For most of us, electricity has long been the norm, something like a housekeeper, without which it is difficult to imagine our existence. And if you do not stick your fingers into the outlet and do not grab the bare wire with wet hands, then electricity is always our friend, comrade and brother. However, electricity has another mysterious side.
Energy pyramids
Over the long history of studying the ancient Egyptian pyramids in the long corridors of these grandiose structures, archaeologists and scientists have not found the slightest trace of soot. In other words, there is no material evidence that the pyramid builders used torches or open fire lamps to illuminate their work. But they could not work in complete darkness!
However, some ancient authors reported that the premises of Egyptian underground temples and labyrinths were illuminated by the uniform light of invisible sources or "unquenchable lamps". For example, Plutarch, referring to some priests, wrote that over the entrances to temples, lamps that do not require maintenance have been burning for several centuries.
What are these lamps? Some researchers put forward a sensational hypothesis. According to them, the ancient Egyptian engineers knew how to "extract" electricity.
There are several known cases when archaeologists found wall images of pear-shaped objects with wavy lines in the form of snakes in ancient Egyptian temples. Cables came from them, and the objects themselves were inserted into a spiral structure. Much like electric lights with insulators.
For example, under the temple of Hathor in Dendera, narrow chambers were found, the walls of which were painted with images of people with large flasks that looked like electric lamps. From them the same "cables" go to the box on which the god of air sits. Nearby stands the god Horus with a dog's head and holds knives and candles in his hands. One of the assumptions is that there was a power plant under the temple.
Promotional video:
Is this possible? Why not? Why, for example, not assume that in Ancient Egypt they knew how to create liquid batteries? After all, the local priests and scientists for their time knew chemistry and physics quite well.
It is even possible that such "batteries" existed even earlier - in the Mesopotamia of the Tigris and Euphrates in the era of the Sumerian civilization (IV-III millennium BC).
In the 1930s and 1940s, during excavations near Baghdad, clay jugs were discovered, inside of which were copper cylinders. The cylinders were fixed to the bottom of the earthen vessels with a layer of resin. After the scientists filled these "vases" with lemon juice, they discovered that an electric current was generated in the cylinders. It seems that the "vases" served as electrochemical cells.
Lights of Saint Elmo
For a long time, sailors noticed that blue lights began to play on the masts of their ships in a thunderstorm or storm. This phenomenon was explained in different ways. The ancient Roman philosopher Seneca said, for example, that during a thunderstorm, stars descend from the sky and land on the tops of ship masts. But gradually, among the "romantics of the sea roads" another, mystical explanation spread.
According to legend, in 303, during another persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire, the preacher Erasmus was tortured to death. He entered Christian history under the name of Saint Elmo and was recognized as the patron saint of Mediterranean sailors.
According to legend, before his death, Saint Elmo, whose executioners pulled out entrails with a winch, made a vow that he would always notify sailors, giving them signs of whether they would be saved during a storm or not. And if lights lit up on the masts during a storm, this meant that the bad weather would soon end.
However, when Elm was not in the mood, his lights went down on the deck. Then the sailors grew gloomy. It was believed that the spirit of the deceased roams the ship and warns of imminent misfortune. And woe to that person next to whom such a fire stops. He is not a tenant in this world.
There are hundreds of descriptions of lights. They were seen by Columbus and Magellan, Vasco de Gama and Cook, Bering and Charles Darwin during his voyage on the Beagle.
The first person who scientifically explained the phenomenon of lights was a man whose face looks at us from a 100-dollar bill. One of the founding fathers of the United States, Benjamin Franklin, was also a famous researcher of electricity. In 1749, in describing the lightning rod he invented, he suggested that the device could attract electric fire “from the cloud even before it could come up to a sufficient distance to strike; and the light will look the same as the fire of Saint Elmo.
According to modern scientific concepts, St. Elmo's fires are a common point (or corona) discharge. It occurs when the value of the electric field becomes more than 1000 volts per cm. Therefore, St. Elmo's lights are visible only in a thunderstorm.
But they can arise not only on masts, but also, for example, on towers, spiers or church crosses (this phenomenon also led people to mystical awe), sharp tops of rocks or tall trees. You can also see them on the wings of the plane.
