

### Reconnecting to Reality

### Book One

### By Jerry Pitney

### Copyright 2019 Pitney Publications of Canada

### Smashwords Edition

### Smashwords Edition, License Notes

### Thank you for downloading this ebook. This book remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be redistributed to others for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy from their favorite authorized retailer. Thank you for your support.

# CHAPTER ONE

Ask yourself this simple question:

How much of what you " _know_ " is fact or fantasy?

It is said that knowledge is power.

How empowered have you been feeling lately?

We are often told that the root cause of frustration and angst stems from the fact that we live in a highly complex, technological society. People do not understand the science of our modern day world and, as a consequence, a loss of self-empowerment, or an ambivalent attitude, can be the net result.

Another side effect of this social malaise is a general distrust of the media, the military, government, medical experts, scientists, law enforcement and the establishment as a whole. We begin to question everything that we are told and become confused as to what is real and what isn't.

Too often we are told one thing, only to have the "experts" recant it later.

What can you safely believe? Who can you really trust?

This is the mantra of the true sceptic. But, what value does scepticism have if there is no sincere attempt to undercover the truth?

So, whether or not you are a sceptic, an expert, an unbeliever, a whiz kid, a lazy lout or a frustrated citizen, this book is for you. All you need to possess is a desire to take a hard look at reality and to place a little added trust in logical thought and your intuition.

In doing so, I guarantee that you will achieve a better understanding of the world around you, both natural and man-made. At the same time, you will also develop a greater sense of certainty. This alone should be worth your efforts.

Having said the foregoing, this book is unlike others in that it not only examines the scientific, philosophical, metaphysical and hypothetical nature of reality, it will also require you to get up off of your butt and to do some active field work and exploration.

Only by taking a "hands on" approach, will you be able to develop a true sense of certainty that you have obtained the indisputable truth.

So, without any further fanfare, let's now get started.

# CHAPTER TWO

Okay, here's assignment number one.

Regardless of what you may believe, most of us who live in big cities, small towns or even on farms, have become desensitized to the natural environment that surrounds us. We tend to take for granted that the natural world always seems to maintain its own perpetual balance and continuity. Daily, we tune out our background environment; things such as grass, trees, the soil, the sky, clouds, rocks, stars, birds and a myriad of other "natural" phenomena are only recognized by us on a very peripheral basis. We subconsciously acknowledge that they are present as we go about our day-to-day life, but we give them little in the way of actual scrutiny.

Here's a good example of what I mean. Do you drive to work each day and, in the process, pass streets and boulevards lined with trees?

If so, how often do you actually look at any of these trees? Would you be aware if one of them was damaged; missing branches, bark, leaves or any other of its essential structural components? Would you be able to state conclusively that you know the species of any of the trees that you drive past, and often completely ignore?

Determining the genus and species of local boulevard trees may well not be of any practical use to you in your daily routine, but, you should at least acknowledge to yourself that you likely tend to focus more on the "manmade" elements of your surroundings, versus those things that would still exist in the total absence of man.

So, job one is for you to get reacquainted with your natural environment. This should be thought of as the reverse process to sensory deprivation. Call it sensory revival if you will.

Now, regardless of who you are, what you do for a living, your physical ability, or any one of a hundred other factors that might limit your time and freedom, I need you to get outdoors and do a few basic things in order to reawaken your senses and to sharpen your sensory acuity.

Since I would like these chapters to have pertinence to readers in all countries, climates and regions, let's start with a few universal environmental factors. Let's start with the sky, which people in all points of the globe are freely able to examine.

Depending on whether or not the day is sunny, cloudy or partially cloudy in your immediate environs, this will directly affect what type of observations you can make. But, let's examine all of those conditions. Thus, you may have to take a peak at the sky on more than one day in order to compile your data.

Now, you may think this to be a useless and frivolous exercise, since you are exposed to the sky each and every day. But, how often do you actually look at it? I mean, actually lift up your head and stare at it with any degree of intensity or curiosity?

So, bear with me. You may not think that this will put you on a path to self-empowerment, but I may surprise you over the course of the upcoming chapters.

All right, how much can you say? What did you actually observe?

Not much, you say? Then, try this.

Were you previously aware of the fact that, on a sunny or a partially cloudy day, that the colour of the sky varies from one location to another? Yes, the sky is normally blue, but it can range from a darkish royal blue high overhead to a faded and light baby blue closer to the horizon. The colour of the daytime sky is not uniform in all places.

So, if you're an artist painting a picture with a single tone of blue sky, how realistic is it?

Next, let's talk about clouds. Of course, there's much more to discuss here. But, for now, let's avoid talking about the differences between the cloud classifications that meteorologists use (like cumulus and cirrus) and just focus on their colour. Are all clouds white and puffy? Through your direct observations, you should be aware that they can vary from a brilliant white to slate gray to blue to a dark, ominous grayish-black. Are there any two clouds that are uniform in terms of their colour?

Let's also talk in general about their form. What happens when clouds become much more prevalent in one portion of the sky than in another? Are you even able to differentiate where one cloud begins and another ends?

The value of making these types of observations lies not in the result, but in the process itself. What I need is for you to reconnect with your visual acuity before we can carry on with any more demanding observations of natural phenomena.

Not only must you reawaken your sense of vision, but your other senses as well.

Another observation that you should be able to make, regardless of where on earth you live, is in respect to the wind.

From a visual perspective, you can observe the wind blowing bits of matter around, such a fluffy dandelion seed, for example. You can also observe the hair on your head getting tousled (providing you're not bald, that is). But, you should also be able to "feel" the force of the wind on your arms or face. Thus, your tactile senses also come into play and will get heightened in the process, too.

Now, if you live in a desert climate, perhaps my suggestion about observing trees on your way to work may not be an appropriate example. But, regardless of whether or not you have the same climate, species of plants and animals, rocks & minerals, or other natural phenomena that I will use as examples herein, you should, nonetheless, be able to adapt them to your local environment, and ultimately reach similar end results.

# CHAPTER THREE

Okay, that wasn't so hard, was it? Going outside and just looking up at the sky, or observing the action of the wind. Kind of easy, in fact.

While some of the upcoming observations that I'm going to ask you to make may prove to be a bit more physically challenging, I am also conscious of the fact that not everyone has the same physical ability or dexterity. I want to reassure you that nothing in the course of these chapters will prove to be so demanding that the average reader won't be able to accomplish it. What will be of greatest importance will be the overall conclusions to be drawn, and the fact that you will have the comfort of knowing that you have discovered the truth yourself. Thus, with each revelation, you will start to build an unshakable foundation of your own reality; one that no one, neither scientific layperson nor expert, will be able to refute.

Now, for your next challenge. This one involves a little late night exploration.

I want you to stay up, perhaps a bit later than you usually might, on a clear, cloudless night. Start by venturing outdoors and trying to observe when the first visible nighttime object appears in the sky. Usually, that will be a bright planet, such as Jupiter.

Now, choose some tall object, such as a tree or the roofline of a building to stand beside in order to have a reference point as to the height of the planet in the sky. Next, pick out a ground-based object as another reference point as to where Jupiter is in relation to the surface of the earth by mentally drawing a straight line down from it to the ground.

Once you have established the position and approximate height of the planet, take a break for the next 15 to 20 minutes. After that amount of time has elapsed, go back outside and make your second observation.

Can you see any appreciable movement in terms of where the planet is now versus where it was when you made your first observation? Has it moved higher, or lower, in the sky?

Next, repeat this process of observations every 30 minutes or so for the next 2 to 3 hours.

If you are diligent in terms of standing in the same spot that you did when you first spotted the planet, you should ultimately arrive at the following type of result.

"The planet can be observed to move slowly across the southern sky, at first rising in height, and then slowly and uniformly arcing downwards towards the western horizon."

At the same time that you are making this observation, with any luck, stars should also become visible in the evening or nighttime sky. You can pick out one of the brighter ones on a subsequent night in order to make the same type of observation.

However, if you are observing the sky in the northern hemisphere (where I am located), things can get a little trickier regarding the motion of the stars, depending on whether or not you are looking at stars to the south, or, to the lower northern skies. This is because the stars appear to move in a counter-clockwise motion when looking north and, depending on where they are in relation to the Pole Star (the North star), they may appear to move from east to west (like Jupiter) or in a reverse motion (from west to east).

But, now is not the time to make detailed astronomical observations (yet). At this juncture, I simply need you to get outdoors and to observe the nighttime sky. I want you to look up and try to recapture that sense of wonder and awe that comes with staring at the stars. Depending on whether or not you are in the country or in the city, the stars that will be visible will vary greatly. But, even in an area with city lights, major constellations, such as the Big Dipper, will likely be visible.

If you get real lucky, you may also spot some other intriguing celestial phenomena, too. For example, as I was writing this chapter, I was making observations of the Big Dipper and I spotted a couple of "shooting stars" streaking high overhead. The sky also offered up a faint, yet ever moving, display of the Northern Lights, too.

Undoubtedly, the nighttime sky has much to offer in terms of variety. It is easy to get so enthralled by the scope and wonder of it that you may decide to commence a star gazing routine of your own design. That is completely up to you. The sole intent of this chapter was simply to get you outdoors and to look up at the stars again with a sense of awe. Just ask yourself, "When was the last time I bothered to pay any attention to the stars in the sky?"

You may be of the opinion that gazing at the stars does nothing in terms of bringing you a sense of empowerment. I would tend to challenge such a supposition. If anything, looking up at the vastness of the universe serves to connect you once again with reality and to set aside, at least for the moment, the never-ending distractions of the man-made world and all the associated worries that come along with them.

# CHAPTER FOUR

The next challenge that I need you to undertake is to reawaken all the rest of your senses.

Try standing outdoors on a cool, windy day in order to experience exactly what it feels like to get chilly. Or, go outdoors on a bright, sunny day and stand in one exposed location until you can feel the cumulative heat generated by the sun on your body.

It seems common sense for us to note that anyone should be able to differentiate between hot, warm, cool or cold environmental conditions. But why? What is the apparatus that allows us to actually sense heat? Do all other species of living beings have the same awareness of heat and cold?

Next, reacquaint yourself with the discriminating powers of your sense of touch. Try going outdoors and examining plants or trees from a purely tactile perspective. Feel the leaves of several plants. One tree's leaves may feel "waxy" to the touch; another plant might possess leaves that have a "velvet-like" texture. Run your hand gently along a tree trunk; experience the roughness or smoothness of its texture; see if you can feel the tiny bumps created by running your hand over the lenticels or other such plant features. Feel the prickliness of a few thorns on a rose bush.

These are only a few examples of what you might encounter by simply strolling through a copse of woods, a grassy field or a plant garden. Recognize, and realize, how touch alone could help you to differentiate between any one type of plant species and another.

If you were able to replicate one of my above examples, and touched the rose thorns, did you experience a sense of pain? How do a human being's pain receptors work?

Already, you can likely tell that the process of using our senses may raise many more questions than they will answer. But, it is not my intent to have you understand how any of a human being's sensory powers work; I will make no attempt to explain why we sense sound, pain, heat, cold, sight, touch, taste or smell. I simply need you to reawaken them and to "experience" them once more, perhaps in a manner that you have not done for quite some time.

Sharpen your sense of hearing. Listen to the wind as it rustles though the leaves and branches of some nearby trees. Attune your hearing to the distinctive sound of a seagull as it flies overhead and contrast that specific sound to the cawing call of a crow, or the loud honking of a flock of Canada geese.

Using your sense of sight, start to pay attention to events happening around you that you may have completely ignored for years. Watch small insects, such as ants and spiders, as they move about their tiny environs. Observe the wave-like action of the wind as it blows across a field of grass or swale plants. Note that the wave appears to move across the surface of the grass, but the rooted grass plants themselves do not actually move.

I could go on and on with other examples of how to challenge your senses of taste and smell, but I think by now, you get the message.

Start to use all of your senses to make some common sense observations of the natural world around you. If you'd think it beneficial, you could start a diary of what you've discovered. You could list the various different types of plants, or birds, that you have observed and add them to your "life list" of birds or plants.

Unfortunately, simply recording your observations in diary format, or generating a list of the different species or natural phenomenon that you have encountered, will only result in a random collection of facts and notations.

What will ultimately give you a sense of empowerment however is to synthesize these observations into a series of general rules, or laws of nature, that you can use in a practical manner when, or if, the need presents itself.

That will be our end goal. We will endeavour to reveal some of the underlying rules and forces of nature that dictate why certain things happen in the manner that they do. The more of these laws and rules that you can be absolutely, undeniably certain of, the greater your sense of confidence in dealing with life's trials and tribulations.

And, for the most part, you will be surprised to see that many of these laws can be revealed by making the most fundamental observations or by doing simple experiments that people from all walks of life can easily accomplish.

# CHAPTER FIVE

By now, I'm sure you're thinking that the sole intent of this book is simply to get you to wake up dormant senses dulled by the distractions of everyday modern urban life.

My intent however is much, much more than that.

Reawakening your senses and maintaining a closer link to the natural world around you is only one step in the process of gaining a firmer grasp on reality, and in the process, achieving a greater sense of self-control over your entire environment.

So, I am now going to leave you with the following two tasks to perform on an ongoing basis:

1.) Continue to sharpen your senses by using them in previously neglected ways whenever you encounter natural phenomena. Listen closely to the sounds of nature, such as birdcalls, and try to differentiate between those of different bird species. Use your keen eyesight to examine tiny creatures such as insects and spiders; become aware of their habits and actions. Literally, "smell the flowers" around you once more.

2.) Continue to make observations of the natural world around you and maintain a diary or a logbook of all that you observe. Although your observations may be random with respect to the various phenomena that they relate to, you will be surprised to find that you will be able to pull everything together later and to deduce some general laws of nature that have an universal application.

But, before embarking on these tasks in an earnest manner, I will also need you to adopt a completely different philosophical outlook and approach.

It is very simplistic. All I want you to do (at least temporarily) is to ignore _everything_ that you have learned to date with respect to science, nature and your environment.

That's correct. For at least a while, I want you to suspend all belief in what the "experts" of the world have told you.

I want you to start to approach your observations of the natural world with the naiveté of a newborn child. I want you to suspend belief in what you have read or been taught, and to become determined to expose a series of truths based solely on your own first-hand experiences. You will be the final authority on what is real, and what isn't, based entirely on your own empirical observations.

The precise reasons as to why I want you to adopt this approach are explained in detail in the next chapter.

# CHAPTER SIX

I don't know if it is human nature or not to become sceptical of what the so-called "experts" tell you. But, let's face it; no one is infallible.

Every one of us is prone to making mistakes and arriving at inaccurate or even false conclusions. The key question is whether or not someone has intentionally aimed to deceive you and to create a false picture of some aspect of reality.

While most of us would hope that such agendas do not exist, what means does the average person on the street have of ferreting out the truth?

Of course, sceptics come in many shapes and forms. There are those of us who are mildly sceptical regarding certain established beliefs. Then, there are those with stronger levels of discontent and who are unafraid to voice their disbelief. Finally, there are the conspiracy theorists and those individuals that most of us would consider to be either paranoid, or downright crazy.

But, we must climb down from our high horses and realize that all of humankind has the inherent right to disagree with what they are being told by other human beings. Remember, only human beings frequently exercise the practice of intentional deceit to one another. Honestly, have you ever seen any particular plant or animal trying to deceive another one of its species?

This is no laughing matter, but where do you draw the line? What is a reasonable degree of disbelief and what is way over the top?

There is simply no magic answer to this question. What is paranoid or idiotic to one person may seem to represent a totally healthy degree of scepticism to yet another.

So, the bottom line is this. Learn to respect the attitudes and beliefs of your fellow man, at least until such time that you are armed with enough contrary empirical evidence that you can confidently prove him or her wrong. And, if they don't agree with you afterwards, don't sweat it. It is more important that you develop total confidence in your own beliefs, based on solid empirical facts, than it is to obtain the agreement of others.

So whether or not you are a sceptic, a paranoid person, a conspiracy theorist or what most people would even call a lunatic, this book is for you. But, for those of you who still perch on your high horses, this book is for you, too. Even if you are an "expert" in your field and think that re-examining your fundamental beliefs is a wasted effort, I will hereby challenge you.

