Evidence for Ancient Stone Softening Techniques at Puma Punku

originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: Harte

Put the crystal under pressure (look up the etymology of "piezo") and electrons come out. But they don't keep coming, and they go back in when you let off the pressure.

AC. That's how piezo microphones work.

Add a rectifier and you get DC. I said that.

Only as long as you're varying the pressure you apply to the crystal.
Otherwise it's lights out.

Harte

a reply to: Harte

Bang on the stone with clubs.

a reply to: jeep3r

A great video I came across today:

Excellent post

Star and flag for you

I've often wondered if there was some sort of stone solvent that the ancients knew about that has been forgotten

a reply to: Harte

My friend, I know very well how the piezoelectric effect works.

I wasn't saying they got their power from the piezoelectric effect, I was saying they got a majority of their power from the Sun. What they did with the light from the Sun after that is where things get funny.

My original post was about Electric Discharge Machining (EDM), and I was talking about how one can get a fairly decent electric discharge from large piezoelectric stones, or even pyroelectric stones. However it's much more advanced than that.

Listen closely...

Chemistry is basically the study of the interactions between electrons of atoms. How materials bond together is dependent on the electron interactions. How well those materials conduct electricity is also dependent on how the electrons interact. The electrons even determine if the material is ferromagnetic, diamagnetic, or paramagnetic and all materials are one of those three.

What many fail to realize is that electrons are just tiny magnets. If you know how magnets behave, then you know how electrons behave for the most part. You know how protons and neutrons behave too, because they are tiny magnets as well. Atoms and molecules are just various clumps of magnets in different shapes. So let us think about some attributes of magnets...

- Their magnetic strength combines when they are added together.
- They are always attracted towards the highest strength / closest magnet in the area.
- They follow the path of least resistance / repulsion.
- A material can become magnetized with direct current.
- A magnet can be demagnetized with alternating current.
- Their magnetic fields can be decreased.
- Their magnetic fields can be increased to their saturation point.
- A magnet can induce magnetism in a non-magnet.

There are quite a few more special ones, but these are the most important to consider.

Before I continue, lets talk about cold welding. Or more importantly, solid-state welding and ultrasonic welding. Where materials can completely bond/weld together without fusion/melting point heat. With cold welding, if the materials are both the same type, and they were completely cleaned from any oxidation, and in an environment that prevents oxygen from entering, those materials have no way of knowing they are not two separate entities. So they weld and click together like they were made of billions of tiny attracting magnets. - It's quite the problem for satellites and spaceships.

Ultrasonic welding is where high-frequency vibration (sound) can weld materials together with very little heat, and no melting points need be attained. With metallic materials it works by dispersing the surface oxidation. It works especially well for dissimilar materials, which is key. So what can you do if you perfected cold welding or ultrasonic welding?

You can cold weld rocks... you can make natural looking rocks.

You can take piles of broken up little pieces of fairly similar granite and other filler, throw it in a box or casting mold, perform the magic step that removes the surface oxides and simultaneously removes the surrounding oxygen, and then abracadabra! You have one solid stone, and probably one you can't move when you're done. All the various types of crystals in the rock randomly welded together without heat, and looks like a solid block of natural stone. You can even add more to it later if you wish.

If you wanted, you can make stones that can't be found on this planet naturally, and people would think its a meteorite. Or you can make stone chains.

So now that I revealed that... What do you think the opposite of cold welding is?

Dissociation and Decomposition. There are many interesting ways to dissociate and or decompose materials. Just like there are many different ways to pull apart a handful of magnets stuck together (hint: use a stronger magnet). Other ways such as acid and electrolysis are probably what you are most familiar with. But lets think about cold welding again. One important step in cold welding is to remove oxidation. So what happens when you add oxidation?

Oxidation is the loss of electrons. You can increase the oxidation state (degree of oxidation / loss of electrons) in a material. You know what oxidation is... its rust. It decomposes the material, breaks it apart... Fire is also a form of rapid oxidation. So that goes without saying that rust is a very slow fire, a secret fire.

So how and why does oxygen take electrons away? What is another way for atoms and molecules to lose electrons? You should know this Phage, with all your foot dragging and photovoltaic replies. Yes, you can just take electrons away physically, or you can repel them away with light, or you can take them away chemically like in a battery. There are other ways as well...

This brings us to electrochemical machining (ECM) which is very similar to the previously mentioned EDM only with no thermal or mechanical stresses being transferred to the part, and mirror finishes can be achieved. This processes is often referred to as "reverse electroplating" because it removes material instead of adding it. Both methods (EDM and ECM) have their pros and cons, but both work in similar fashion in regards to electrons being tiny magnets.