So if you see them, don't be too scared. These lights only remind us that we always and everywhere exist in the neighborhood of natural electricity. Well, if you prefer a mystic, remember that in most cases the lights of Saint Elmo are still a good sign.
Living "electric monsters"
Stories about various mysterious and terrible animals that live on Earth have been circulating for more than one hundred years. A special place among them is occupied by the theme of "electric monsters". Many have heard about them, some seem to have even seen, well, and, of course, mentions of them remained in legends and traditions.
For example, for many years, there were rumors among sailors about giant octopuses that could not only turn a sailing ship over, but also burn it. How? It's very simple: it was enough for such a monster to touch the ship with its tentacle, as a blow was heard, accompanied by sparks and "lightning" that flew out of the octopus.
In 1909, when technological progress was already striding across the planet by leaps and bounds, one British naval seaman claimed that while sailing, the crew of his ship saw a strange creature in the Indian Ocean that looked like a huge snake. When trying to catch it, the "snake" hissed disgustingly and threw something like greenish lightning toward the boat with the sailors. Two sailors fell unconscious, and their bodies began to cramp. While they were being revived, the creature disappeared.
Among the nomads of the Gobi Desert, there are rumors of a hideous creature, which they call the "deadly worm" or "blood-filled worm."
This blood-red worm crawls to the surface supposedly only during the rainy season. He can spit poisonous acid and shock the victim with an electric shock (the force of the discharge is fatal to humans). In 2005, a group of researchers even went out in search of the worm, but they were unlucky. Or, on the contrary, lucky?
Indians living in the Amazon basin talk about large green caterpillars that can paralyze a person with a powerful electric shock.
Where is the truth, and where is the fiction? And do "electric monsters" really exist? It turns out there are.
However, the “familiar” to us today “electric animals” are not at all as disgusting as they are said in myths and are not at all so bloodthirsty. Although, of course, it is better not to joke with them.
One of the most famous living generators? an electric eel that lives in the Amazon and Orinoco basin. It grows up to three meters, and most of its length is occupied by electrical organs. An eel can strike a victim with a discharge of 800 to 1300 volts with a force of up to 1 ampere.
It is estimated that 10,000 eels could provide energy for the movement of an electric train, but only for a few minutes. Then the train would have to stand for 24 hours and wait for the eels to recharge their "batteries".
The inhabitants of South America are well aware of this weak point. They drive a herd of cows into the river, after which indignant eels begin to shock them. This is unpleasant for cows, but not fatal. Then the cows are driven out of the river and eels are caught with almost their hands. The fact is that their "accumulators" will be charged only after a few hours, and in a discharged state these fish are almost helpless.
In addition to the eel, there is also an electric ray and several dozen species of other electric fish. It is interesting that to date it has been proven that only inhabitants of water bodies have "electric weapons". As for other animals, the stories about their electrical abilities are still only legends.
The electrical nature of ghosts
The very first evidence of ghosts that has come down to us is contained in the epic of Gilgamesh - ancient Babylonian traditions that were recorded on clay tablets 2000 years BC. They tell about the hero Gilgamesh and the ghost of his deceased friend, who appeared in the form of a transparent human figure.
Since then, who just didn’t share stories about ghosts and ghosts, and who just didn’t explain what it was.
There are many “unscientific” explanations for this “phenomenon,” but most often it is believed that this is the soul or spirit of a deceased person, appearing in our world for various reasons.
Science, naturally, does not recognize these explanations. She believes that if eyewitnesses have seen some strange things, it is a consequence of hallucinations, illusions, natural anomalies, etc. But relatively recently, people have appeared who are trying to explain the appearance of "ghosts" exclusively by scientific methods. And here it was not without electricity.
"Soul" as electrical energy
One of these theories is based on the theory of relativity of Einstein, who believed that any matter (or energy) in the Universe does not disappear, but simply passes from one form to another.
Let's say that "the human soul"? it is a special type of electromagnetic field, a kind of information carrier about the identity of its owner. The efficiency of the "soul" is supported by the "power plants" of the body - the brain and heart. When we eat, we convert the heat energy accumulated by plants or animals into a kind of biological electricity that makes the heart beat, the lungs supply oxygen to the blood, so we can move and be aware of the surrounding reality.