History tells us that only by the process of questioning existing scientific dogma, and by challenging the current authorities, can our knowledge advance. Take the story of Copernicus challenging the concept that the earth is at the centre of the universe as an example. Or, what if Einstein's theory of relativity never materialized because he was afraid to contradict his peers and share his theory with the world?

Let's not waste any more time and begin your own program of exploration now.

# CHAPTER SEVEN

Okay, so you're now ready, eager and willing to make some absolutely amazing discoveries and observations about the natural world around you by using your newly attuned senses. But, the next question is "exactly where and how do I start?"

The first thing you have to do is to establish a basic definition as to what exactly constitutes a "natural" object versus what a "man-made" object is considered to be.

The dictionary defines "natural" as " _being in accordance with or determined by nature_ " or as " _having or constituting a classification based on features existing in nature_."

Of course, such definitions tell us absolutely nothing unless we are also able to define exactly what the noun "nature" means.

The dictionary defines "nature" as being " _the external world in its entirety_."

For our purposes however, the above definition of nature is just too broad and non-specific. It states that _everything_ around us is to be considered an element of nature.

Of course, that is true. Every physical object that we encounter in our day-to-day lives is inherently made up of natural substances. But, I would like you to make a distinction between objects that would still exist in the total absence of man versus those objects that have been modified, processed, altered, manufactured or otherwise changed by the hand of man (and machine).

The natural objects that I want you to consider as fair game for observation include those things that man has not "created" or altered, as far as one can tell, at least. Things such as rocks, plants, insects, birds and other animals can be considered to be outside the realm of what man has managed to fabricate and, within the scope of our more restrictive definition, they represent the natural world.

Under our definition, your own body, sans any clothing, would also be considered to be a natural object, in spite of the fact that you may have been regularly exposed to countless consumer products manufactured by man, things such as suntan lotions, moisturizing creams, drug prescriptions, genetically modified foods and so on. For our purposes, none of these foods, drugs, cosmetics or other products should be considered as having caused the basic core design and function of the human body to mutate enough that it is no longer a creation of nature.

In addition to physical objects, you will also be examining the forces of nature, too, and drawing conclusions about invisible or intangible things, such as air, light, heat, space and other core aspects of nature.

But, before we can start to accumulate facts and to observe the laws of nature, we now have to diverge into the world of philosophy and define what reality is and what our universe is considered to be.

# CHAPTER EIGHT

It should be obvious from the previous chapters that the intent of this book is to get you, the reader, to actively pursue an examination of the real world around you and not to have to spend an inordinate amount of time ruminating over a lengthy treatise on philosophy.

Having said that, we do need to establish a base line as to what constitutes a legitimate picture of reality and what does not.

Since it is my desire for this book to have universal application, I am not going to attempt to either criticize or to defend any given religion or metaphysical belief. If you have such beliefs, it should be completely up to you to determine whether or not they continue to have validity in light of what you discover about the real world from your first hand observations.

All I ask is that, if you discover some aspect of nature that you weren't aware of earlier, please do not deny reality because it does not conform to your overall belief. Rather, if you have to, adjust your vision of how your religious belief, or metaphysical belief, dovetails into the core facts of reality and how it can live with them in harmony. If you can't achieve any harmony, I would suggest that the metaphysical or religious belief should likely be more at risk for a revaluation, as opposed to any facts that you have confirmed by virtue of your own direct observations.

Next, for all of you professional philosophers out there, rather than getting into detailed arguments about whether or not life is just a dream, or, if free will is correct, or, if the future is predetermined, suffice it to say that we will assume that free will is a reality. Here is my supporting rationale.

If free will is correct, and the future is undetermined, your choices and actions will have a direct say in determining how the future unfolds.

If free will is not correct, and the future is already predetermined, rather than adopting an apathetic attitude about the future, enjoy the illusion of free will to its fullest extent. If you can't ever determine whether or not free will exists, why not enjoy the ride? If you think you have an effect on the future, and there is nothing definitive to prove that you don't, why not concede that life is great and continue to act in full accord with your whims, fancies and desires?

Either way, you can't deny one simple fact. It is as follows:

" _For every human being, events occur that can be said to comply with that human being's wishes and desires, while other events take place that are wholly undesirable and unwanted, yet also outside the scope of our personal control."_

If your belief is such that the external world is simply an illusion, and that no one else truly exists in the universe other than your own consciousness, why would you not control every event in such a manner that it would only please you?

Clearly, because events in the external world do occur that are not in accordance with our own wishes, the universe must therefore contain some force (or forces), aside from our own consciousness, that also dictates how events unfold.

If there is at least one force that determines how events will transpire, why would there not be several? Thus, the concept that life is just the dream or an illusion of a single consciousness fails to hold water.

Even if we concede that the universe contains not only our own individuality, but other human beings and living plants and animals as well, what exactly is the universe? How vast is it? Does it have any boundary? Is it finite or infinite?

We will be examining some of these questions in much more detail later, after we have determined some additional aspects of reality that are based on real world observations, as opposed to solely theoretical musings.

# CHAPTER NINE

So, how much of what you think you "know" has been achieved as a result of your own first hand experiences, versus what you may have been told, or read in books?

One critically important, fundamental aspect of knowledge is as follows:

" _The only facts that you can be absolutely, 100%, totally certain of are those that you have verified from your own direct, first hand experiences."_

Now I'm not trying to convert you into a paranoid sceptic, but the sad fact is that _everything_ that you absorb in the form of "second hand" knowledge should always be considered as being vulnerable to falsification, misinterpretation, inaccuracy or just plain exaggeration.

So, is there absolutely nothing, outside the scope of you own direct experiences, that you can have any certainty in?

Since you can't be everywhere in the world at once, you can't be truly certain of what's transpiring in other cities, countries or even parts of your own hometown. Having said that, you can apply a measure of credibility to news stories, based strongly on your own first hand knowledge and past life experiences. The best you can do is to assign a degree of "probability" as to whether or not what you have been told is either practical or possible.

So, your own personal storehouse of knowledge can be divided into two main categories. They are:

1.) Facts gained from your own first hand experiences that, if interpreted correctly, can be said to be 100% true and certain.

2.) "Everything else" that, after sufficient scrutiny, should be sorted into a range of the most probable to the least probable "facts."

Your direct observations of natural phenomena should fall into the first category above, provided that you exercise good judgment and employ the "scientific method" in determining what is factual.

The scientific method demands that, when performing a controlled experiment or any observation, it should be repeated a sufficient number of times in order to guarantee consistency in terms of the outcome. How many times you may have to repeat an observation before you have faith that it represents an immutable law of nature is up to you. But, in general, one occurrence is never enough to arrive at a certainty and you may have to make repeated observations of everything we are about to suggest herein before you can feel that the truth has been exposed.

However, most natural terrestrial phenomena will not require same type of exhaustive proof that a mathematician requires to prove a postulate involving number theory. (Be happy of that!)

# CHAPTER TEN

Now let's get back to some outdoor exploring. I want you to go outside on either a sunny, or a partially cloudy day, in order to make some fundamental observations about light and shadow.

First, pick out a stationary object that has some height to it. An ideal object would be a tree with a relatively narrow trunk, say two to three inches wide or so. The tree should be isolated from other trees or tall objects, and its shadow should be readily discernable with respect to the ground.

The best time of day to make these observations would be mid-day or early afternoon. Next, note the presence of the shadow cast by the tree trunk. Take a marker, such as a piece of loose wood or a stick, and align it along the right hand boundary of the shadow. Make sure that the twig or stick is lined up so that its left edge borders the right edge of the shadow in a straight-line manner.

You could decide to stand facing the tree for a minute or so in order to try to discern whether or not you observe any motion of the shadow. I wish you good luck in such efforts but, unfortunately, the shadow will be moving at too slow a rate for the human eye to perceive it. You need to make repeated observations of the shadow over a somewhat lengthier period of time.

What you will be doing is effectively using the tree as a natural sundial.

If you make repeated observations over a period of twenty to thirty minutes, you should be able to observe and record the following:

"At first, the stick or twig is aligned tightly to the right side edge of the shadow. As time passes, the shadow appears to move to the right (east) and begins to encroach upon the face of the marker stick. As time continues to march on, the marker stick will eventually appear to rest in the centre of the shadow. Later still, the shadow will move past the marker stick entirely and the stick will rest entirely in sunlight once more. Also, the stick that was previously lined up flush with the right hand side of the shadow will now appear to be positioned at a slight angle to the left hand side of the shadow."

What conclusions can you draw from these simple observations?

Firstly, you should be able to note that the shadow moves in a left to right (west to east) manner and appears to rotate around the tree trunk in a circular fashion. The shadow can be said to "radiate" from the tree trunk as its central pivot point of origin.

Secondly, without risking looking directly at the sun (and possibly risking damage to your eyes), block out the sun with your hand and try to determine, approximately, where the sun is in the sky. Although I don't want you to risk any eye damage by making an exact reading, you should be able to confirm that, in general at least, the sun is in the sky in the opposite direction of the shadow.

Thus, the obvious conclusion from this is that the sun is the source of light. But, what exactly is light?

And, what is shadow? Is being bathed in shadow the natural state of all matter? Does light itself move? Or is it a stationary essence that fills space instantaneously?

Clearly, even such a basic set of observations only raises many more questions. But, as a humble backyard science observer, can you ever hope to answer these questions for yourself?

Before we can tackle the more probing questions about the world of reality, I will need you now to temporarily immerse yourself into the world of the paranoid sceptic in order to determine exactly what observations you can make that will prove to be unshakable and unwavering.

# CHAPTER ELEVEN

Your next challenge, at least for a single day, will be to question _everything_ that you are told. I want you to become a complete sceptic about all that you have ever read about current events, history, science and, basically, all academic knowledge in general.

For today, you will be enticed to enter the realm of the conspiracy theorist and the true unbeliever.

So, let's start with a classic example of an event that the average man on the street may choose to question. Did man really land on the moon in the 1960s, or, was NASA's entire moon landing program a complete hoax? Were all of the moon excursions really shot in a terrestrial Hollywood picture studio and man never went to the moon at all?

If you are, similar to the vast majority of us, a science layperson, how can you have any degree of confidence that the moon landing was real? You cannot simply go outdoors on a clear night and, using either your own eyesight or a pair of binoculars, "see" the footprints left by the astronauts on the surface of the moon.

Another historical event that always seems to be in question revolves around President John F. Kennedy's assassination. Was Lee Harvey Oswald the sole shooter, or was there a larger conspiracy that involved organized crime, foreign enemies or even domestic adversaries? Will science ever be able to provide us with conclusive proof of who was, or was not, involved?

But, let's travel back even further in time. How do you know that events that occurred in World War I or World War II were accurately recorded? And, what about wars or other major events that took place even earlier than that? How can you have faith in recorded history if you weren't actually there at the time?

And, let's also consider events that happened prior to written history. Stories brought down through the ages by oral traditions. Are any of them true, or are they all just fables and fairy tales devised by man for entertainment purposes only?

As we stated at the start of Chapter Nine, the only "facts," of which you can be 100% certain, arise from those events that you, yourself, have experienced.

The ultimate end conclusion is that no one can be entirely confident that any record of a historical event is absolutely true. Everything can be subject to manipulation, speculation and outright lies.

So, what aspects of recorded history can we believe, and what things are we justified in maintaining conspiracy theories and doubts about?

But next, let us set aside the paranoid sceptics and conspiracy theorists for a minute or two, and examine the actions, fears and beliefs of those individuals who are said to have obsessive-compulsive disorder.

What prompts an individual to develop bizarre routines and/or superstitions that manifest themselves into actions that are largely uncontrollable?

The motivation for such repetitive actions is different for each individual with an obsessive-compulsive disorder. How the particular habit came to be, originally, is usually related to some past event with either a very memorable positive or a negative outcome. Regardless of what the first incident was, the individual with OCD cannot seem to break away from the repetitive action for the fear of some negative consequence as a direct result.

Whether or not the individual thinks that the earth will collapse below his/her feet; a meteor will fall out of the sky and land directly on his head; a tornado will spontaneously develop and carry him away; or one of a million other fear-filled consequences, he/she cannot help but faithfully perform the ritual or routine to eliminate the perceived threat.

The worst thing that anyone can do for an individual with OCD is to challenge their belief and aggressively force the individual to abandon his/her practice under duress. This usually only ends up with the individual becoming yet even more committed to their routine and developing a stubborn resistance and resolve to stay true to both their fears and beliefs.

The primary manner in which an individual with OCD ultimately eliminates these routines and habits is to decide to risk not performing the ritual in order to see what the net outcome will be. When the individual has determined, on his own accord, that there was no negative consequence, it is easy for him to decide to finally abandon the routine, since it no longer serves any productive purpose.

The key principle involved here is that the individual must decide to take the risk of not performing his/her routine on their own, without any outside pressure or influence. If this occurs, the results are usually long lasting and the former routine becomes non-recurring.

The entire process, therefore, of examining reality and the natural world through a "hands on" approach can be therapeutic to an individual with OCD as, with each new discovery of a law or fact of nature, the causative source of the paranoia or fear may come under direct question or scrutiny if it is in conflict with what has been revealed.

Returning now to the conspiracy theorists and paranoid sceptics, they also can find some solace in the fact that, with each law of nature uncovered, the ability of anyone to "pull the wool over their eyes" becomes much lessened since they will have more in their arsenal of forensic tools to determine if a story has been fabricated or not.

But regardless of how much one learns about science, the laws of nature, and the world of reality, there will still remain the ability of man to deceive and hoodwink his fellow man. The key question is " _to what degree can any one man, agency or government fool the general public consistently_?"

In order to examine this question in greater detail, let's hop back on the paranoia wagon once again and look at some more fear-laced scenarios.

We all know that technology continues to advance in leaps and bounds and that things which might not have been conceivable in even the recent past have a way of being developed in laboratories and quickly coming to a practical reality.

So, what's to stop some evil government entity or a rogue state from developing robotic clones, invasive spying systems, computer-generated illusions and other such deception devices on a grand scale?

Well, mankind is ingenious and all of the above things are possible, but to what extent and degree should be the most important question.

Here are a few examples for you. Suppose you believe that every automobile in existence has been modified in such a manner that, when the windows are rolled-up, what you are looking at is only an illusion? The car may be giving you a sense of motion, but let's say that you are really stationary, and the scenery whizzing past is only a pre-programmed video contained in the body of the windows themselves. When you get to your destination, instead of having travelled many hundreds of miles, how do you know you aren't just a few miles away from your starting point, perhaps in some government controlled false town site, or looking at a holographic fake landscape?

Well, I agree that this one is very easy to disprove. Simply roll the window down and stick your arm partially out to feel the wind generated by the car's motion along the way. (This may not be a practical solution though when one is travelling at high speeds on a busy freeway.)

But let's extend this concept from that of an automobile to an airplane. When you get onboard a plane, you can feel the motion at time of take-off. You can also feel a slight G-force and, later on, any turbulence the plane may encounter. But how do you really know that these sensations are not faked? If you have ever been to a theme park, or to Cape Kennedy Space Centre, and gone on a virtual ride, you know that these physical sensations can be replicated.

Of course, when you are in flight, you can't simply roll down the window of the jet aircraft and stick your hand outside. So, how do you know that the vision of clouds as you look through your window is not a motion picture programmed into each window's screen?

Yet, even the above scenario becomes easy to prove as irrational if you take a plane to a certain city or location, spend time there, and then, at a later date, travel back to the same location by automobile, bus, motorcycle, train or other means of surface transportation to confirm its exact location and true existence.

But let's get even more paranoid with some harder to prove theories. What if you think that some of the insects outside your home aren't real insects, but robotic drones, spying on you?

Of course, if you could capture one of these artificial insects and dissect it to reveal its robotic inner parts, perhaps only then would you have conclusive proof that your paranoid suspicion was correct.

But there are other paranoid suspicions that are much harder to prove as either true or false. Most of us have cameras built into our home computers and other electronic devices. How do you know that someone at "the other end," so to speak, is not continuously spying on your every move?

While this may, in fact, be entirely possible, the question that you would have to ask yourself is "Why would anyone take the time and energy to spy on me?"