However, there is another better way that is much more efficient and doesn't have a wikipedia page because it's generally regarded an invaluable and treasured secret. It is like EDM but with much less power required because it uses the power of resonance. It uses light. With it, you can cut stone like butter, scoop it like ice cream, and form it like putty.

I must change subjects now...

I'm certain you have seen tiny piezoelectric transducers in microphones, BBQ and stove igniters, and even electric drum sets, and you know some of those put out a nasty little spark. But have you ever seen one the size of a small car? Imagine how many electrons can be squeezed out of that.

Now imagine a very large piezoelectric stone sandwiched between other very large stones. Now heat that piezo stone... What happens? Well, the stone expands and creates pressure around it. Since the stone is so large, it takes a long time to heat the rock to its fullest, and there is a very long period of expansion and pressure. Which equates to a long period of electric current. So long of a period that it's practically DC if you looked at it in an oscilloscope. When you let the stone slowly cool down, over a period of time you have DC in the opposite direction. Overall the entire heat and cool cycle generated AC at such a low frequency that it looked like DC at smaller sample intervals

This a good read:
Voltage generation of piezoelectric cantilevers by laser heating

I'll be back.

Is it possible to generate any useful piezoelectric charge out of these rocks from a resonant sound? Like by chanting into a resonant chamber of rock? Seems to me that it even if it worked it wouldn't be enough to do anything with.

originally posted by: Harte

Is this in Davidovits' paper? Because it's not in your quote from it here:
The surface is very flat, without any trace of polishing action with abrasive grains nor cutting tools, but dotted with small holes that are 0.5–1mm in diameter and 0.2–0.5mm deep with clear edges.

Yes, it's in the paper but it's part of the optical microscope analysis they undertook. Here goes the excerpt with the relevant text highlighted:

originally posted by: Harte

originally posted by: More1ThanAny1
a reply to: Phage

Not all of the stones, just some of the ones in their generators of course. You know, the big granite ones that are 60% quartz.

You don't get energy from the piezoelectric effect.

You put energy in to get the piezoelectric effect.

Push electrons in, the crystal swells. Pull electrons out, the crystal shrinks back down.
Put the crystal under pressure (look up the etymology of "piezo") and electrons come out.
But they don't keep coming, and they go back in when you let off the pressure.

You could create a circuit with those electrons, but you would get less work out of them than you put in to the crystal to get them to come out.

Piezoelectricity has been known about for quite some time now.
Have you never wondered why we don't make electricity this way?

Harte

Absolutely all forms of electricity generation consist of converting one type of energy to another.

And absolutely all conversions from one type of energy to another, involve a net loss.



Using a piezo electric process to convert mechanical energy (from sound or human work) into electricity is at least feasible in theory. But without diodes and capacitors or some other kind of rectifier it would be fast alternating AC.


..........Which seems kind of useless. What could they do with fast alternating AC? How would they ever build up a strong enough charge to shape stone?


I'm happy to keep exploring this, though. It could lead somewhere if we can get more information, or at least a more complete hypothesis.

originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: More1ThanAny1

Copper, zinc, and a bunch of limes?

South America has a pretty decent amount of citrus fruits available. Doesn't it?

I can't think of any off hand, but it seems like some must grow there.

a reply to: bloodymarvelous

What does electricty generation have to do with the OP? If you guys want to talk about such why not discuss it in a relevant thread?

I'll make them hard again by smashing them and saying "learn to swim" or something similar.

a reply to: More1ThanAny1
Please show where people have generated electricity using a piece of granite.

Harte

a reply to: Harte

you have to tell it that it's off the ground and the electrons will go down.

I'll probably get yelled at for this, but here goes anyway.

Yes this is an interesting idea. However the idea that these stones were molded and not cut has been around for a very long time. There is a show called Ancient Aliens and in one of the programs they discuss this very topic. The trouble that main stream has with the idea are the temperatures needed to melt and pour some of the stone that's used in these constructions. I happen to believe that this is how it was done, but I do have a problem with that part of it. These places were ancient at the time that history claims people were able to reach those temperatures. Now if you find some evidence of this so called fact being false then you have something new.

Sorry

a reply to: More1ThanAny1

Now that was interesting, I just don't know how a stone age civilisation could create a vacuum to do it.

a reply to: hiddenNZ

A vacuum isn't required. Only the absence of oxygen is required.

The base requirement is that surface oxides are not present on the two materials being welded. This means the removal of surface oxides, and the prevention of oxidation after removal.

There are many different ways to burn oxygen away, or remove it with some other chemical reaction, or simply push it away with another gas, much like they do with argon while fusion welding.