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Originally posted by Grifter42
It runs in cycles. Mankind blows itself back to the stone age, relearns over a span of millenia, and blows itself back to the stone age again. It'd be fitting.
Originally posted by el1jah
reply to post by RenegadeScholar
The truth in your posts makes me terribly upset, lucky that masterpiece of a photograph that is your avatar always makes me smile
A natural nuclear fission reactor is a uranium deposit where analysis of isotope ratios has shown that self-sustaining nuclear chain reactions have occurred. The existence of this phenomenon was discovered in 1972 at Oklo in Gabon, Africa, by French physicist Francis Perrin. The conditions under which a natural nuclear reactor could exist had been predicted in 1956 by Paul Kazuo Kuroda. The conditions found were very similar to what was predicted.
Oklo is the only known location for this in the world and consists of 16 sites at which self-sustaining nuclear fission reactions took place approximately 1.7 billion years ago, and ran for a few hundred thousand years, averaging 100 kW of power output during that time
The natural nuclear reactor formed when a uranium-rich mineral deposit became inundated with groundwater that acted as a neutron moderator, and a nuclear chain reaction took place. The heat generated from the nuclear fission caused the groundwater to boil away, which slowed or stopped the reaction. After cooling of the mineral deposit, the water returned and the reaction started again. These fission reactions were sustained for hundreds of thousands of years, until a chain reaction could no longer be supported.
Fission of uranium normally produces five known isotopes of the fission-product gas xenon; all five have been found trapped in the remnants of the natural reactor, in varying concentrations. The concentrations of xenon isotopes, found trapped in mineral formations 2 billion years later, make it possible to calculate the specific time intervals of reactor operation: approximately 30 minutes of criticality followed by 2 hours and 30 minutes of cooling down to complete a 3-hour cycle.
Originally posted by Ph0en1x
I came upon this site: www.bibliotecapleyades.net... which has some very fascinating information:
Consider these verses from the ancient Mahabharata:
...(it was) a single projectile
Charged with all the power of the Universe.
An incandescent column of smoke and flame
As bright as the thousand suns
Rose in all its splendor...
..it was an unknown weapon,
An iron thunderbolt,
A gigantic messenger of death,
Which reduced to ashes
The entire race of the Vrishnis and the Andhakas.
..The corpses were so burned
As to be unrecognizable.
The hair and nails fell out;
Pottery broke without apparent cause,
And the birds turned white.
After a few hours
All foodstuffs were infected...
...to escape from this fire
The soldiers threw themselves in streams
To wash themselves and their equipment.
That sounds a lot like an atomic weapon. The author goes on to say that it might just be a poetic way to mention the ancient warfare. I am, however, very intrigued by this. I am not claiming that this is a proof of advanced civilization in ancient times or anything of that nature. I just wanted to get ATSers' opinion on what they think. It is curious to say the least.
edit on 26-11-2011 by Ph0en1x because: Spelling
Originally posted by TylerDurden2U
reply to post by Ph0en1x
yes. we won.