We all think we are rather special, but what would you possess of sufficient interest that any government or spy agency would bother to spend time analyzing and recording the day-to-day activities of your, probably, rather mundane life?

For those of you who are scientific geniuses or other especially gifted people, perhaps a little bit of paranoia may be justified. But for most of us, why would anybody even bother to try to control, manage or manipulate our lives?

But even if you are a dyed-in-the-wool sceptic and a paranoid worrywart, there is light at the end of the tunnel for each one of you. This includes all conspiracy theorists, OCD sufferers and doubters of all shapes, sizes and forms.

Consider this. If you question the true nature of reality and think that everything around you is being manipulated by some greater power, then be aware of the fact that no human being, or even a large government or a powerful spy agency, has the ability to manipulate all of reality. The universe contains an infinite amount of variable features, everything from the earth, plants, animals, the sky, human beings, forces of nature, stars, planets and so on. No one man, or group of men, has the ability to manipulate everything. Thus, paranoid or not, you can have faith in this one overriding law.

" _No one finite being, or any group of beings, or any mechanical or electronic network, has the capability to control, manipulate or falsify the infinite number of features and variables that make up the universe we exist within, or to control the entire range of our perceptions."_

So, although someone may well have the ability to spy on us, create false illusions, alter news stories or modify historical events, no one can control everything that we see, smell, taste, hear or touch. Thus, we can have confidence that, if our investigative powers are keen enough to examine all those aspects of life that we believe have been altered by man, the remainder of our surrounding natural environment will continue to furnish us with a true and faithful picture of reality.

# CHAPTER TWELVE

In order to fully comprehend the current state of the world that you live in, and to gain a greater sense of control over your own personal environment, you must first understand how human society evolved over the centuries. It is critical for you to obtain an intrinsic knowledge of what life in the past must have been like for our distant ancestors.

But, since we do not have the ability to hop into a "time machine" and get transported back into the past, how can we determine exactly what life was like for human beings at a time when none of the tools and conveniences that we are so dependant upon today had been invented yet?

Furthermore, how can we track the evolution of tools and other major scientific discoveries that comprise the necessary prerequisites to the inventions, appliances, materials and manufacturing processes that we have at our disposal today?

Thankfully, the answer to this question is that we do not really require the assistance of a time machine at all. It is possible to extrapolate exactly what past conditions must have been like, simply by performing a series of experiments and by making key observations using the natural materials that are on hand today. Allow me to elaborate further.

I will concede that life in the distant past was likely very different than it is today. We know through examining fossils and other evidence that most of the plant and animal species of today did not exist until more recently in earth's geological timeline. In addition, atmospheric conditions and other features such as the extent of the oceans and tectonic plate movements may have presented a radically different earth for man of ancient times.

But, for our own immediate purposes, these factors will prove to be irrelevant. The reason being is that we will not be attempting to recreate all of the conditions of life on earth throughout the millennia; we are only interested in tracking the life of ancient man at a time when he was very close to, or identical to, the homo sapiens of today.

So, whether or not you believe in evolution, or are a believer in creationism, the process that we will undertake to study herein will be at conflict with neither belief. We are only interested in man's evolution from a point in time that he physically looked very much like the man of today.

When I say "looked very much like the man of today," all I mean is that he would have had two legs, two arms, two eyes, ten fingers, ten toes, an opposing thumb, and all of the other body features that differentiate man from the other animals. Whether or not he had tons of hair on his body, a different average height, or any other physiological differences of a minor nature, is not important.

Also, since we cannot be certain that all humans of ancient times lived in caves, I will avoid use of the cliché phrase "cave man," and instead refer to him solely as "ancient man."

By avoiding the use of the term "cave man" in this book, I will also attempt to dispel the image of ancient man as being an ignorant savage, who carried around a huge cudgel and could only be characterized by cartoon images of Alley Oop or Fred Flintstone.

Even though ancient man did not possess all the technological wonders of today, it should not imply that he did not have the same brains, creativity and logic that modern man has. To assume that ancient man was a "dummy" just because he used his environmental surroundings in a radically different manner of optimization is a standard, and false, bias that modern "civilized" humans apply to all other humans of any less an advanced technology.

But, we do have to make a number of fundamental assumptions as to what ancient man would have been capable of; otherwise, we will be left with no clear starting point with which to make additional observations and valid findings.

Firstly, we will assume that ancient man possessed all of those physical features referred to on the previous page (ten fingers, two arms, etc.). If man did evolve over the centuries from a more "ape-like," or an otherwise different, being, we are really not interested in his previous morphological forms. We simply need to study ancient man from the time that he had evolved to a clearly humanoid form up until today's version of man (who should, ideally, also represent the same genus and species).

So, we will take for granted that ancient man would have had the same mobility and physical attributes that today's humans have. He would have been able to raise his hands high above his head to reach branches on trees. He would have had an opposable thumb with which to pick up objects off the ground. He would have had the ability to stand up reasonably straight and to walk in a bipedal manner. Whether or not a bipedal and upright means of motion was what he always used, or whether he sometimes walked on all fours, is irrelevant, as long as, at least sometimes, he was able to walk or run in an upright manner.

The next assumption that we have to make is that, even though ancient man's environmental surroundings may have been dramatically different in terms of the types of plants and animals he would have encountered, there would have also existed some manner of plant life and other animal life on earth, besides man himself, on which he could sustain himself in terms of an ongoing food source.

And, even though the mixture of gases in the planet's atmosphere may have also differed in terms of their respective percentages, ancient man would have breathed in the air of his day and, in this regard, was no different than the man of today.

We must also assume that water, in the form of lakes, rivers, streams, oceans, clouds and rainfall, would have existed back then, even though the configuration of the oceans and continents may have varied greatly from today's earth. Also, we must assume that some type of soil, and some forms of rocks were also present. Without these basic assumptions, we would have no means of understanding how man could have made discoveries that later spawned all the inventions of today.

# CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Now it's time to commence our investigations into the nature of reality with true zest and vigour.

Given that we will be substituting our current conditions and natural environment for that of ancient man's, we now have a firm basis with which to make observations as to how man would have commenced on a path towards developing technologies that would further aid in his survival and to his proliferation on the face of the earth.

To replicate the world and actions of ancient man in the most realistic sense, we should take into account that the earliest species of man would have worn no clothing at all. But, it would be not only be impractical, but highly embarrassing too, to suggest to you to run around naked while performing these observations. (Our modern society would likely frown upon such historical realism in a public setting.)

Having said that, however, wherever possible, you should try to avoid any bias in your observations created by the usage of current technology, modern tools and, where possible, even clothing. What I am trying to say is that, if you can experience certain natural environments barefoot, without risking injury to your feet, you should do so. If you can wear shorts, versus pants, that will encumber you to a lesser degree, and more closely mimic the experience of ancient man, you should also do so.

Ancient man would not have had umbrellas to use when it rained; shoes to wear on rocky ground; gloves to put on his hands when touching plants and animals; backpacks to carry what food or other items he would find and gather. To be entirely realistic, you must immerse yourself in the fiction that you are living in an ancient time and do not have access to _anything_ , other than the natural objects around you that you can collect for use from your surroundings.

It goes without saying that, prior to ancient man using tools, he must have been fully cognizant of the abilities of his natural body and would have first learnt to use his limbs and other assets prior to examining the possibility of any external aids. He would not have, for example, chosen to eat fruit directly from the branches of a tree or bush by using only his mouth in a giraffe-like manner. Since nature had already bestowed him with functioning arms and an opposable thumb on each hand, he would have used his hands to perform most actions of food gathering and sorting.

He would have, early on, developed not only his ability to lift large, heavy objects, but he would have also learnt to be able to employ a delicate touch when it came to items that required less force or pressure.

But, if ancient man's primary concern would have been food procurement, why, would he, in the first place, even bother to take any interest in rocks, stones, sticks, wood and the other components of tool making, when they were clearly items that could not be eaten?

This will be our starting point in examining how early man would have first considered tools that could be shaped and modified to his personal advantage.

So, consider this. Let's assume that ancient man would have been constantly looking for sources of food. Why would he need to do this? This would all depend upon the availability and variability of local food sources. But, even if food sources were abundant, ancient man could not have constantly sat in one spot and sustained himself from food sources within his arm's reach. He would need to travel, at least nominal distances, to locate more food.

In the total absence of food, we have to assume that ancient man would also have experienced hunger, which would have been his prime motivation to seek out new sources of food, and to travel yet even further from his home environs. Such a basic motivation is easy to replicate in modern man; just try going without lunch or not eating for an entire day. Of course, ancient man's tolerance to hunger may have far surpassed our own weaknesses, and he may have gone for much longer periods of time without food, but, if his biological make-up were anything similar, sooner or later, he would have to succumb to the pressures of hunger and make a full-out effort to locate food.

But, what kinds of food did ancient man eat? What sustained him daily? Was he a carnivore, an herbivore or an omnivore?

Being just simple science laypeople, you and I would have no idea as to what his diet consisted of, but we can be certain of one glaringly obvious fact, that being:

" _Ancient man would have to have eaten_ _some_ _type of food or foods in order to sustain himself."_

So, whether or not he ate only plants, or if he occasionally also ate insects, or if he devoured small animals, we know that he would have had to seek out these food sources, and, after locating them, also handle them in order to eat them. In other words, he would have had to "pick them up" and put them in his mouth in order to ingest them.

This raises a number of other probable scenarios. If you have ever observed a bird scouring a lawn for food, you will likely have seen the bird pick up a number of items in its beak, and then, selectively drop unwanted items back onto the ground. So, it is not only probable, but also a certainty that ancient man would have to have done the same. If a number of nutritious nuts or berries lay on the ground, for instance, and ancient man scooped them up, what is the probability that he wouldn't also have (at least occasionally) picked up some dirt, rocks, gravel, inedible grasses or other items, too? Would he not immediately dispose of the inedible and unwanted items by dropping them back to the ground?

But, what if a particularly enticing food item lay under a small rock, or a series of rocks? Ancient man could, of course, kick them aside with his foot; shove them away with his arm, or, more importantly, _pick them up with his hands_ in order to relocate them, or toss them away, and get at the food item.

In this manner, man would have had his first exposure to picking up rocks, gravel, sand, soil and all other types of inorganic matter, even though he may have had no practical use for them (yet!).

It should also follow that, if certain food sources grew on tree branches, or on plant limbs, the motivation would have present for ancient man to break off the entire plant branch. Initially, ancient man may have simply done this accidentally, by handling the plant too roughly, or in too excited a manner. But, once he found that he could tear off the entire branch for, say, a bunch of berries, he would have found that he need not eat the items at the immediate site of the food source. Especially if he was frightened away by some predator, he would have quickly learnt that he could carry the food items away in his hand(s) and later eat them in a much safer environment.

Thus, man would have first carried tree limbs or other woody plant limbs in his hands, but perhaps disposed of them later in a totally random manner.

But how and when did it first dawn on ancient man that either rocks or tree branches could be used as defensive weapons, too?

This could have occurred initially as a completely random and unintentional act. Ancient man could have tossed away some rock or stick in his path and hit either another ancient man, or some animal, possibly even a predator. If the rock or stick was sufficiently large enough, or hard enough, to cause pain to the unintended target, and to scare it/him away, the realization might have immediately hit home that repeating such an action in the future might come in highly useful if a threat were imminent.

Now, some highly educated historian or philosopher might also raise the question as to whether or not ancient man even had any concept of a " _future_."

But I find this to be an entirely frivolous speculation. Even animals display their knowledge and awareness of the future. Otherwise, why would birds build nests? Or squirrels store away nuts and acorns? If animals weren't cognizant of some type of a future, they would not do anything that resembled a type of "pre-planning." Birds build nests to rear their young, but if birds cannot envision a future with eggs in the nest, why would they even bother to go to the effort of building a nest in the first place?

This now provides us with our next basic fact regarding ancient man. That being:

" _Ancient man would have been cognizant of a future; a tomorrow, and days beyond tomorrow."_

So, even for a rudimentary hunter and gatherer, he would have undoubtedly had the mental ability to plan for the future. To what degree his time could have been devoted to planning would have been determined by the presence of predators, his daily search for food, and any and all other environmental factors that would have consumed both his time and energy.

Although we will never know whether or not ancient man's very first tool was a weapon, or some other type of a domestic tool, our next challenge will be to examine a few of the most rudimentary and fundamental tools available to man, ones that required little in the way of either creativity or invention.

# CHAPTER FOURTEEN

For your next challenge, I need you to examine the full range of motion of the human body.

Start by performing a few callisthenics and/or stretching exercises. Bend over; twist from side to side at the waist; rotate your arms in a circular fashion; flex your knees; raise your hands above your head; twist your head from side to side; look up and then down; kick out your feet and legs; make a throwing motion with your arms; and, perform whatever other simple motions you can think of.

The range of motion of every individual will vary; given one's age, physical ability or inability, muscle strength, stiffness, flexibility and any number of other factors. But, even if you have a very limited range of motion, or, are confined to a wheelchair, I would implore you to move in whatever manner your body will allow you to.

You may now well ask: " _This book is not intended to be a fitness manual, so why all the deep knee bends and the other exercises?_ "

The simple answer is that I need you to obtain a totally realistic sense of what a human body can, and cannot, do.

If I were to ask you to rotate your head 360 degrees, you would obviously tell me that this is impossible. Yet, there are many other limitations imposed upon the human body that restrict you from doing every conceivable movement.

This is important to recognize as, given our core assumption that ancient man would have had a physical form very similar to ours, his body would have had the same restrictions regarding his range of motion. These restrictions would have been the prime motivator for ancient man to look towards his environment for external tools.

But, I will now contradict something that I had stated at the end of the last chapter with respect to not really knowing what ancient man's very first tool was. We do know, with absolute certainty, what ancient man's first tool must have been. We can highlight this fact in the following prima facia statement.

" _The very first tool to be used by ancient man was, obviously, his own human body."_

In essence, many parts of a human's body can be thought of as tools. If you kick away an obstacle in front of you with your foot, are you not using your foot as a tool? If you chew a morsel of food with your mouth, are your teeth not being used as cutting and grinding tools? If you throw a rock with your hands and arms, are they not also tools?

This rule applies to _all_ animal creatures. Animal body parts, such as limbs and other morphological features, can be thought of as tools that enable certain actions to be performed.

For example, go outdoors in the summertime and observe a number of flying insects. Are their wings not "tools" that enable flight?

However, if ancient man desired to fly, he would quickly realise that the action of flapping his arms about would not be sufficient to achieve such an end result.

Thus, we can now form another basic assumption regarding ancient man's use of tools. It is this:

" _The restrictions imposed upon the human body in terms of such limiting factors as range of motion, reach, strength of limbs, etc., would have caused ancient man to explore the effectiveness of what we today commonly think of as tools."_

But before we can consider how ancient man might have first came to use natural items such as rocks or wood as tools, in the next chapter we must make note of some additional knowledge that ancient man must have surely possessed.

# CHAPTER FIFTEEN

In commencing this chapter, I first need to reiterate a basic premise alluded to earlier in this book. That being the fact that ancient man must have been an inquisitive, sentient creature. Although he likely faced danger on a daily basis from predators and other environmental factors that challenged his ability to survive, he must have also experienced quiet periods of time in which logical thought, reflection on the past and planning for the future would have been possible.

It seems highly unrealistic to think that ancient man could have been the type of grunting, primitive moron; who only reacted to his environment based solely on emotion, fear and a near constant lack of understanding; that many forms of popular literature depict him as.

But regardless of whether or not he was a bold adventurer or a timid, quivering creature, he had to have possessed an understanding of a few basic laws of science and nature, regardless of the fact that he may not have been able to express this knowledge in either written or verbal form to any other human being.

Here, then, are a number of basic tenets of knowledge that he must have had available to him.

Firstly, he would have been aware of the limitations imposed upon his sense of eyesight and, in specific, the range of his "field of vision."

To demonstrate this, go outdoors and locate some "natural" grouping of objects, such as a cluster of plants, flowers, trees or rocks. Now, stand a number of feet away from them in order to be able to see the entire grouping at a single glance. Next, move slowly closer to them. Observe that, as you get closer, each object takes up an increasingly larger segment of your field of vision. As you draw even closer, and focus on one particular object, you will not only see that this object starts to dominate your view, but that objects that were formerly within your field of vision have now "disappeared," since they gradually shifted to the extremities of your field of vision and now can only be seen if you rotate your head to one side or the other.

