4 ms·
I'm a physicist, and I imagine this sort of thing are like studies looking for magnetic monopoles, really out there stuff that capture the imagination of the pu
by noobermin 10y ago
I'm a physicist, and I imagine this sort of thing are like studies looking for magnetic monopoles, really out there stuff that capture the imagination of the public and non-experts, but are fringe and/or really difficult to get funding for vs. the usual, safe path.
- ianai 10y agoI doubt it's necessarily that crazy. There's a lot more to the world and human history than documented. Plus, for some reason, 'the west' tends to have an insular viewpoint. Oddball physics has fewer avenues of 'being true but unobserved'. I need sleep.
- simonh 10y agoWe have enough provable, documented examples of very long range contact and trade that it seems highly implausible that there was no such contact that we aren't aware of. If a Christian monk can be born near Beijing in 1220, walk all the way to Europe and meet the pope then it' beggars belief that similar journeys were never done in more ancient times. After all Marco Polo wasn't the first European to go to China either, his father and uncle had been there before him. I do accept that we have to distinguish between mythology and history, but lets analyse this according to scientific principles for a moment. If you have a theory and it accurately predicts what happens, we call that science. If the Aztec believed there were bearded white people living beyond the eastern sea that would one day come and conquer them, then it actually goes and happens, then I think it’s reasonable to take the origins of that belief seriously.
- ZanyProgrammer 10y agoTravelling over the medieval Silk Road though was much easier and safer than oceanic travel.