell is either acting as a broadcast antenna and transmitting its status or acting as a receiving antenna to obtain what it needs. Collectively, similar cells transmit their own unique signal. For example, liver cells differ slightly from spleen cells. Individually, each liver cell would transceive its own signal, but collectively, all liver cells transceive as if they are one large antenna operating on the same frequency. This is the basic principle used in acupuncture. In ancient Chinese medicine, the liver is not considered to be just one specific organ located in just one place inside the body, as Western anatomy would picture it. In ancient Chinese medical philosophy, “liver” is considered to be a specific energy, or vibration, radiating within and through the entire body system.

Until recently, biology has considered chemical reactions to be the primary mechanism for cellular communication. But studies show that an electromagnetic (EM) frequency is transmitted just prior to the chemical interaction. This results in a conformational shape change of the receptor molecules that reside on the surface of the cell. These shape changes have the full attention of internationally recognized pharmacologist and researcher, Dr. Candace Pert, who authored Molecules of Emotion as well as renowned cell biologist, Dr. Bruce Lipton, who authored The Biology of Belief. When the receptors become excited, they vibrate and move themselves into specific shapes. This changes the frequency at which they transceiver. According to Lipton, this “creates a virtual cacophony of information” and the cell filters out “specific frequencies as behavioral signals.” Dr. Pert refers to the receptors as keyholes. When they change shape, only specific molecules can enter them, delivering the proper chemicals to the cell. Understanding conformational shape change at the cellular level will give biology an entirely new perspective on the body as an energetic structure. It will lead directly to ushering in an era of vibrational medicine instead of interactions being based entirely on chemical exchanges.

To learn more about MaAnna Stephenson and The Sage Age, visit www.sageage.net and you can subscribe to The Sage Age Newsletter while you are there.

For more tour information, visit
http://virtualblogtour.blogspot.com/2008/09/sage-age-by-maanna-stephenson.html

You can order your own copy of The Sage Age at http://www.amazon.com/Sage-Age-MaAnna-Stephenson/dp/1933449632

Virtual Book Tour - Is Texting Really an Ancient Art? (Sage Age)

Many professional writers and editors lament that the English language is being obliterated by the casual use of more symbolic language on mobile devices and some social media internet sites.

They cite two main grievances, which are that casual writing formats are showing up where formal writing styles would be more appropriate and that most people don’t know the difference. Are we witnessing the demise of a modern language or the birth of a new way to communicate that is rooted in ancient traditions?

The history of language and the written word is a fascinating trip through the evolution of human thought. Well crafted alphabets such as Hebrew, Greek, Arabic and Syrian have deeper functions than simply conveying words. They contain the essence of sacred sound, number, as well as the origin of change and motion.

For instance, symbolic communication is seen in certain ritualistic dancing. Some Asian and Polynesian cultures still practice this art, and the stories depicted by the dances are passed on to the next generation. However, to foreign eyes the symbols are only pretty movements and the tale is lost due to lack of translation. This type of symbolic communication through movement is rooted in primal language.

Prehistoric tales around the campfire were probably not conveyed using long sentences strung together. They consisted mainly of gestures augmented by sound and a few words. This method still serves as the basis of modern sign language. Several current linguistic historians have explored such ritual gestures as a possible origin of what eventually became the Hebrew language. When gestures are made that imitate the letters which constitute some of the basic Hebrew words, their functional meaning becomes quite clear.

Greek letters also represent numbers. Athena was a virgin goddess and her sacred number was seven, which is a prime number indivisible by any other number. The numbers associated with the Greek letters in her name add up to 77 (length). The letters of her epithet, which is Pallas, equal 343, which is seven cubed (an indication of volume). The letters of her appallation, which is parthenos or virgin, equal 515. The degree angle of a heptagon, a seven sided figure, is 51.5 degrees. This indicates area.

Pictorial based written languages such as those found in China and Japan are purely rooted in symbology. They were first developed to convey whole ideas, not single words or letters. The hieroglyphics of the Egyptian language were much the same. The name of the pharaoh was not nearly as important as the fact that the symbol represented the incarnation of the sun god.