Next, if you walk backwards from these objects while continuing to face them, the reverse occurs, and objects that disappeared from view gradually come back into the overall picture.

Thus, not only would ancient man have realized the limitations of his field of vision, he must also have had an inherent knowledge of the "laws of visual perspective."

Having said this, I am certain that some "expert" out there reading this will say that ancient man did not fully understand visual perspective, since many cave paintings and other ancient pictographs completely ignore this law of nature in terms of their design. But, I am not talking about ancient man's ability to express himself by using tools such as cave paintings, or spoken and written language; I am merely stating that from a practical, day-to-day basis, he would have " _known_ " this law to maintain consistency in terms of his conscious experiences.

In fact, all animals that rely, to any great degree, on a sense of eyesight must also "be aware" of the range and scope of their field of vision.

If you also repeat the above experiment by approaching the objects with your arm outstretched, it will not only confirm the reality as to when an object in your field of vision actually comes into contact with your arm and sets off a tactile sensation, it also confirms that ancient man would have had a rudimentary knowledge of "length," at least in terms of an arm's length radius that objects could be grasped within.

The next law of nature that ancient man must have known also relates to his visual acuity. It is a common sense understanding of the concept of "parallax."

Locate a row of trees that have been planted in a straight-line orientation and that are spaced a reasonable distance apart from one another This should not be very hard to do in an urban environment due to the fact that there will likely be boulevard trees planted by your city or town that fit this requirement. Trees spaced in such a manner might be a bit harder to locate in a natural setting, such as a park or forest reserve, but nonetheless, you should be able to find trees isolated from one another in a relatively similar manner.

Now, stand at one end of this row of trees in such a manner that at least three (or preferably four or more) of these trees are visible. If all the trees are of relatively the same height and other dimensions, you should be able to note that the tree closest to you is the "largest" in your field of vision and that all the other trees shrink in size according to their actual distance from you.

Next, move to your right in such as manner that the trees in the distance seem to become increasingly separated from the closest tree in your field of vision. (You need to move in a line perpendicular to the row of trees.) Now, move back to the left and observe that separation shrinks, until all of the aligned trees (or at least many of them) become virtually "hidden" by trunk of the tree closet to you. Move yet further to the left and observe that the separation between the trees enlarges yet again, but in an opposite manner as before. This apparent "shifting" of the aligned trees is due to the phenomenon of visual parallax.

Ancient man, although he may not have been able to set this down as a written "law" of nature, would have inherently understood the manner in which parallax manifested itself in the real world.

The next aspect of nature that ancient man would have been aware of would have been the phenomenon of "gravity."

Although Newton might well have had to watch an apple fall from a tree before formulating his universal law, ancient man would have also "known" that gravity was a constant feature of his world.

Every time ancient man would have picked up and object and then discarded it, either by simply dropping it or by throwing it away, he would have observed gravity in action.

Thus, we can unequivocally state that ancient man had, at least, a rudimentary knowledge of the following laws and/or aspects of nature.

1.) The range of his field of vision.

2.) The laws of visual perspective.

3.) The law of visual parallax.

4.) The concept of distance and some differentiation of near and far.

5.) The effect of the law of gravity on all tangible physical objects.

It is important to recognize ancient man's awareness of these aspects of the natural world since they will each play a vital role in determining exactly how ancient man would have been able to contemplate the practical use of tools.

# CHAPTER SIXTEEN

For our next set of observations, you will need to perform these actions on a rainy day and, thus, you may have to wait a length of time until such favourable conditions exist.

But, if you can find a day in the spring, summer or fall in which a constant steady rainfall is occurring, the conditions should be favourable. Of course, this is assuming that you will not be going out into a thunderstorm or any other dangerous weather whereby lighting, extremely high winds or other possible life-threatening conditions are present.

It is essential, prior to commencing your observations, that you remain completely dry in an indoor environment. Now, when you first step outside, ensure that your arms are outstretched and that your hands are held flat, with the palms down and the back of your hands in upwards position.

Stand steadily in the rain and do not move either your hands or your arms for a length of time. As you are standing there, can you "feel" the raindrops as they make contact with your skin? Where are the raindrops making contact? Can you see water droplets begin to form on the surface of the back of your hands?

Although the rain will be falling in a totally random manner, both of your hands (and your arms, too, if they are also exposed) should start to show evidence of rainwater on the upper surfaces of them.

If you return indoors, being careful not to greatly change or rotate the position of your hands and arms, you should observe that the rainwater is only present on the upper surfaces of your hands and that your palms will remain dry. (This is not as easy to observe as at first may seem, since the rainwater will have a tendency to run through your fingers, or around the sides of your hands, which can confuse or distort the results.)

But, if you dry your hands off, and repeat these observations a number of times, it should reinforce the observed results. The rainwater only accumulates on the _upper_ sides of your arms.

Next, go back outside into the rain once more and attempt to make some general observations about the actions of the rain. Stare steadily and intently into the midst of the rain. Can you actually "see" any one individual raindrop falling? Can you track a drop of rain through the air as it is falling to the ground, prior to it hitting the earth's surface?

Since the rain is travelling earthward at an extremely high speed, it is _impossible_ to see any single drop of rain falling. All you are able to observe is the streak-like pattern of the entire rainfall and the fact that this pattern tends to shift and shimmer as raindrops appear and disappear in different locations in the space in front of you.

Thus, we "know" that the rain is travelling in a downward manner, not through direct visual observation of the rain, but, indirectly, through its effect after it has landed on other surfaces.

The importance of this set of observations is that it reinforces the fact that not every phenomenon of nature can be seen with our eyes. There are many inferences that have to be made through "indirect" observational means. However, this does not imply that the end conclusions to be drawn are any less valid or "real."

Ancient man would have also "known" that rain falls in only one direction, downwards, and never upwards, through similar such indirect means. The fact that a raindrop cannot be clearly seen falling to the ground would have posed no great doubt in the mind of ancient man that he was correct in his convictions that rain falls from the sky and, therefore, is also subject to the effects of gravity, the same as with all other earthly matter.

When man first begin to consider other "invisible" aspects of nature, he would already have possessed such common sense logic, as passed down to him from his earliest ancestors. He would have already understood that man need not "see" everything to confirm its presence in reality.

# CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

There exists a common belief that most children acquire knowledge from their parents or other elders, and, that this fundamental aspect of the learning process never applies in a reverse or reciprocal manner. I believe strongly that, in the case of both ancient man and modern man alike, this notion must be completely erroneous.

If we restrict our argument to solely that of ancient man, consider the following possible scenario(s). First, lets' assume that ancient man was not a meat eater. If ancient man subsisted entirely on plants as a food source, there would have been no need to develop various hunting tools, such as arrows and spears, for that particular application. So, if ancient man sought out only nutritious fruits, vegetables and other such edibles, why would he ever need to examine the range of motion, or other potential applications, for rocks, stones, wood or any other natural objects that he found laying on the ground? If he picked up a piece of wood or a rock, it would likely be to simply uncover an edible plant, and, subsequently, he would probably just "drop" the rock or wood to the ground, given that it had no practical value to him.

So, when would he have decided to "throw" a rock or a piece of wood for the first time, and examine the effects of its range, height, force of impact, spin or other related variables?

This is truly an excellent question to ponder. But, there is a fairly simple answer to this conundrum, if we are prepared to examine the actions and activities of youth.

Modern children love to play. They also love to examine, and experiment with, objects or phenomena that are new to them. You can often see the joy on their faces as they laugh and gambol about while pursuing these "fun" activities. So, the key question that remains is " _would ancient children have been radically different in this respect from modern children?_ "

Granted, environmental conditions were likely much different back then, in terms of not only predators, but other risks and dangers. But, would this have deterred youth completely from seeking out new adventures whenever less risky conditions would have been present? I would tend to think not.

I believe strongly that the pursuit of happiness and an inquiring mind would have been an inherent feature of ancient youth, just as it continues to be today.

So, it is entirely possible, and probable, too, that the first person to throw an early spear (just a sharpened tree branch), a rock or any other "future" weapon or tool, was simply a child at play.

In this manner, not only would the child have learnt some of the rules of physics regarding matter in motion, but, adults watching the activities of these youngsters would have acquired similar knowledge at the same time. And, it is entirely feasible that adults may have decided joined in the "fun," too, and would, thus, have also gained first hand knowledge of the effects of throwing objects.

Therefore, it is not a prerequisite of the experimentation process that all knowledge obtained by ancient man would have had to have a practical application in order to transpire, or to evolve. Much of what was learnt in early times may have simply been a direct result of child's play.

# CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

In Chapter Fifteen, it was concluded that ancient man would have possessed some concept of near and far. In other words, he would have had a fundamental sense of distance and length.

Having said this, I am not speaking of a practical knowledge of measurement. All I am saying is that he would have known when objects were within reach or not, and, based on visual clues such as shadows, angles of parallax, depth perception and other variables, he would have been able to determine when objects were near, or very far away.

This process of determining the distance of objects, for human beings, commences shortly after birth, as is still the case to this day. Babies, when very young, will reach out to touch objects and, based on their success or failure, will rapidly learn what is near or what is far away from them.

As humans reach adolescence and adulthood, they increase their knowledge of length by travelling across the land for much greater spans of distance. Although the concept of a "straight line" may not have yet occurred to them, they would also have appreciated the effect of travelling in a direct path to any given object, versus an indirect route, and the variation in time and physical effort associated with the same.

So, the idea of ancient man not having an inherent knowledge of length and distance would seem to be a completely untenable belief. In fact, even insects and other creatures display an evolved sense of distance.

Take for example the following actions of insects. First, observe a bumblebee as it flies about a flowering plant. If the plant has numerous flowers up and down its length, observe how the bee will fly directly from one flower to the next, without landing on any portion of the intervening plant stem. It accurately gauges the exact distance from one flower to the next as it takes off in flight, without any wasted efforts or deviation from its intended path. Next, observe a hopping insect, such as a katydid or a grasshopper, when it decides to jump from one location to another. If you are lucky enough to see it jump across an elevated open area onto a fairly distant plant, you will appreciate how accurate the insect is in gauging the amount of jumping force and the direction necessary to accurately land, precisely, on any given plant stem or branch, without missing it entirely.

So, if ancient man would have thought about how many strides it may have taken him to reach a target object, although he may not have been able to count the actual number of strides, he must have also had a fundamental concept of, and some differentiation between, "many" versus "few."

# CHAPTER NINETEEN

Now, it's time to get back to some more "hands-on" activity.

For your next assignment, I need you to find a flat piece of natural ground, such as a grassy lawn, and to collect a handful of plant materials of varying size, length, and weight. For example, if you select a bulky piece of tree branch, perhaps a foot or two in length; a narrower, lighter tree branch or twig, perhaps a half-inch or so in diameter and of relatively similar length; a small, thin, broken-off piece of tree twig or bark, about six inches in length; and a lightweight piece of green leafy matter, such as a small branch from a non-woody, flowering plant with some of its leaves still attached, you will possess enough variation in terms of object size and density for this experiment.

Stand in a given fixed spot and lightly toss the heaviest and largest tree branch item forward a couple of feet. Observe as it leaves your hand and commences to travel through the air in a straight-line manner. Also, observe how it quickly loses momentum and gradually curves in a downward path and, ultimately, hits the ground. Now, do the exact same thing with the other three items.

If the day is fairly calm and not windy, you should see that all four items travel about the same distance away from you before they hit the earth. Even though they are of varied lengths, weights and densities, because you are not trying to toss them very far away, they all exhibit near identical paths through the air and land near the same spot. Also, the curved path that they follow through the air is similar, although some of the objects may turn or rotate in the air a bit differently as they leave your hand.

Based on this simple trial, it evidences the effect of gravity on all of these objects but provides little information as to what would occur if one tries to make them travel much further. To examine the effects of this, you will need a much lengthier stretch of ground.

Unfortunately, for urban dwellers, finding a long flat stretch of ground that you will be able to do this on will likely not be easy. Also, to get enough privacy to do this without the interference or unwanted attention of other people will also be a challenge.

Be that as it may, if you can find a relatively flat stretch of isolated lawn about seventy or eighty feet in total length, you should have enough room to examine what happens when a human attempts to throw either wooden objects, or rocks, as far as possible using a variety of throwing methods.

First select a number of woody tree branches, twigs, pieces of bark and other objects of plant matter of varying weight, size, density and length. Perhaps, fifteen to twenty different items will give you enough variation.

Also, select a number of small rocks of varying size, dimension and weight. About ten different small rocks should do.

Now, stand at one end of the lawn and prepare to toss each item as far as possible.

Of course, the maximum distances achieved with each toss may vary, dependant upon the strength, height and other physical attributes of the thrower.

Be that as it may, commence by tossing each piece of wood or plant matter and watching "exactly" where it first hits the ground. Please be aware that some of these items will likely bounce or roll much further along the lawn before coming to a complete rest, but, it is only the point of first impact that we are concerned with.

Once all twenty plant items have been thrown, you will note the distances achieved, gather them back up, return to your starting point in order to throw them once again.

You should repeat this action at least three times with each batch of items and by each throwing method. Later, you will also repeat this process of first throwing, and then, noting the various landing spots achieved with the ten rocks, too.

You must utilize three different throwing methods. They are: 1.) Underhand, 2.) Sidearm, 3.) Overhand.

Note the results of all three methods. If you are of average strength, and take care to use a near identical amount of force with each item thrown, the results you get could be something as follows:

Results - Woody Objects:

Underhand Throw: \- Maximum distance achieved after throwing all items – approximately 40 feet. In general, the shape, length and weight of each tree branch or twig does not affect the maximum distances achieved, except that the thinner twigs (1/3rd inch in diameter) tend to land 4 or 5 feet less distant than the bulkier branches (1 to 2 inches in diameter), and, the much smaller, lightweight twigs only land about 1/3rd to one-half of the distance (13 ft. to 20 ft.) given a similar force of throw.

Sidearm Throw: – In general, the larger pieces of wood travel less far than by the underhand throwing method, with the exception of the much heavier, and, especially much longer pieces of tree branch, which seem to travel just as far via either method. The smaller, lighter twigs and pieces of woody matter travelled even less far than by the underhand method (only 8 ft. to 12 ft. maximum).

Overhand Throw: – In general, all the woody items tend to travel a bit further by overhand method than by sidearm method, but still much less (6 ft. to 8 ft.) than by the underhand method.

One of the conclusions reached is that the underhand throwing method gives the thrower much more control over "end over end" spin and rotation, which, in the overhand throw, tends to lessen the maximum distances achieved.

Results – Rocks and Stone Objects:

Relatively similar distance results, with average distances of 40-45 feet.

In the rock trials, either the underhand or overhand methods gave similar results, with the sidearm method consistently displaying a lesser average distance achieved.

So, what value does the foregoing experiment offer?

For you, as an inhabitant of our modern technological world, likely "little" would be the pat answer. But, for ancient man, such experimentation would likely have been crucial. Although ancient man may not have been able to analyze these results in terms of feet, inches, metres, or other types of distance measurement, he would have carried with him an innate knowledge of the practical limits as to how far these items could travel if, and when, thrown. When he would later consider these same objects as potential weapons and tools, this knowledge would have been indispensable.

Only by doing such simple experimentation, will you be able to fully appreciate the learning process that ancient man had to go through, long before being able to even contemplate the design of any tools. As such, by no means, does this represent a trivial or wasted effort.

However, please also be aware that, for you adults, unless you can find a private location to do this in relative isolation, you must also be ready to fend off the barbs and, perhaps, sarcastic comments of your friends, relatives or neighbours. Even if you try to explain that you are attempting to understand the evolution of man's ascent and how he could have even first contemplated using tools, few will understand. Although it is okay for children to throw rocks and sticks for fun and experimentation, you may soon find that what is acceptable for children to do becomes taboo, for some reason, for adults. My end advice to you is that, if someone is giving you a hard time when you try to perform these activities, you are free to tell them to "mind their own beeswax," to put it politely, and if so inclined.

