The Sumerians produced the world’s “first high civilization” and were the world’s first urban non-Semitic people with the earliest traces of them found as far back as 5300BC. This ancient culture spanned the fifth to the second millennium BC in and around ancient Mesopotamia (mainly modern day Iraq but also stretching to Turkey, Syria and Iran) and its scientific and literary achievements had lasting influence throughout the ancient world and down through today.

The Sumerians were the first people to have a complex system of metrology which resulted in the creation of arithmetic, geometry, and algebra. They referred to themselves as the sag-giga, which literally meant “the black-headed people. The cities of Sumer were the first to practice rigorous, year-round agriculture.

What I find fascinating is that as late as the 19th century, the Sumerian culture was completely unknown.  Sumer had “been erased from the mind and memory of man for more than two thousand years.” That is, up until around a Hundred years ago, we had no idea of where we came from. It is clear that what we dont know is still far greater than we do know about our early histroy,  but a lot of the knowledge we have was brought to light with the discovery of  the Library of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh where 30, 000 clay tablets were found.

Another thing I find fascinating, is that the earliest Leaders of Sumeria, who lived amongst, and ruled over the people, were Deified, that is, they were gods. These were Dumuzi, a deity whose worship would have profound influences in Judaism and in Greek mythology, and Gilgamesh, the “supreme hero of Sumerian myth and legend,” his deeds written and rewritten not only in Sumerian but also in other languages.

Sargon the Great was the conqueror (7000 years later we are still fighting over these lands!) that finally brought about the end of the Sumerian people as “an identifiable political and ethnic entity” and began the “Semitization of Sumer.” He went on to later build babylon, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

Sumerians believed that rite and ritual were more important than either personal devotion or piety, and that man was “created for no other purpose than to serve the gods.” Bear in mind, these gods were not some abstract entity, but according to the Sumerians, they created the first people, lived amongst and ruled over them.

I have two fascinating books about the Sumerians. Both of which I would highly recommend, this one and this one.

Image by Raphael Lacoste

Dissatisfaction with his lot seems to be the characteristic of man in all ages and climates. So far, however, from being an evil, as at first might be supposed, it has been the great civiliser of our race; and has tended, more than any thing else, to raise us above the condition of the brutes. But the same discontent which has been the source of all improvement, has been the parent of no small progeny of follies and absurdities; to trace these latter is our present object.

- Charles Mackay,1841

I can’t recomend this book highly enough.
It provides a powerful insight into the nature of man, which is as similar today as it was in 1841.

“Of all the offspring of Time, Error is the most ancient, and is so old and familiar an acquaintance, that Truth, when discovered, comes upon most of us like an intruder, and meets the intruder’s welcome.”

Talking of the madness of crowds, are people starting to see the madness in the Global warming hysteria?

As the debate continues about global warming, the month of December was the 14th coldest in 115 years in the United States… and some scientists insist the earth is entering a cooling trend.

* Wind chills brought temperatures in the Dakotas to 50 degrees below zero, while record cold in parts of Florida is damaging some of the orange crops, and South Carolina called an early end to shrimping season.

* Parts of Canada have seen actual temperatures of 30 below zero… And freezing temperatures and record snowfalls are pounding parts of Asia and Europe too.

* Britain has experienced the worst snowfalls in half a century.

* In India – it’s estimated at least 100 people have died due to the cold temperatures… with dozens more killed in Bangladesh.

* In China and South Korea, heavy snow and unusually cold weather have brought chaos to travelers – blocking roads and trains, canceling flights. After one recent blizzard in Beijing – officials had more than 300-thousand people clearing the streets.

Meanwhile some of the world’s top climate scientists suggest this winter is only the start of a worldwide trend toward cooler weather, which could last for 20 to 30 years. They base their predictions on changes in water temperatures in the oceans.

The scientists say much of the global warming in the last century was actually caused by these oceanic cycles when they were in a “warm mode”… as opposed to the current “cold mode.” They suggest there will be cooler summers ahead too. Continued…

At this point it is appropriate to say, it is not about if the climate is cooling or warming, it is about the fact that we have NO control over the climate one way or another. Warming, however, is undoubtedly more favourable for man than cooling.

This book is really superb. Taleb uses the Black Swan idea to explain the existence and occurrence of high-impact, hard-to-predict, and rare events that are beyond the realm of normal expectations.  He writes about the impact of the highly improbable, which have a much greater impact on things than the probable (and usually misunderstood) and our tendency to simplify and therefore not see the whole picture.

Taleb regards almost all major scientific discoveries, historical events, and artistic accomplishments as “black swans”—undirected and unpredicted,  although AFTER the fact, the event is rationalized by hindsight, as if it had been expected.

Some nights it is so brilliant, I find myself reluctantly putting the book down as my eyelids droop and then not being able to sleep because it sets me off thinking for hours. Occasionally on other nights it gets a little boring and sends me to sleep pretty quickly which is not a bad thing either! Anyway, here are some of the standout sections so far. I really cant recommend it highly enough:

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Recently been reading a fantastic book called ‘The Sun Kings‘ about the start of modern astronomy and the impact on earth of the sunspot cycles. Whilst doing some further research into solar flares I came across this article posted today:

Galactic cosmic rays have just hit a Space Age high, a NASA spacecraft finds.

“In 2009, cosmic ray intensities have increased 19% beyond anything we’ve seen in the past 50 years,” said Richard Mewaldt of Caltech. “The increase is significant, and it could mean we need to re-think how much radiation shielding astronauts take with them on deep-space missions.”

The cause of the surge is solar minimum, a deep lull in solar activity that began around 2007 and continues today. Researchers have long known that cosmic rays go up when solar activity goes down. Right now solar activity is as weak as it has been in modern times, setting the stage for what Mewaldt calls “a perfect storm of cosmic rays.”

“We’re experiencing the deepest solar minimum in nearly a century,” says Dean Pesnell of the Goddard Space Flight Center, “so it is no surprise that cosmic rays are at record levels for the Space Age.”

More here..

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/090929-cosmic-ray-max.html

Another article here on the the same topic.