The idea of using symbols and abbreviated text in casual writing may strike Western readers as a lack of discipline or education. However, it may be a sign of the changing times toward a melding of global influence. The well formed alphabets mentioned previously are thousands of years older than the characters and structures used in the English language and they are still living languages today. By using symbols and abbreviations in everyday English, are we being lazy or are we opening ourselves to a cultural shift in our thinking?

Here’s something to consider. It’s very difficult for most folks to think without the use of words. Try it. Now, what if you could think in another language, like Chinese? Perhaps instead of words, you might be able to think in whole concepts or in the fluid waves of motion. What if you could think in Greek. Perhaps you could imagine spatial dimensions as well.

The lament presented by writers and editors is the grieving of loss and an inquiry about the future. In the West, our casual language has infiltrated formal writing for centuries. But, adding or deleting words to the lexicon is very different from changing the basic rules by which we communicate. By incorporating more symbolic language, are we simply adapting to current technology and the accelerated pace of life or are we changing the way we perceive and communicate at a more basic level?

For the last ten years, several movies and books have appeared concerning the coming of the Indigo children. One of their hallmark characteristics is the ability to communicate with one another telepathically. As a group, they form an interconnected matrix that is constantly in touch with every other point on the web.

Current mobile technology emulates this type of interconnectedness. By incorporating a phone, an internet connection, and a camera, hand-held devices give each owner immediate global interaction at an unprecedented level. Remember one of the recent earthquakes in China? A particular cell phone owner captured the event via video that showed at least ten other people doing the same. At the time, each participant considered it more important to document the event than to seek safety.

We are no longer telling our stories only with words. We are communicating through pictures and sound at a personal level and our unique point of view has less to do with our reaction and thought process than it does with where we were standing at the time in relation to the focal point of the event.

There is one fortunate side effect of this trend. When the Indigo children do arrive en masse, being in constant contact with one another will not be seen as odd or strange. More importantly, it will not be viewed as threatening. Perhaps we are merely using today’s technology to usher in a major shift in the way we connect with one another. It is very likely that the evolution of our language will be a blending of science and intuitive wisdom into a new form of interconnectivity.

Some content excerpted from The Sage Age – Blending Science with Intuitive Wisdom
© 2008 MaAnna Stephenson
Content may be used freely with proper credit and a link to www.SageAge.net

To learn more about MaAnna Stephenson and The Sage Age, visit www.sageage.net and you can subscribe to The Sage Age Newsletter while you are there.

For more tour information, visit
http://virtualblogtour.blogspot.com/2008/09/sage-age-by-maanna-stephenson.html

You can order your own copy of The Sage Age at http://www.amazon.com/Sage-Age-MaAnna-Stephenson/dp/1933449632

Virtual Book Tour - How the Shape of Things Affects Us (The Sage Age)

This is a new article from MaAnna Stephenson about some topics that relate to the content of her book - The Sage Age.

How the Shape of Things Affects Us

From the creation of the Platonic solids, which are five unique models that embody the perfect combination of whole shapes, to the beautiful and complex symmetry of a modern fractal pattern, humans have been fascinated with shapes and how they interact to create things. But did you know that researchers in biology and chemistry are now finding that shape has everything to do with the way our cells function and even how we can tell one smell from another?

A previous article on the body antenna detailed how placing the body in certain shapes formed by ritualistic postures aids in the transmission and reception of certain frequencies. It also touched on the conformational shape changes that happen at the cellular level just prior to a chemical exchange. It’s known as a receptor lock-and-key model because the receptor changes into a specific shape that will only accept a molecule that fits it like a key.

This is a very important discovery for biologists and pharmacologists because it will lead to new ways of targeting the delivery of drugs at much lower doses. Eventually, it may also lead to a new vibrational understanding of the physical body that will eliminate treatment by pharmaceuticals altogether.

One of the newest forms of drug delivery methods is through nasal sprays. The brain and nervous systems are protected from infection by what is known as the blood-brain barrier. The molecules that make up viruses and bacteria are too large to pass through the narrow passage. Unfortunately, this barrier also keeps drugs needed to treat the nervous system from being administered intravenously. However, the barrier can be bypassed via the nose. Have you ever noticed that certain smells can trigger memories? That’s because the most ancient part of the brain can be directly accessed through the nasal passages. This is also why aromatherapies are so effective. They stimulate chemical changes at the very root of the nervous system.