# CHAPTER TWENTY

In Chapter Fourteen, it was stated that the very first items to be used as "tools" by ancient man would have been his own limbs and other human body parts. While this undoubtedly was the case, we must next consider what the very first "external" tools used by him might have been.

For some of you, I'm fairly certain that you're already trying to guess if the very first tool may have been either a bow & arrow, a tomahawk, a stone-tipped spear, a fire-starting kit or some other version of a manmade tool as popularized in novels and other modern literature. I can safely say that I'm sorry to disappoint you but, clearly, none of those "inventions" of mankind could have transpired until ancient man first learned the utility, and the mechanics, of using readily found objects in their natural state, which he would have gathered or otherwise ran across in his travels.

Thus, although we can never be entirely certain of knowing exactly what the very first external tool used by man was, we are able to make, with confidence, the following logical statement.

" _Undoubtedly, the first external tools to be utilized by ancient man would have been commonly-found natural objects, in their unaltered state, such as rocks, stones, twigs, tree branches or a vast assortment of other objects obtained directly from the environment."_

Nearly all of our modern hand tools owe their origins to analogous "natural" tools, comprised simply of pieces of rock or wood.

You can now "recycle" some of the objects that you used in the last chapter (the throwing trials) in order to examine what other past use(s) they could have had. If you have already discarded them, you will now need to gather yet another small collection of rocks, twigs and branches.

Commencing with the pieces of wood, twigs and tree branches, here are some possible/probable functions for these items. I have assigned a number of hypothetical names for each item in an attempt to highlight their potential use.

Pieces of Wood, Twigs, Tree Branches

1.) The Poking/Prodding Stick – A narrow tree limb, or twig, with a fairly straight and sturdy shaft that could be used to probe into a hole or some other recessed area that would otherwise be hard to delve into, or, that would present some potential danger to the tool user. An example might be probing into the den of a wild animal or a snake. Another use might be to dig out a grub from a tree hole, or honey from a beehive.

2.) The Parting/Prying Stick – Simply a variation of the use of the twig or branch described above, but instead of poking into holes or crevices, this stick would be used to push aside or "part" plant matter that might obscure a line of sight. An example would be to avoid touching a stinging nettle by pushing aside its leaves or plant stem with the stick in order to reveal what might be behind or beneath it.

3.) The Digging Stick – The predecessor to the shovel and spade, this piece of broken-off tree branch ideally had a broad flatter area at one end with tapering to partial point. It could be used to lift up dirt and soil quicker than by bare hand. If a larger area were being excavated, it could save wear and tear on the fingers and hands of ancient man, too.

4.) The Throwing Stick – Similar to any of those pieces of wood that you threw in the previous chapter, this would simply be a stick used to toss toward some predator, or an undesirable species of animal (e. g. skunk, porcupine), in an attempt to scare it away. Most animals, by natural instinct, will get frightened off by a sudden sound or an unknown object coming towards them, even if it does not represent a physical threat to them. A good example would be to scare off a bear with a sudden loud noise. Of course, with a large predator, this may not actually work. In regards to using the throwing stick as a means of hunting small prey, the respective animal would have to be small and fragile enough, and close enough, for the throwing stick to at all be effective.

5.) The Hammer Stick – Although several different tree parts could effectively be used to hammer or pound objects, many "natural" forms of hammer-like clubs are easy to find. A hard knob can sometimes be found at the end of a broken-off tree limb, or caused by a dense root growth. Often, these natural clubs may have an L-shaped bend in them and, if made of hard wood, could be used repeatedly without much wear and tear to the pounding "head" over time. These small club-like tools, if easily grasped in one hand, would have been highly effective in breaking open nuts, acorns or other such encased items.

6.) The Pinchers, Grabbers or Tongs – This would be any pair of sticks used, one in each hand, to lift or grab an object that ancient man might not have wanted to touch with his bare hands (e. g. move a poison ivy leaf out of the way).

7.) The Drilling Stick – If ancient man failed to find a stick suitable to use as a shovel, he would have quickly found out that even a round, blunt stick could be used as an effective digging tool in order to open up a hole if he repeatedly twisted the stick from side to side in a rotational manner. In other words, he would have learned to "screw" the stick, deeper and deeper, into the ground or some other yielding object.

8.) The Fire Stoker – Although we have not dealt with the subject of starting or controlling a fire yet, ancient man would have discovered that a long stick could be used to stoke a dying fire and that, if the stick were removed whenever it began to smoke or to overheat, it could be used repeatedly with no risk of it catching fire.

9.) The Reaching Stick – A long, solid tree twig could be used to knock fruit off of the elevated branches of a tree whenever the food source was found to be out of reach. This would have saved ancient man the need to climb up the tree and to risk falling.

10.) The Insect Killer – An early form of "fly swatter" would have been available to ancient man if a tree limb was split in half, thus revealing a flat side of the inner core. If bothered by flies or other annoying insects, the flattened tree branch would have been much more effective than trying to kill such pests with only bare hands.

Of course, there are many other applications that you can likely think up, but the above list gives you a partial idea of what can be done with just a piece of natural wood, without the need to modify, combine, manufacture or alter its basic structure.

You can use rocks and stones in a similar manner. Here are just a small handful of possibilities.

Rocks and Stones

1.) The Digging Rock – Similar to the piece of wood that was used to dig with, if a rock has a sharpened or tapered edge, it can also be an effective digging tool, albeit for only a relatively small sized hole.

2.) The Pounding Rock – In a hammer-like manner, a rock can also be used to break open nuts and shells. But, if used on a soft, spongy patch of ground that has "give" to it, it may not prove to be quite so effective. To offset this shortcoming, ancient man would have soon found that, by placing a flat piece of hard rock underneath the object, the impact of the striking rock would have been amplified. Thus, the two rocks combined would have constituted a rudimentary "mortar and pestle" pairing.

3.) The Cutting/Slicing Rock – Ancient man would have quickly discovered that, by using the sharp edge of a hard chunk of rock, vegetable matter, which might be otherwise difficult to tear apart, could simply be "cut" into pieces with the use of a stone. Of course, if a weaker variety of rock were to be used, it might result in only stone chips and rock flakes. Therefore, by experimenting with different types of rock, ancient man would have been well aware of the comparative hardness of different types of rock, too.

4.) The Weighted Rock – When gathering a bundle of vegetable or plant matter, on a windy day, ancient man would have soon learnt to use a heavy rock, placed directly on top of his pile of food, to anchor it down and to prevent it from blowing away after being uprooted or picked. As such, this could likely also be viewed as the earliest form of a "paperweight."

These are only a few example of the utility of rocks and stones.

Your assignment is now to go outdoors and to use your collection of rocks and sticks in such a manner as to replicate all of the above uses (and more, if you can think of them).

Of course, there are other naturally found items, aside from rocks and tree limbs, that can be used as tools, too. For example, even loose soil or sand can be used as kind of tool. If you are attacked by a predator and throw sand into its eyes, thus blinding it, is the sand not perhaps the earliest from of "bear spray?" Or, if you break off a large fern and use it to swat away mosquitoes, is the fern not also a tool?

In conclusion, given the vast abundance of natural objects that could have been used effectively for so many different purposes, we are uncertain as to how long it may have been until man started to modify, manufacture or alter any objects taken from the environment. But, knowing man's ability to improve and enhance things, it was likely not very long.

It likely goes without saying however that, due to the stability, durability, strength, resistance and dense composition of rocks and wood, versus all other objects to be found in nature, they would have been the obvious choice when first considering how to improve upon existing tools, or how to create new ones.

It would also seem that, even in their unmodified state, ancient man likely soon learned to "take home" many of these objects, so that they would be available whenever he needed them. If he were to travel into regions where either loose rocks or wood was unavailable, carrying these ancient tools with him would have only been prudent.

But, for archaeologists, since the very first "tools" of ancient man would have been indistinguishable from common, everyday natural objects, there is no way of knowing exactly what items ancient man may, or may not, have used as tools. It was not until man commenced to "modify" or "enhance" objects (through processes such as flint knapping or smelting) that items started to bear the distinctive sign of man's past use.

# CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

If you have been diligent in terms of performing each of the "hands-on" activities suggested to you in the previous chapters, you likely will not have arrived at any new, earth-shattering revelations, but you _will_ have obtained a better understanding of the prerequisite processes undertaken by man, long before he would have been in a position to manufacture any complex tools.

Although the supposition was earlier made to you that many of these activities could be attributed to an ancient man who was either identical to, or very similar to, modern homo sapiens, it is entirely possible that much of the aforementioned early tool use could have been attributed to earlier species of the human form. But, without speculating about the course of human evolution, it would be safe to say that, regardless of when exactly in the evolutionary process of man these discoveries occurred, by the time Homo sapiens had populated the earth, all of the foregoing basic discoveries would have manifested themselves.

We have also been using tree branches, twigs and plant matter taken from current plant species. There is no guarantee that when ancient man first walked the earth that any of these same species actually existed. Like animal species, plant species also evolved and changed over time.

But, regardless of what plant species did exist back then, we can be confident of two things. The first being that, although modern tree species (such as oak, ash, elm, maple or conifer trees) may not have been present, there were likely other analogous woody stemmed plants that ancient man could have used in exactly the same manner. The second fact being that, even if woody plants did not yet exist, based on the fact that they do exist today, this would simply mean that some of the above "discoveries" only occurred at a later epoch, but they still had to have occurred at some juncture in time.

So, all of the experiments that you perform with natural objects (plants, trees, flowers, rocks, stones) today are valid, given that ancient man's environment must have contained either identical, or very similar, such resources. It would be highly doubtful that ancient man would have lived in a world that did not contain fundamental earthly items such as sand, soil, fresh water, rocks, boulders, salt water, and, at least some form of animal and plant life.

Although it has been stated herein (and will likely be stated again) that we cannot simply hop into a "time machine" and go back to the era of ancient man, in a practical sense, whenever you set aside all modern manmade inventions and interact only with the materials found readily in nature (plants, rocks, animals), you actually have stepped "back in time." If the atmosphere, climate, plant and animal species, presence of water and other environmental factors in the long ago past were similar to those on earth today, there really would be no difference between an ancient man fending for himself on a desert island, or a modern man doing the same today, other than their temporal position in both earth's and man's history.

# CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Before moving on to any additional "hands-on" experiments, it is important to first make some basic assumptions about the transfer of knowledge from one generation to the next, and to understand exactly how inventions, discoveries and tools were able to carry forward into the future.

In order to fully understand this, we must also examine exactly how ancient man might have interacted with his fellow man.

Some of the key questions that you must pose to yourself are as follows:

Did ancient man live in total isolation from his fellow man? Did the male of our species abandon his offspring immediately after birth and leave the raising of his children to the mother? Was ancient man a war-like creature who would defend his territory from any other humans with deadly force? Would ancient man have banded together into tribes of unrelated individuals, or, was the family unit the only form of bonding? Did humans travel together in large groups, or were they solitary explorers?

While not all of these questions have definitive answers, we can be confident of the following facts.

1.) Human babies, immediately following birth, cannot survive in the wild on their own. They require the ongoing care of the mother for an extended period of time before they can eat solid food, or, begin to be mobile and learn to fend for themselves.

2.) Thus, at minimum, human beings must have existed in family groupings of at least two people; a mother and a child.

3.) If there was more than one offspring, the family unit must have consisted of at least three individuals living together.

4.) It is highly unlikely that each and every family unit might not also have included a father. Although some fathers may have readily abandoned their children and mate to set out on their own, human nature would tend to dictate that, at least in some fathers, a nurturing nature would be present and that they would stay to protect and live with their immediate family members.

5.) If you were to look for similarities in nature, it is easy to discover that other animal species also subsist in family groupings. Take, for example, a mother robin and a young fledgling; or, a pair of white-tailed deer that are siblings. They will live together in close proximity without any apparent conflict or desire to live apart.

6.) Nature also provides other examples of animals banding together and living in potentially symbiotic relationships, without the need for the animals to be related. For example, look at a large grouping of crows; it may number forty or more birds that travel together. Or, look at a flock of Canada Geese migrating together. Surely, not all of these animals can be related by either birth or any direct kindred link.

7.) Given that there is safety in numbers, humans would have enjoyed a greater sense of protection from animal predators in the immediate proximity of other humans.

8.) And, finally, we must also acknowledge that ancient man likely possessed many of the same psychological traits that modern man does. Not only would he have, from time to time, felt joy, elation, depression, desperation, sadness, fear and other human emotions, he must also have felt loneliness, too, especially if he had previously experienced the comfort of human companionship at any time in his past.

So, the end conclusion is that, although some humans might have lived in a solitary manner, and yet others might have lived in only close family units, many ancient peoples likely lived in close proximity and harmony with one another, which must have included unrelated individuals, too. This, then, would have been the genesis of tribes, which would later become villages, towns and the precursor to cities.

Therefore, it follows that the larger the grouping of humans, the more potential there would have been for information and knowledge of all sorts to be passed down from one generation to another.

Even in the absence of either a written or verbal language, information regarding the manufacture and the use of tools could still be easily passed down, simply by one human being closely observing the actions of another.

# CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Prior to moving on to examine what the first "manufactured" tools may have been, there are a couple more functional uses of rocks and wood in their natural state that may, or may not, be viewed as "tools," but that would have had an important function for humans across the globe in ancient times.

These would be place markers or trail markers.

In an area where tree branches and fallen wood would have been abundant, there exists a wide variety of patterns that could be made that are indicative of human activity, and that would not normally be found, randomly, in a nature.

The simplest pattern that could be made with only two sticks or tree limbs would be a basic "X" marks the spot. Ancient man would simply lay the two sticks on the ground, one overlapping the other.

Of course, there would be many problems associated with such a simple location marker. First of all, wild animals might run across it and disturb the actual pattern. To avoid this, instead of using easily moved thin sticks, he might have used heavier tree branches. But, given that they would have had rounded trunks, the top branch could easily roll off of the bottom one, again disturbing the pattern. And, finally, unless the area of ground was flat and not obscured in any manner, the marker could be very hard or impossible to see from any distance.

A better solution for a ground marker would be to design a much more elaborate pattern, one that, if disturbed by an animal, would still maintain most of its distinctiveness. For example, a square pattern, using four sticks, would be much more effective. Even if an animal, or the wind, moved one of the border sticks, the remaining three in a "C" or "U" pattern would tend to still indicate that the remaining marker was a remnant of the original.

Grab a bundle of sticks and experiment with how many different patterns you can make that would give clear evidence of human design. The best ground markers are ones in which the sticks do not overlap one another and where each rests flatly and firmly on solid ground.

It goes without saying that rocks make a much more suitable ground marker than wood, given their weight and the fact that neither wind nor animals would be likely to disturb them.

To compensate for the fact that ground markers cannot be easily seen at a distance, ancient man would have learnt how to build a distinctive rock pile upwards into space, too, by repeatedly piling one rock on top of other. A pile of round rocks works if the cairn is large enough to not be mistaken for a natural feature (such as caused by a rockslide or the retreat of a glacier). The best cairn is one where the base rock, or rocks, are _flat_ stones, thus providing stability to the structure. This is the basic concept for an inukshuk, which is an ancient land marker formed of loose stones and made in the crude shape of a human figure.

There are two additional forms of trail marker that can be made in a heavily wooded area, yet, I would encourage you not to do either of these as they are both damaging to the local trees.

One method would be to break certain branches on trees to mark a return path to your starting point. But, unless you are prepared to break branches on almost every tree that you pass, it would be very easy to lose sight of where the path might twist or turn on the way back.

The other method would be to "scar" or otherwise mark the tree by making a distinctive gouge or some recognizable pattern at eye level with a sharp rock.

But, both of these methods can be totally ineffective if the tree grove or forested area is so thick with trees that you can get easily lost in trying to find any markers on the way back.

Experiment with ground markers made of wood, or with cairns made with rocks, but please just "visualize" the tree markers and, by doing so, help keep our trees and forests alive and healthy.

# CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

If you have been truly creative with respect to experimenting with different types of rocks and plant matter, you have likely come up with dozens of other potential uses for these basic products of nature on your own. For example, if you take a marsh plant, such as a tall reed, then break off a portion of its stem and dry it, you will find that you have discovered how to produce a natural type of "straw" that can suction up water. Or, if you take a long, curved tree branch and enter a field of tall grass, by simply swinging it from side to side, you will have created a very effective "scythe" with which to mow down any plants that might be in your path.

But it is now time to move on to examining exactly how ancient man would have altered, or combined, some of those very same natural resources in order to invent new tools, or to improve and modify what he was already making frequent use of.

But, before we commence these investigations, I must forewarn you that you are about to experience numerous letdowns in terms of what your current preconceptions are regarding how easy it is to manufacture tools using only what resources nature has provided you. But please understand that, with each failed attempt at trying to fabricate something that you thought would be very simple to accomplish, you will gain a much more intimate insight into what type of doggedness and determination ancient man had to exhibit in order to improve his lot in life.

Here is your first challenge. Even though ancient man would have had absolutely no knowledge of what modern tools might look like, we certainly do. One of the basic features of all hand tools with either wooden handles or other wooden components is that each piece of wood will have first been trimmed of all its branches and tree bark, and its surface brought to a smooth polished texture, prior to being put into use.

If you now select two pieces of rough tree bark, one made of softwood and one made of hardwood, I want you to attempt to remove the tree bark and smooth down the surface of each piece of wood. But, remember that ancient man would have had no tools such as metal knives, planes or other scraping devices. Sandpaper would also not have been available to him. Therefore, I want you to select a wide range of rocks and sharp stones in order to determine their respective effectiveness in achieving your end goal.

Although it is not necessary to exactly replicate the following assortment of rocks, as an example, I used the following group of twelve diverse items in order to perform this test myself:

1.) Chalk (or Chalky Limestone), 2.) Limestone, 3.) Slate, 4.) Obsidian, 5.) Iron Ore, 6.) Basalt, 7.) Feldspar, 8.) Lava Rock, 9.) Granite, 10.) Rose Quartz, 11.) Flint (or Chert and Cherty Limestone), 12.) White Quartz.

I obtained many of these rock specimens from my travels all over North America but it should not be necessary for you to have to travel far from home to obtain a wide diversity of rocks. Use whatever is easily found in your region, as the end result should be similar, regardless of what types of stone you actually use.

In addition to trying to remove the bark and to smooth down the outer surface of each tree branch, I would also like you to examine which rocks are effective in terms of gouging out a small trough into the body of the wood.

Without reading any further ahead, I want you now to attempt to "modify" these pieces of wood using each type of rock. I would then also ask you to make a notation regarding each end result and, finally, after you are done, to compare your conclusions to my comments directly below.

Results:

1.) Nearly all of the rocks used were extremely ineffective in removing the bark and/or smoothing down the surface of the hardwood. The net result was simply that the outer bark would flake off into tiny, near microscopic, dust particles. Therefore, it would take an _extremely_ long time to even expose a small section of the inner bark using any of these rocks.

2.) As far as the softwood was concerned, nearly all of the rocks used (except perhaps the chalk stone) were effective in removing the outer bark, but, when it came to "smoothing down" the surface of the inner bark, _all_ of the rocks used created an uneven, rough surface; regardless of how many times each one was used.

3.) Different rocks had varying degrees of effectiveness in terms of gouging a trough into the inner wood, but, in general, _all_ had a near impossible time effectively cutting into the hardwood. With respect to the softwood, the best rock for cutting a groove was the lava rock (with its rough surface texture). Many of the others, such as the granite rock, would repeatedly chip off into flakes when pressure was applied. The iron ore rock wasn't good in terms of creating a straight-line groove, but, if repeatedly twisted from side to side, it was effective in making a round hole in the soft wood, yet it was also entirely ineffective on the hardwood.

The bottom line is that _none_ of these rocks constituted a truly effective tool in terms of achieving our desired end goals. Of course, given that all of them were just randomly selected in their natural state, and, that no attempt was made to alter their surface features (i.e. sharpness of their edges, length of rock chosen, etc.), these unexplored aspects might be much more important than the actual "type" of rock used.

Therefore, we can conclude that the surface geometry of the rock is likely more significant than the type of rock used, or its relative hardness.

And, speaking of the relative hardness, it is also probable that ancient man, using some similar assortment of rocks, might have "tested" each rock against one another in order to determine which ones were the hardest, or which were the softest.

Although many of the rocks listed above are comprised of composite minerals, you should still be able to perform a Mohs hardness scale "scratch test" on them to determine the order of hardness that they fall into. If you test one rock against another, you should arrive at a hardness order (from hardest to softest) similar to the following:

Order of Hardness of the Rocks Examined (from hardest to softest)

1.), 2.) & 3.) – Flint, White Quartz, Rose Quartz (in arbitrary order) – Mohs 7-6

4.) Granite – Mohs 7

5.) Lava Rock – Mohs 6.5

6.) Basalt – Mohs 6.5

7.) Feldspar – Mohs 5.5-6

8.), 9.) & 10.) – Slate, Obsidian, Iron Ore (in arbitrary order) – Mohs 5.5-4

11.) Limestone – Mohs 4-3

12.) Chalk (or Chalky Limestone) – Mohs – 2.5

I am confident that ancient man not only would have possessed a solid knowledge of what rocks were harder or softer, but that he would also have possessed a keen eye for what geometric designs were best for gouging, digging, cutting, scraping and all other such practical uses.

# CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

By now, you may be getting just a little bit tired of performing so many tests and trials using strictly rocks and plant matter. In this regard, I couldn't blame you. There is so very much to examine and to consider before one can even begin to appreciate how humankind's basic inventions and fundamental discoveries materialized over the ages. You are likely asking yourself, too, "how will this primitive knowledge reveal to me any valuable secrets of nature that will empower me in my day-to-day life?"

In response to this question, I can only reiterate that, in order to feel that you are in greater control of your environment, you need to have at least a basic foundation of the science of the world around you. In this respect, you really don't have to know _everything_ ; you simply have to accumulate enough basic facts and truths that you will forever lose the feeling that the world contains only mysteries that are beyond your ability to comprehend.

So, to give you a complete change of focus, let's leave behind the world of rocks and plants for a while, and examine one of nature's other major manifestations of matter, that being _water_.

We have already made some basic observations about water in the form of rain. From our recent studies, we have already acknowledged that water tends to form into droplets and that, depending on the respective size of each one, they respond to gravity in a similar manner as all other matter. For those droplets that adhere to your skin or other surfaces, and refuse to fall to the ground until they grow larger, you will have also gained a basic understanding of the property of surface tension.

Ancient man may not have had a written or spoken word for "surface tension," but he would have also been well aware of this unique property of water.

Next, I want you to plan a trip to either the seashore, or to a lakeshore, to perform a series of basic examinations of the properties of water in its natural state. Why not simply use tap water instead, you ask? Well, you could; but remember that we are also trying to establish a rigid scientific protocol here to rule out any bias, incorrect conclusions or false assumptions. You have probably been told that tap water can contain impurities and/or other intentional additives. So, how do you know that these extra agents might not have altered its basic properties, too?

To do these trials in the purest scientific manner possible, lake water or sea water (or rain water) would be the closest form of water that we have access to that would mirror the water that ancient man would have used daily. Of course, with air pollution, acid rain and other modern particulate matter found in the air, these "pure" forms of natural water may not closely match the water consumed by ancient man either, but they represent the best possible approximation.

So, once you hit the lakeshore, or the seashore, read on.

The first set of observations you need to make is what happens to water when it is violently disturbed.

Now, I know that I promised that we would leave further examination of rocks and minerals aside for the time being, but you really need to find a rock, or some other form of solid matter, to perform the following "splash" tests.

Enter the body of water up to your knees (shallow water will suffice) and gently throw a rock upwards into the air and watch closely the effect of its impact as it enters the water. Repeat this experiment a number of times and observe the different reactions based on the shape of each rock and the angle of its entry.

What will transpire will be either one of two reactions. Either the surface water will be thrown up into the air in a homogenous and contiguous mass of water with a ragged and irregular shape and form, or, _most_ of it will rise up in a similar type of co-joined mass, but some of it will separate from the main body and be clearly seen as individual droplets rising into the air. After the rock has entered the water, the effects of gravity will take full effect and all of the disturbed water will drop back down onto the surface of the lake.

So, the obvious conclusion is that:

" _When the rock hits the water's surface, it displaces some of the water by making it rebound in the opposite direction of the rock's downward motion."_

We can also deduce another property of water.

" _When the main body of water is disturbed, the amount of water affected has a tendency to stay in the form of a single body of water, yet when enough force is applied to separate the water, the smallest independent bodies of it form the characteristic globular shape of droplets."_

Next, I need you to make a number of observations of waves.

When the rocks that you tossed into the air hit the water's surface, you will also note that a circular wave will expand outward from the point of impact. Even if the lake or sea has incoming waves of its own hitting the shoreline, these circular waves will ride the crests of the incoming waves and still persist until they eventually dissipate.

Regarding the incoming ocean or lake waves, you should also observe that they do not move shoreward in perfect straight lines. The incoming waves will move inwards at varying speeds and some sections of the waves will surge ahead, while others will lag behind.

If you stand in the water and watch the effects of the water on your legs, or, better yet, place a stick in an upwards manner into the water, you should also note that the water, itself, is not really moving forward, but it is simply rising and then falling at any given single location. Watch the water as it simply bobs up and down the stationary stick.

These basic observations should begin to reveal to you the true nature of waves.

# CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Let's not leave the lakeshore just quite yet. There are other observations that can be made in addition to the properties and actions of water.

For the next set of experiments, I need you to do a fair bit of pre-planning. First, take one of the pieces of softwood that you had earlier collected (one that is fairly thick, say, 4 or 5 inches wide) and, by using one of your sharp rocks, make a cavity in the body of the wood. The cavity should be at least a couple of inches wide and cut an inch or two deep into the wood, without penetrating through to the bottom or forming a hole there. The cavity, or tiny bowl, must be capable of holding water.

Second, scour the seashore or lakeshore for a rock that has a natural cavity or depression in it. This may be a bit harder to accomplish, but even if you locate a stone with a fairly small, yet relatively deep, depression on one surface, it should do the trick.

Third, pick up a number of loose seashells that you find on the beach. You will need to locate a few opened "half shells" of bivalves that possess a curved sunken structure which can also hold a little water.

Now, take your items, one by one, to the water's edge and fill each of them with as much water as they can hold. Find a flat portion of beach to rest each of them on and, then, observe what happens to the water over a period of time.

Here are some observations that you will likely be able to make.

1.) For any of the sea shells that contain tiny holes in them, it will be very easy to allow the water to accidentally spill out of one of these holes and to be left with only a small amount of fluid remaining in the bottom of each. The residual water should quickly evaporate, leaving you once again with just a dried-out seashell.

2.) For any seashell that has an unblemished, solid structure, it should be possible to fill the shell close to the brim with water and, then, to observe how long the water will be retained.

3.) With respect to the piece of softwood, although it should quickly fill to the brim of the bowl-like depression with water, you will observe that the level of water in the bowl also very quickly diminishes. By also gauging how quickly water will evaporate from the surfaces of other objects, you should be able to conclude that evaporation is not the cause, since the level of the water sinks much too rapidly for it to be evaporation. So, since water cannot be seen to be running off or spilling out of any of the edges of the wood, the only logical culprit _must_ be the wood itself. In other words, since the softwood is a porous material, the water is actually leaching out through tiny pores and spaces in the wood. Although some water may remain in the bowl for a brief period of time, by the time five minutes has passed, the bowl can be seen to be completely devoid of water once again (although the rest of the wood will retain a darkened, wet appearance). The bottom line is that softwood would not be a good substance in which to try to transport water any given distance.

4.) As far as the stone is concerned, if it is not made of a porous rock, the water will also remain present in it for a much lengthier period of time.

Thus, both the rock and the intact seashell were effective tools in terms of transporting fluid from the water's edge to a location higher up on the beach. But, since both items could only hold a tiny amount of water, this water would also eventually evaporate in the open air. To transport a greater quantity of water longer distances, you would either need a much larger seashell or a much bigger rock. With respect to rocks however, the bigger the rock, the more it will weigh.

So, although ancient man may have played around with these non-porous items early on, it would likely have been some time before an effective means of transporting water greater distances was discovered.

And, through insights revealed by yet another failed experiment, you've also confirmed that porous softwood is not an ideal candidate for the construction of buckets and barrels.

When you were filling the piece of softwood with water, if you let go of it, you should have observed that the piece of wood would readily float on the surface of the lake. Even if you tried to submerge it, it has a tendency to bob back up and stay on the surface of the water. The assumption to be made here is that softwood might be a good material for the construction of either a raft or a boat; however, this would require much more testing in order to prove to be a valid conclusion.

Next, return to the edge of the water a wade in a few feet from the shoreline. If you are at a lake with a sandy beach, you will find that the edge of the water contains many small rocks and stones of varying sizes. Watch as waves roll in and out and observe the effects they have on the stones and pebbles. Even if you only stand there for a few brief minutes, you will be able to note that the water surging in and out constantly moves these rocks and pebbles about, each one sliding across the surface of another.

You will also be able to make yet another fundamental observation about one of the basic properties of water. When you are standing in shallow water, if you look down, you will be able to clearly see the various stones and pebbles underneath the water's surface. If you reach down and scoop up a quantity of water, you will be able to confirm its tangible presence, but, at the same time, observe that it is _transparent_. If you disturb some of the sand and small stones on the bottom of the lake, you will note that the water becomes cloudy, but only for a brief period of time. When gravity takes full effect, the rocks, stones and pebbles settle back down to the lake bottom and the water resumes its transparent nature.

Now, if you go out much further into the lake, you may find that you can no longer clearly see bottom. Yet, if you scoop up another handful of water from this location and look at it resting in the palm of your hand, you will see that the water has still retained its transparent property. Thus, if this basic property of water has not been altered in the deeper water, this change must be due to another factor, that of _light_ , and not the water itself.

Another observation to be made when studying the rocks and stones that line the beach is the fact that nearly all of them are either rounded, or, have smooth, polished surfaces. This is in direct contrast to rocks found in other locations, distant from bodies of water. These latter rocks will often display rough, jagged edges or uneven surfaces.

The obvious conclusion is that the continuous motion of the waves is the reason why these rocks have smooth surfaces, a direct result of the stones relentlessly rubbing against one another.

So, ancient man would have also known that, if he wanted sharp stones to use as tools, the beachfront would have been the wrong place to look for them.

Using only natural substances, such as seashells and either rainwater or lake water, you can also perform your first experiment to determine whether or not modern tap water is a radically different substance from the water found in nature. Fill a number of small seashells with varying amounts of rainwater or lake water. Fill a similar number of seashells with near identical amounts of tap water. Let them sit in the open air for a period of time and frequently check on them to observe their respective rates of evaporation.

The fact that you are using the seashells as the vessels of containment for both types of water provides a "control" mechanism that eliminates any bias, or contamination from other modern products that have been processed by man or machine.

You should ultimately find that the rates of evaporation do not appear to differ.

Is this solid confirmation that modern tap water and the water found freely in nature is exactly the same chemical substance?

While you may not be able to make such a bold conclusion just quite yet, you have confirmed that both substances possess these similar properties.

1.) Both have (relatively) the same rate of evaporation.

2.) Both display transparent properties.

3.) Both regularly form water droplets.

4.) Both are affected in a similar manner by gravity.

5.) Both will pour and flow in the same fluid-like manner.

6.) Both display the property of surface tension.

If you freeze rainwater or lake water, you will also find that both types of water solidify into ice.

While most of the above might be viewed as only common sense, it is the rigid "method" used in the foregoing that will be most important in making any later, more challenging conclusions.

# CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

I am now going to get you to embark upon a project that will likely consume a significant amount of your spare time, so, to be practical, I would advise you to spread out your efforts over many days (or weeks) and not try to accomplish everything with a single outpouring of energy.

In order to ensure this, I am also going to spread out this topic over several, non-consecutive chapters. This will guarantee that you will get a break in terms of your work because, as I have already forewarned you, your attempts at success will undoubtedly contain a fair measure of frustration, too. But I need you to experience each failed attempt in order for you to gain a full appreciation of what is, or is not, possible and realistic.