When physical death occurs, then the electrical energy inside the body is released. And it is possible that, depending on the physical and chemical conditions of the area, it does not immediately dissolve in the air. It is there that people can see these clots of electrical energy, which they take for ghosts.
According to the supporters of this theory, the electrical nature of ghosts is indirectly confirmed by the fact that when they "appeared" "eyewitnesses" more than once noted malfunctions in radio and television, flashing lights, etc.
Visions of the Death and Electricity
In the last 30–40 years, this topic has become very popular. Those who had experienced clinical death often said that they saw a certain dark tunnel, a bright light at its end, some kind of luminous creatures. These visions are often seen as evidence of an afterlife.
Recently, however, American scientists have come to the conclusion that the cause of these "visions" is also due to nothing more than electrical processes in the brain of the dying person.
"Out of the body" by means of current
Their reasoning boiled down to the following. When the blood supply to the brain slows down and oxygen consumption falls, the brain cells produce a final electrical impulse. The electrical activity of the brain increases 50 times. Having arisen in one part, a sharp electrical impulse then spreads like an avalanche throughout the brain. This process can cause unusual sensations.
The most interesting thing is that the experts from Switzerland came to approximately the same conclusion. According to them, during electrical stimulation of one of the areas of the brain, a person experiences feelings of "out of the body", characteristic of clinical death.
One of the patients of the clinic at the University of Geneva, suffering from epilepsy, when exposed to an electric current on certain parts of the right hemisphere of the brain, felt that she was falling from a great height, and then rises above her own body and soars under the ceiling.
So who knows: perhaps, in the near future, anyone will be able to make such a "journey". And maybe much more complicated. As, for example, in the famous movie action movie "Total Recall", which was famous in the 1990s, where people could exist in a reality invented with the help of some manipulations on the brain, just as in the present.
Body current
Everyone knows that there is an electric shock in the United States. A convict tied to a special chair is killed by high voltage discharges. But at the same time, there is a popular show attraction, when a person passes through his body a current with a voltage of several tens of thousands of volts, and nothing happens to him. If he holds a lamp at the same time, it, to the amazement of the audience, begins to glow brightly.
Why is this happening? What is the secret of this electrical mysticism ?
Tesla Show
One of the first who began to put on such experiments and perform with them in front of the public was the famous Nikola Tesla. He passed current through his body with and without lamps. A description of one of these performances has survived.
“His silhouette was now clearly visible against the background of a bluish glow formed by myriads of tongues of flame, which, like arrows, burst from every part of his body,” wrote one of the eyewitnesses of this unprecedented sight. The devices recorded the voltage during the experiment to be 250 thousand volts.
In the hall they shouted: "Bravo, Tesla!", And he modestly bowed to the audience. Only his suit continued to emit a slight bluish glow.
Tesla reasoned like this. Even a low voltage current is dangerous for a person. Today, any elementary school student knows that you cannot stick your fingers into the socket - 220 volts can kill. But in household power grids, a low frequency current is used - usually 50 hertz.
On the other hand, a person freely transfers light. But light is also electromagnetic waves, only of a very high frequency. Maybe the ultra-high frequency alternating current will also be well tolerated by humans?
Tesla experimented on himself. At first, he passed the current only through the fingers of one hand, then through both hands. He made sure that at a frequency of more than 700 hertz, the current does not cause any painful sensations - the body almost does not react to it.
Tesla claimed: in some experiments, he passed a current with a voltage of a million volts and a frequency of 100 thousand hertz through himself. During these experiments, he came up with the idea of one of the ways of practical application of his discovery.
One day he saw how paint instantly evaporated from a painted copper disk, which happened to be near the generator. Tesla decided to apply this effect for medical purposes. It turned out that these currents can remove small rashes from the skin of the face, cleanse the pores.
Tesla's discovery found wide application; diathermy, UHF treatment and other methods of electrotherapy are a direct consequence of his research. Tesla himself developed a number of electrothermal and medical devices.