The combination of investigations into bypassing the blood-brain barrier with nasal sprays, the conformational shape changes of receptors, and the affects of aromatherapy led to a very interesting discovery. In 1991, Dr. Linda Buck headed a team of researchers at Harvard Medical School investigating the source of smell. What she found won her a Nobel Prize. It was well known that millions of nerve cells lie at the top of the nose near the eyes. On the surfaces of these nerve cells lie over 1,000 different smell sensors called odorant receptor cells. Buck discovered that these receptor cells work just like hormones and neurotransmitters in that they recognize shape and combine in a lock-and-key manner. But, unlike hormones and neurotransmitters, the odorant receptor cells are not exclusive to accepting only the one type of molecule they recognize. These odorant receptor cells can combine and reorder themselves to recognize 10,000 different smells. After binding, the cell sends a signal to two specific places in the olfactory bulb in the brain that carries messages to the primitive brain areas, which control emotions and affect the limbic system and to the higher brain areas that control conscious discrimination. In her book, Molecules of Emotion, Dr. Candace Pert describes the limbic system as a hypothetical construct that is considered to be the seat of emotions in the brain.

But, there’s another side to this story. Biophysicist Dr. Luca Turin believes that smell is not recognized by shape alone. He believes that it is a combination of shape and vibration. That’s because molecules with the same shape can smell very differently. Turin lives in France where the perfume industry is a multi-billion dollar business. Manufacturers often employ hundreds of chemists in an effort to isolate and develop new smells. Turin wanted to find a way to improve this process.

The vibrational theory of smell was first popularized by British scientist Malcolm Dyson in 1938. In 1977, the research was picked up by R.H. Wright who applied modern technological advances to his investigation. But neither scientist was able to explain how the process worked at a level that would satisfy the publication standards of most scientific journals. In the early 1990s, Turin used egg whites to show that proteins can conduct electricity. He concluded that the olfactory bulb cells could channel electrons like a battery and sense their vibratory content. Even with this new evidence, most of his colleagues dismissed Turin’s ideas out of hand without so much as even reading his paper. Finally, in 1996, Turin was published in Chemical Senses and his story was picked up by the media who sensationalized it. Turin’s research ultimately got the attention it deserved. Turin left academia and began his own scent molecule production company called Flexitral. By using the vibrational method to ascertain new smell molecules, he is able to employ just one chemist, making his company radically more profitable than other research and manufacturing facilities. In 1992, Turin wrote Parfum: Le Guide which has become France’s best-selling perfume guide in history.

To date, it has taken the efforts of pharmacologists, chemists, biologists, aromatherapists and a perfume manufacturer to shed new light on how shapes affect us. Through the blending of science with intuitive wisdom, we will continue to bring new models into play which will revolutionize how we understand the vibrational aspects of the body.

To learn more about MaAnna Stephenson and The Sage Age, visit www.sageage.net and you can subscribe to The Sage Age Newsletter while you are there.

For more tour information, visit
http://virtualblogtour.blogspot.com/2008/09/sage-age-by-maanna-stephenson.html

You can order your own copy of The Sage Age at http://www.amazon.com/Sage-Age-MaAnna-Stephenson/dp/1933449632

Virtual Book Tour - Excerpt from Chapter 7, The Sage Age

Science Excerpt - Chapter 7 - Sound, Light and Time Sound

In this section, we’ll explore how the natural harmonic series is created and how sound is treated differently in the East and West. By examining the common roots of ancient musical scales we can see how each culture’s belief system affected what they considered to be sonically acceptable. Initially, the production of sound, especially by means of the voice or an instrument, was considered to have cosmic or even divine connections. The purpose here is to show how the split in the belief systems between East and West is documented through sound as it relates to music.

Since ancient times, sound has been regarded as a source of creation. According to Hebrew texts, God created the heavens and the Earth and everything therein by simply speaking them into existence. The ancient Chinese believed that the cosmos reverberated with a sound called Kung from which the physical world was created and sustained. Hinduism asserts a similar belief of an inaudible sound called the Divine Vibration that is reflected by the utterance of the sound OM during meditation. The ancient Egyptians believed the god Ra spoke the name of a thing and it came to be.