I am talking about what most books view as the key turning point in mankind's evolution and future rise to dominance, that being the manufacture and control of fire.

Many books, fiction and non-fiction alike, will point towards the manufacture of fire and the creation of the wheel as the two crucial victories in man's ongoing quest for control over his environment. While I will not dispute that they were both very important events in mankind's timeline, if you continue to explore these topics with me, I believe that you will come to appreciate that they were neither the only two, nor the most important two, events that ensured mankind's future success.

Having said that, I need to highlight a couple of stock phrases found repeatedly in literature. They pertain directly to the manufacture and control of fire. They are:

1.) Primitive man could create fire by hitting, or rubbing, " _Two Stones_ " together.

2.) Primitive man could create fire by rubbing " _Two Sticks_ " together.

Many instructional videos and tutorials exist that suggest how you can "easily" accomplish such end goals. But, are they entirely realistic? Can _you_ accomplish similar results? Would ancient man have created fire in a similar manner?

Let's begin our investigation of the truth with the first item listed above, creating fire with two rocks.

To commence this investigation in a similar manner as to what ancient man would have experienced, I need you to collect a large pile of stones and rocks, of differing sizes and compositions, You will need: round rocks, jagged rocks, metallic rocks, porous rocks, hard rocks, weak rocks, etc.

After having collected dozens of different looking rocks, you will be able to begin your determination as to what two rocks will be effective in terms of creating a spark, which will in turn, be used to create a fire.

As a precaution, _please always wear protective eyewear_ , such as plastic work goggles, to protect your eyes from flying stone chips and pieces.

I realize that ancient man would not have owned plastic protective goggles, and to be entirely realistic, you might think that, by not wearing them, you would be truer to the process, but the presence or absence of the goggles will, in no way, affect or bias your results, so, please don't take any unnecessary risks that do not need to be taken.

Now, with your goggles on, you should be ready to start mashing some rocks together. But, for your initial set of trials, you will not be striking them against each other in a violent manner. I want you to begin by simply rubbing one stone against another.

To be true to the process of ancient man, you should, ideally, commence this process in an outdoor environment, too,

What will be time consuming in this process will be ensuring that each and every different kind of rock has been rubbed against each any every other kind, without missing any pairing combination. You must also ensure that each individual type of rock is also rubbed against another rock of the exact same variety, too.

After finishing this process, record your results before proceeding to the next trial of striking the rocks together in a somewhat more forceful manner. You should not have to strike each rock pairing with a lot of force. You should strike each pairing at least twice, with one being a "head on" hit and the other being a glancing blow that ensures one of the rocks is dragged across the face of the other. You should also try hitting various rocks on flat faces and on sharp edges, too.

Record your results as which rock pairings appeared to have some promise, and we will discuss those results in the chapter immediately following the next.

# CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Another set of observations that I would like you to make over the course of the next month or two will be to chart the different phases of the moon, paying close attention to the processes of waxing and waning, and to how long each phase tends to last.

It would seem logical for the modern-day urban dweller to _assume_ that he or she already _knows_ exactly how the different phases of the moon transpire, without the need to actually "observe" them in their course of transition.

He or she might simply think that the moon phases commence with a new moon (no visible moon at all) and then continue with a thin crescent, which will evolve slowly into an illuminated half moon. From there on, the process will continue until the half-moon morphs into a full moon and, then, the process reverses and the phases wane until the moon is no longer bathed in any sunlight at all.

In general terms, the above description _is_ correct, but there is a catch.

If you would like to discover this commonly ignored reality for yourself, do not read any further in this chapter until you have concluded a full series of moon phase observations.

Have you discovered something that you were previously unaware of?

__________________________

If you have already recorded all of your observations, please read on.

Firstly, you will once again encounter frustration in terms of trying to observe the phases of the moon each and every night, since you are virtually guaranteed to encounter cloudy and overcast nights.

But, the fact that the moon will appear in the visible portion of the sky for approximately twelve hours (more or less) each day means that, if you are unsuccessful in viewing the moon at night, it may still be visible in the sky the following morning.

If possible, you should also try to observe a half-moon at time of moonrise and at time of moonset within the same twelve-hour period. Do you observe any difference in the size of the half-moon from the time of moonrise versus that of moonset?

Assuming that you have gathered enough direct first hand observations over the course of one, two or three months that span all moon phases, here is an important revelation that your observations should provide you with.

I'll start this revelation with a series of questions. If you observed the changes in the thin crescent moon shortly after time of the new moon, over how many nights does the crescent shape greatly change?

Secondly, if you also observe the lunar surface at time of a full moon, can you really tell that the full moon is only visible on one single night of the month? Or, does the moon actually appear to be in full moon phase for two, three, four or five nights in a row?

How does this contrast with when the moon is at half-moon phase? How quickly does the moon's illuminated surface appear to change from day to day, or, even in the course of a single night?

Okay, enough questions. Here's the reality.

While the moon _does_ take roughly one week to change from new moon to quarter moon (half-moon) phase, and, from first quarter moon to full moon, and, from full moon to waning quarter moon, and, from waning quarter moon to new moon, here's the more obscure observation you might have been able to make.

" _The rate of change of the illuminated surface of the moon, when the moon is in, or close to, either new moon or full moon phase is much slower than the observed rate of change when the moon is in either first quarter or third quarter (half moon) phase."_

In other words, the moon appears to sit for a fair bit longer in either new moon or full moon phase, but changes much more rapidly when a half-moon phase is visible.

Even ancient man would have been able to observe this cosmological fact. So, the question for you is, "what would have been the obvious conclusion to be drawn from this observation?"

Because the moon appears to accelerate each night in terms of the amount of change in illumination from new moon stage to half-moon phase, and to decelerate from half-moon stage to full moon stage, _and_ , to accelerate each night from full moon stage to half-moon phase, and to decelerate from third quarter (half-moon) phase to new moon phase, it implies that the moon resides at, or is near to, either full moon or new moon stage for a lengthier period of time than when it is at or near either half-moon (quarter) phase.

This directly relates to the geometry of a circle and, although it may be a tad confusing, it is proof that the moon does travel around the earth in a (relatively) circular orbit.

If the moon were not orbiting the earth once a month, and were, say, always at a fixed point in space in relation to the earth, after the earth revolved each twenty-four hour period from day to night, the moon would always appear to be at the exact same moon phase. And, over the course of a year, we would see both the familiar face of the moon and the far side of the moon (which is never seen from the earth). Since this is not the case, we "know" that the moon follows a (approximately) circular orbit around the earth.

# CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

In the last chapter, I alluded to the fact that the moon's orbit could be deduced from the geometry of a circle (or a near circular orbit). But, of course, ancient man likely did not have the time or inclination to make a full study of the mathematics of geometry; he was probably much too busy just trying to find food and avoid predators.

But, this is not to say that ancient man did not understand some of the basic principles of geometry. We will examine this concept in greater detail in the next chapter.

For now though, let's return to your trials with respect to creating a fire by the "two stones" method.

If you rubbed two stones together, either in gentle manner or in a more vigorous manner, did you find any given pair that created an observable spark? How about when the stones were clashed together? Was there any evidence of a spark?

Now I would like you to repeat most of what you recently did outdoors in entirely different surroundings. I want you to take your collection of stones into an inner room in your house with no windows, such as a bathroom. In addition, I also want you to collect a bundle of dry plant material, such as dead grasses and dry wood chips, and to place this "tinder" pile into a fire safe container, such as an old aluminium fast food container with raised sides. Place the aluminium container with the tinder into the bottom of the sink. You will be striking the stone pairs directly above it.

Next, after putting on a pair of safety goggles to protect your eyes from stone chips, I want you to pick up a pair of stones, ensuring that you have a firm understanding of exactly where they are located in your hands with relation to your fingers. Now, turn off the bathroom lights.

Since you will be doing these experiments in either total or near darkness, you need to take every precaution that you won't bruise your fingers with any of the rocks.

Do you notice any difference between these trials and the outdoor ones?

After testing each pair of rocks a number of times, turn the lights back on to locate your next pairing and to examine the contents of the tinder pile. What do you observe?

Over a period of time, because you will be striking harder rocks and softer rocks together, it is inevitable that you will be creating stone chips and flakes. These chips and flakes will be dropping into the bottom of the sink and onto your tinder pile with annoying regularity. In doing so, you will be polluting the surface of your tinder pile with pieces of rock that will likely hinder the creation of a fire, since they are not flammable materials.

This is one of the reasons why it would have been extremely important for ancient man to discover the correct pairing of stones. In knowing this, he could avoid any and all wasted effort with stones that would never spark.

So, to date, you should already "know" that many, or _most_ , rock pairings do not create a spark. Also, you should have observed that rounded or smooth stones are ineffective in that they do not create any meaningful amount of friction when struck directly on.

But, even with the harder, rougher-surfaced rocks, did you observe any trace of a spark?

If your rock pile contained stones higher up on the Mohs hardness scale, such as quartz, granite and flint, you should have, from time to time, observed something that looked much like a spark. This would have been observable in the near dark settings and it is called the "pyroelectric" effect. If you strike a piece of flint against a quartz rock, a "flash" of light may appear on the surface of the quartz stone.

Although this effect is interesting to observe in a darkened room, it is hard, if not impossible, to see the same effect outdoors in the presence of bright sunlight.

The pyroelectric effect is simply the release of visible light within the structure of the quartz rock. It may look like this flash of light is a spark that could ignite your tinder pile, but it is not. The pyroelectric flash never leaves the surface of the rock in the same manner that a hot spark does when it flies off the surface of a metallic body.

So, the key to creating a spark with two stones is to possess a hard rock, such as flint or quartz, and a rock with a high metallic content, such as iron pyrite. If your rock pairing does not contain such specific characteristics, you will be wasting your time and will only be creating a growing pile of stone chips.

Identifying an "iron pyrite" ore stone may prove to be a difficult or impossible task for someone with no previous geological background or training.

So, to progress with our investigation into whether or not it is possible to create a fire by striking two stones together, it would be expedient to go to a rock shop and to simply purchase a sample of iron pyrite.

I chose to purchase both a sample of iron pyrite ore and a sample of near pure iron pyrite that was smelted and refined. In my previous nature travels, I also picked up several rocks that had silvery coloured metallic surfaces and that I suspected were also iron pyrite ore rocks. Some of the rocks that I found in the wild were from around the site of a closed gold mining operation and it is highly probable that they were also iron pyrite.

Unfortunately, all of my trials with the rocks that I suspected were iron pyrite ore were failed attempts; I could not seem to get any faint trace of a spark from them. Perhaps their iron pyrite content was too low?

But, regarding the store-bought sample of iron pyrite ore, I also had exactly the same disappointing result.

It was only with the piece of pure iron pyrite that I observed a rare, occasional spark.

After much repeated effort with the chunk of pure iron pyrite, I noticed that this metallic substance consistently lost tiny flakes of silver-coloured material and that the sample was beginning to reduce greatly in size. It would probably not be too long until it would shrink to nothing and I would have to replace it with yet another sample.

Over time, my trials produced only perhaps three or four observable sparks that jumped off of the surface of the iron pyrite. Of these, one or two landed on my tinder pile with absolutely no effect. (Perhaps the spark was not "hot" enough to ignite the tinder?)

In conclusion, ancient man would not have had access to a smelted and refined chunk of pure iron pyrite; he would have had to use the rocks that he found in the wild. Thus, if it is so hard to produce a spark with a refined piece of near pure iron pyrite, how much harder would it have been for ancient man to achieve a successful result with only unrefined rocks? And, assuming repeated failed attempts, why would he have been motivated to try many more times to produce a spark from rocks that did not appear to readily yield any?

I am not saying that is _impossible_ to create a spark (that will, in turn, create a fire) by striking any two rocks together. All I am certain of is that it would have been highly unlikely that ancient man would have employed this method as his prime technique.

Because the friction method, using two pieces of wood, would have yielded more concrete and consistent results, I would think that ancient man would have relied upon variations of this method to create the earliest fires.

It was only much later in mankind's timeline that the invention of steel would have taken place and that the method of creating a fire with flint and steel would have taken precedence over wood friction methods. But, even today, you need the right type of steel to create a spark. If you simply use any type of steel in conjunction with flint, such as the steel blade of a Swiss Army knife, you will be disappointed to discover that this pair does not produce a spark either.

Thus, my advice to you is such that, if you would still like to pursue the "two rocks" method of producing a fire, by all means, go ahead. But, for most of you, I would encourage you set these experiments aside for a leisurely time when you might have nothing better to do. There are many much more pertinent issues that should be explored first which will help you to fill in the "bigger picture" with reality's secrets.

# CHAPTER THIRTY

Up until now, all of the experiments, trials and observations that I have asked you to perform have been based on easily accomplished actions, and, required little in the way of in-depth analysis. Along the way, you may have questioned the actual need to perform some of these activities, since they may have seemed to represent simple "common sense" logic, or, were actions that you felt you had already experienced numerous times in the past and, therefore, you did not need to corroborate once again, or to reinforce in a physical sense.

You may also have been embarrassed to perform some of these activities, thinking that they were pointless or juvenile. Unfortunately, such an attitude stems from society's perception that what might be valid for a youngster or a small child to do is weird or unacceptable for an adult to do. Understand, however, that most of what we amass over the years and label as "common sense" stems from knowledge gained in our formative years. In addition, many of our biases and misconceptions also arise during that same time period, and, unless challenged at a later point in life, they can lead to a distorted picture of reality.

So, my advice to you is to continue to bear with me in terms of performing some of these simple activities. You are now about to see that even the simplest of actions and activities may have had a dramatic effect on ancient man's understanding of the world around him and his perception of reality. This process, in turn, will now be significantly more challenging for you in terms of trying to grasp what can be viewed as "real" and what can only be called imaginary.

It is now time to examine, in depth, what ancient man's knowledge of geometry was, and, in the absence of a spoken or written language, what his perceptions were of distance and measurement.

Now, before you get ahead of me, I need to clarify exactly what I mean by this. Firstly, we can safely assume that ancient man would not have had developed complex systems and/or units of measurement, such as the inch, yard or metre, nor would he have understood geometry in a conventional sense by drawing pictograms of geometric concepts.

But ancient man must have maintained some basic perceptions of reality that later prompted mankind to develop complex mathematical models, theorems, postulates and countless other practical or abstract concepts. With respect to the term "geometry," I am not referring to the mathematical science known today as geometry; I am simply referring to the actual, "real" geometries of _space_.

So, when I use the term geometry repeatedly in this chapter, I will be talking about what we have come to label as "Euclidean geometry," but I will mainly be using Euclidean geometry as it applies to _three-dimensional_ space and objects, and I will try to avoid the use of two-dimensional geometry until it can be established how ancient man would have solidified what he "knew" based entirely on his physical environment.

So, to start off with, I would prefer if you would do the following activities in an outdoor setting, and use nature as a backdrop in order to replicate as much as possible how ancient man would have arrived at the same conclusions. However, if you prefer to do these in an indoor setting, the results will be the same; the key requirement is that you are able to move freely about and do these in a "private" setting to avoid the questioning glances of neighbours and friends.

First, find some natural object, such as tree or a batch of tall plants and position yourself several feet away from them. We must next use a bit of creativity in order to relate what you will be doing to the actions of ancient man. Let's pretend that the plants contain either an edible fruit or some other object, such as a protein-rich insect, that ancient man would have wanted to gather. Stay standing in your current position and simply reach out to grasp the target item (you can use a leaf as a substitute).

Because I have asked you to position yourself too far away to be within arm's reach, ancient man would have discovered that, in order to gather the object, he would have had to move closer to the plant matter.

Now, move ever so slightly closer and reach out a full arm's length once again. If you are not yet within reach of the object, ancient man would have realized that he would have had to move yet even closer to his target.

Of course, the above activity mimics something that ancient man would have learnt in his _childhood_ years, and already been well aware of as an adult. He would have possessed an innate sense of distance when it came to items within, or just beyond, the reach of his outstretched arm.

So, for items that would have been located within a few "arm's lengths," ancient man would have had a solid concept of " _distance_." But, for items much further away, such as hundreds of yards away, gauging distance would have been somewhat trickier for him.