Like the Hindu, they uttered a sacred word that aligned them with the divine and it was AMN, which became the modern day Amen. The Australian Aborigines believe that we “sing” the world into being and that we are creating as we name things.1 The Aborigines also believe that they are guided on their walkabouts by an invisible map they call “songlines.”2

All ancient cultures on Earth eventually developed some type of orthodox musical system consisting of standardized pitches and intervals. Archeological records of instruments found either intact or in carvings or paintings affirm that every culture was aware of some form of pentatonic scale. As its name suggests, the pentatonic scale consists of five notes. While there might be a supernatural or metaphysical connection to account for how each culture came to this same conclusion, there is a very simple and down to earth explanation for it as well.

Let’s take a mythical journey back to a time when humans lived in caves and imagine how sound might have become sacred music in the first place. Caves are reverberant spaces. The hard, smooth rock walls would reflect or echo any sound produced inside the cave. Never having heard an echo, Bruno, our first-time cave dweller, was disconcerted by this phenomenon every time he made a sound and thought perhaps other people or creatures in the cave had created the returning sounds.

But after some time he figured out that it was the sound of his own voice being reflected by the cave walls. As part of a ritual blessing of his new surroundings, he made sounds and gestures to ward off any harmful spirits and made the cave his own. Then, to encourage beneficial spirits to come protect him in his new home he made one long sustained sound. Suddenly the faint echo of women’s voices began to emerge from the cave. This startled Bruno, but he accepted it as the voices of the spirits who had answered him. What our mythical Bruno experienced might well have been the beginnings of musical harmony.

All tones can produce harmonics. When one vibrant note is sustained in close, reflective surroundings such as a cave, a standing wave is created. This intensifies the volume of the sound. The delayed echoes begin to interfere with the standing wave and a new sound is created, namely the second harmonic. The reason it might have sounded like a woman’s voice to Bruno was because it was an octave higher than his own voice. In musical terms, Bruno’s original note is called the root, the first or the tonic of the scale. The sound he heard being produced by the reflective properties of the cave is called the octave. If Bruno sounded the tonic and his female companion sounded the octave, it is very likely that they would produce enough sonic energy for the third harmonic to emerge, which would be the dominant or the fifth of the scale. Again, it would sound to them like an ethereal woman’s voice, very high and very faint. It is not difficult to imagine why prehistoric folks might have considered this phenomenon and these sounds sacred. They may have even considered the cave sacred for a time because although the phenomenon is easily reproduced, the size of the cave determines which note will generate a standing wave in it. So, if Bruno sounded the same note in a different cave, he would have heard an echo, but may not have been able to conjure a standing wave that produced the type of audible overtones mentioned above. If he were adventuresome and curious, he might have by trial and error discovered the proper note to sound which would produce a standing wave in the new cave. Historically, we know that humans did figure out this relationship and the mathematical record of this discovery can be found in the design of the interior structure in the great European cathedrals. Even before the advent of mathematics this geometric relationship was sonically discovered by every culture on Earth. It is also why modern folks still get a kick out of singing in the shower stall or empty subway station too. Even if standing waves are not produced, the multiple echoes deliver a rich harmonic environment. It just feels good to be surrounded by those sounds.

It’s not likely that cave singing was the method that led to the discovery of the entire series of harmonics which served as the source for the pentatonic scale. An incredible amount of sonic energy would have to be produced to summon harmonics in caves or other reverberant spaces and the harmonics would be so much fainter than the original sounds it’s likely that they would have been lost in all the echoes. Not to mention the fact that it takes a well-trained ear to hear above the sixth harmonic; something Bruno probably had not yet developed. It wasn’t until the advent of stringed instruments that a more scientific and mathematical approach to sound was taken.

To learn more about MaAnna Stephenson and The Sage Age, visit www.sageage.net and you can subscribe to The Sage Age Newsletter while you are there.

For more tour information, visit
http://virtualblogtour.blogspot.com/2008/09/sage-age-by-maanna-stephenson.html

You can order your own copy of The Sage Age at http://www.amazon.com/Sage-Age-MaAnna-Stephenson/dp/1933449632