Next, let's do another experiment using the tree or some other natural object as a target. First, walk in a straight-line path directly up to the tree. If you were originally standing a number of yards away, you could "count" the number of footsteps that it took you to reach the tree. But, we are going to assume (and rightly so) that ancient man had no counting method yet available to him (much more on "counting" later). So, he would have "known" that a series of footsteps would have been required, but as far as _exactly_ how many, that would have been an "unknown."

Now, let's regress ancient man back a number of years into his childhood or even infancy. If ancient man (or ancient boy or girl) spotted a desirable object and then started off in a completely different direction, he/she would have quickly discovered that, in order to achieve their goal, they would have to move in a direction towards the object, and not either away from it or at a right angle to it. If ancient man commenced to move in the wrong direction, the law of visual perspective would also have aided him in this realisation, as the object would begin to "shrink," and not "grow," in his visual field.

We now need to paint a picture of another "feasible scenario" for ancient man in order to set the stage for your next activity. Let's assume that, straight ahead of you, the tree or other chosen object _is_ your target, but there is a problem. Located somewhere along your "straight-line" path, there is either a predator, or some other thing that you want to avoid, such as a venomous snake.

So, what do you have to do to achieve your goal?

The answer may seem to be obvious to us, but ancient man would have had to decide what other options there were available to him to reach the target and avoid any trouble.

This would have required him to travel in more indirect path. To replicate this, pretend that there would have been a handful of separate paths available to him, but none that would take as few footsteps as the straight-ahead route. Now, I want you to travel in an ever-widening semicircular path to get to the tree. Here is the key question. How far would you have to diverge from the straight-line path for it to be obvious that it requires many "more" footsteps to reach your goal?

Remember, ancient man had no counting method or numbering system. When would it have been obvious that the alternate path was "longer" than the original path?

Now we can extend this scenario even further by mentally visualizing what would happen if the alternate path diverged much further from the direct route and, along the way, there were many physical impediments or barriers to overcome (you can simply think about this; no need to actually do it).

Clearly, the alternate path might not only require more physical footsteps and a greater expenditure of energy, but it might also take a significantly longer _time_ , too.

While ancient man would not have had an accurate method of telling time, he would have been well aware of the daily cycle from day to night. He would also have known through other visual cues (such as waning light, shadows, the colour of the sky near sunset) that either sunrise or sunset might be approaching. So, by being aware of the passage of the sun through the sky, he would have been aware of "significant" differences in time (the difference between mere minutes and several hours).

By using the motion of the sun through the daytime sky as a gauge, he would have known that the indirect path would have been "lengthier" if it took much longer in terms of the total duration needed to traverse it. Although he might not have been able to express this as "length," he would have _known_ that it required many more footsteps to reach its end.

So, would ancient man even have had a concept of "few" and "many?"

Let's paint yet another scenario by mentally visualizing ancient man's home. Assume that our modern notion of ancient man's primary choice of habitation is correct and that he did live in a cave.

Assume also that he had to climb the crest of a hill in order to reach a flat plateau where the mouth of his cave would have sat. Next, factor in that, once ancient man set foot on the plateau, it would have taken him _exactly_ four footsteps to enter the mouth of the cave; no more, and no less, than four.

Given that he would have entered the cave on a daily basis, and, perhaps even many times during a single day, would he not have "known" what four footsteps were? Again, I am not talking about "counting" to four, but the actual physical reality and the tactile sensations that surround taking four steps forward.

Surely, ancient man would have been aware of what a single footstep would have entailed. For example, assume that ancient man was standing still and trying to assess whether or not a predator was in the immediate vicinity. By taking a step forward, and perhaps creating a noise by stepping on a twig, he would be taking a risk. So, to stand motionless would have entailed taking no steps, or _zero_ steps, But, stepping forward a single step and then freezing motionless again would have been yet another option. If he was certain that no danger existed, he could then carry on his way and take "many more" steps. So, he must have known the difference between a single motion (a footstep) and that same physical motion repeated numerous times.

Not only could this have applied to any repeated physical movement, but he must have had a sense of " _more or less_ " when it came to physical matter, too. For example, take into account that he would have had a food source that he had gathered in front of him. If he had a pile of vegetable matter that he collected, would he not know, from a comparative standpoint whether or not it was more or less than one that he had gathered earlier? If he made two piles of food, would it not be obvious which was bigger (higher, taking up more space)?

So, even though he likely couldn't count numbers, he would have known the difference between " _more or less_ ," " _few and many_ " and " _shorter and longer_."

All of these concepts represent physical manifestations of reality and can be said to have a true presence in the real world. Numbers, on the other hand, are simply an arbitrary man-made system of trying to understand nature in a systematic and comprehendible manner.

We can thus express this in the following proposition:

" _Actual physical quantities of matter exist in the real world, but numbering systems which define and compare various quantities are simply man-made tools to assist us in comprehending relative differences. They actually have no physical presence in the real world. They are simple concepts that help us compare real quantities, such as volume, area, etc."_

Returning now to a discussion of physical, three-dimensional geometry, what else would ancient man have known to be true without the aid of any external measurement devices?

Let's perform another set of simple movements that will reveal more information about the physical geometries of space.

Stand in a level spot in a fairly open area that also contains some fixed objects, such as trees, in the near distance. Make a mental note of at least one easily recognizable natural object straight ahead of you. Now, without moving from the spot of ground that you are standing on, turn your entire body (feet, too) a quarter turn to the left. Make a mental note of any new objects in the altered vista in front of you. Next, turn another quarter turn in the same manner. Then make the same type of observation. Finally, repeat this same action two more times, taking care to always turn to the left. On the fourth and final turn, what do you see?

The obvious answer is that you will be looking at the exact same tree or other fixed object as when you started.

The implication is such that, if you pivot your body in this way enough to do a complete turn (we would call it 360 degrees, but ancient man would not have thought of it in this manner), you return to the exact same location in space as when you started.

Now, I'm certain that some of you will say that, in the act of performing this pivoting motion, the earth is revolving around the sun and that the sun is revolving around the centre of our galaxy, so, you are not really returning to the exact same location in space when conclude your pirouette.

While that may, in fact, be a valid argument, you must also take the results of the following experiment into account.

I would next like you to perform a similar 360-degree rotation with your body, but this time with (please excuse the pun) a new "twist."

I want you move three steps to the left, in a straight-line manner, at the same time as you change your rotational orientation during the first quarter-turn. You will have to be careful not to trip over your own feet, as you will likely have to cross one foot over the other to do this. Next, do the same thing for the second quarter-turn, again moving yet another three steps to the left from your original starting point. This should be a tad easier since you will start off by facing in the direction that you want to move in.

It will now get a bit trickier. To take the next three steps to your left, and, to rotate another quarter-turn at the same time, you will still be moving to the "left" of your starting point, but, with respect to your body, you will now be moving with your right-hand side in the lead. Thus, you will have to either change your starting foot, and/or cross one foot over the other behind you, being careful once more not to trip.

The final stage may entail you having to actually walk "backwards" for the last three steps in order to get your body back to its original orientation.

So, what does this simple extension of the first experiment prove?

What is happening in the second experiment is that you are moving in a straight-line manner to the left at the same time you are rotating. When you finish, you will be facing in the same general direction, but you will have moved twelve paces to your left from your original starting point.

This implies that, even if a body is in motion (you are moving in a straight line to your left), after having rotated a full 360 degrees, you will still end up facing in the same direction (towards the original horizon).

We are told that, if an object is set in motion in deep space, according to Newton's laws, it will continue to move in a straight-line manner if it is not interfered with. In other words, this is its inertial motion.

Whether or not an object is said to be at rest, or in motion, from a relativistic standpoint, should not really matter. Einstein tells us that, given an object at rest and another in motion, it is impossible to say which one is truly at rest, since "at rest" is only an objective opinion of the viewer.

All we can know is that, in relation to one another, their relative distances will alter.

In fact, in the above experiment, you are moving twelve paces to the left, but, if the earth, the sun and our galaxy are, at the exact same time, moving twelve human foot paces to the right, _perhaps you really haven't moved at all_.

The key rule with any type of movement is that it can only be gauged against the motion (or non-motion) of yet another object. If there is no second object to compare to, then there is no way to infer motion. All motion is relative.

So, regarding ancient man, for him to assume that, if he rotated in a full 360-degree manner, he would always return to the same orientation and location in space, it would have been a valid conclusion.

The above experiment would have been realistic in terms of ancient man's movements, too, as it is highly probable that he would have turned his body in such a manner while hearing sounds of prey in the underbrush or in any vegetation that would have surrounded him.

By subsequently rotating in a reverse direction, he also would have known that whether or not he initially turned to the right or to the left would not have mattered. A full 360-degree turn would always take him back to his starting point.

If we combine this knowledge with information he would have gained as he climbed up and down hills and mountains in a vertical manner, ancient man would have had a full appreciation of the three-dimensional "Euclidean geometry" nature of space.

# CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

In the last chapter, we established that ancient man would have been intimate with the three-dimensional nature of space based on his daily movements in all possible directions (including "upwards" and "downwards," too).

But, what else could he have known about basic geometry in a three-dimensional sense?

To examine this question, we must first deal with yet another mental concept that also has distinct physical manifestations in the real world.

In the last chapter, we stated that ancient man would have understood the differences between " _shorter and longer_ ," " _more or less_ " and " _few and many_ ," even in the total absence of either a counting system or a defined measurement system.

One other concept we need to acknowledge that he _must_ have known is that of " _similar and different_."

As simplistic as this concept may, at first glance, appear to be, it actually has immense philosophical, metaphysical and physical consequences.

So, the basic question is "how do we know when something is different from, or similar to, any other tangible, physical object?"

From a visual perspective, when we compare any two objects, we can determine which features are clearly different and which features " _appear to be_ " the same. ( _It is very important, at this juncture, that you understand that we will not be dealing yet with the concept of "same;" we will only be dealing with the concept of similar._ ) We usually make such determinations based on the physical properties of each object, such as comparative size and shape, and other visual cues, such as colour.

To make a distinction between objects that are "more alike" or "more similar," we really require at least _three_ objects with which to compare to.

So, why is one object more similar to another than any given third object?

If we are talking about physical features, such as size and shape, we are actually comparing each object to the other based on how much _change_ it would take to morph the one object into the shape of the other. The more change required, the less similar. The less change required, the more similar.

But, sometimes our determination of what is more similar, or more different, can be arbitrary. Take, for example, an object that is similar in size to another. Let's assume that both are small objects. Now, take a third object that is large. But, let's assume that the large object has the same proportions and overall shape as one of the small objects. For ease of visualization, assume a large round rock, a small round rock and a small irregular shaped rock. Which two are more similar to one another?

If we are considering simply the amount of physical space each object takes up, then the two small objects are closer to being identical to one another. But, if we should imagine that we are able to either shrink the physical dimensions of the large round object, or enlarge the physical dimensions of the small round object, then we might consider those two being more similar, given that their general appearance matches better.

So, without any measurement tools, ancient man would have gauged the size and surface features of one object to any other and determined similarity.

Not only is man able to do this, but all animals, to some extent, share this ability to discern between objects. If not, how would, say, an insect determine if an object is another insect, and potential prey, versus either an inanimate object or a large predator that should be avoided?

But, the much larger philosophical question that has to be answered, and that we will deal with much later on, is whether or not any two objects in nature are 100% identical and the same. This question will take us into the arena of atomic and molecular theory and even beyond.

But, for now, we can clearly see how man would have developed the very first measurement tools. If he carried a spear to defend himself, he would have been able to gauge the comparative size of another object, such as the height of a tree limb, against the length of the spear.

So, given that _all_ measurement standards, such as the inch, the yard, the meter and the mile, are arbitrary lengths, any object can be used as a standard to gauge the physical similarity of any other object against.

For your next assignment, I want you to take a thin, yet sturdy, tree twig and cut it into a twelve-inch length. You will now have a potential measurement tool with which to compare other objects against that would have been available to ancient man, too. The twelve-inch length is an arbitrary feature, but it will make relating your findings to what you have been taught and used on a regular basis in our modern society much more pertinent.

So, knowing that ancient man would have been able to _compare_ the physical features of other objects around him, he would have been able to also discern objects that were "straighter" against objects that were more "curved," or non-linear. By simply examining a spider's web, he would have come to appreciate its intricate design and its relevance to the true nature of three-dimensional space.

# CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

At the end of the last chapter, I spoke of ancient man being able to examine the geometric patterns of a simple spider's web and to relate its radiating lines to his understanding of the structure of three-dimensional space. Of course, that would have been dependent upon whether or not spiders even existed at the same time man first emerged as a species. But whether or not spiders existed back then, or if they spun linear webs, we can find numerous other examples in nature of what we have come to think of as "straight lines," "spherical objects," "curved patterns," and the like.

It is important to stress, once again, that _all_ of the examples that we come across in the real world are actually three-dimensional analogies to these geometric concepts.

For example, a spider's web will usually contain a number of threads radiating away from its "centre" that also appear to be relatively "straight" in terms of their departure from the core section of the web. But, all of these threads have a couple of things in common. First of all, they are all three-dimensional objects. They may radiate away from the centre of the web in a fairly "straight-line" manner, but each thread also has a tangible thickness (or height and width) in addition to its length. Second, if you were to examine each thread from a microscopic perspective, you will find that they contain imperfections, or variations, in terms of their thickness, surface texture and other physical attributes, too. In simple terms, none of them are perfectly "straight."

So, the key question that you must ask yourself is this. Can any tangible object be found in nature that is " _perfectly_ " straight, round, spherical, rectangular, circular, triangular, or, representative of any other conceivable geometric pattern?

You could spend years and years examining a myriad of similar-looking physical objects, but the odds of you finding any two items that are truly "identical" are not only slim, but likely _impossible_.

This has immense philosophical and physical consequences.

Consider the following. If you were to choose any two physical objects in our "macroscopic" world, such as two flowering plants, could you find any two that are identical? Firstly, you might examine a grouping of ten flowering plants. Of the ten, perhaps one of the flowers is red in colour, four have variegated white and red flowers, and the remaining five all possess yellow flowers. You decide to use flower colour as your first choice in determining their relative similarity. Thus, you eliminate all the flowering plants that do not have yellow flowers. Secondly, you may decide to use height as your next criterion. You may then find that only two are similar in height as the remaining three all have differing heights from ground level. But, in looking at your remaining two "similar" plants from a much closer perspective, you find that one has a much thicker stem than the other. So, they are not really identical after all.

Perhaps a flowering plant is too "big" a macroscopic item to consider. Therefore, you decide to use the plant's leaves, instead, as your focus. After examining dozens of leaves, you find two green leaves that appear to be identical in terms of their size, colour, width, breadth, length and other physical features.

Yet, after selecting those same two leaves, that appeared to be identical from your "naked eye" examinations, you pick up a magnifying glass and discover that they do, in fact, have differences in their surface texture from a micro-view perspective.

By now, I believe you know where we are going with this.

As a result, you decide to concede the fact that any two macroscopic physical objects likely have non-conforming features and that no two are perfectly identical.

But, what if we scale down to a much tinier perspective? Could we find any two physical objects that are perfectly identical then?

You decide next to look at tiny grains of sand. But, in using a magnifying glass, you find even more differences. So, you decide to look at patterns in a fly's wings under a microscope. You find yet more discrepancies. So, you look at bacteria, or protozoan life, under a microscope and, guess what? You still can find no two microscopic objects that are perfectly the same.

I could go on and on with more examples, but what this whole discussion brings into question is whether or not, after you scale down to either a molecular level or to atomic levels, there exist any two objects that are truly, absolutely identical.

Atomic theory tells us that atoms of the same _element_ will always display the same properties. But, this does not mean that, after you scale down to atomic or sub-atomic levels, that differences in the physical structure of each atom of a similar element do not exist.

Consider this. Astronomers tell us that galaxies contain stars that emit heat and light in differing proportions according to their size, age, composition and other features. So, let's take two stars that are similar in terms of _all_ of these features. From a galactic perspective, if we were to pick out these two stars from the rest of their neighbours, we might come to the conclusion that they were absolutely identical. But, assume that you could hop into a space ship and get much closer to the surface of each sun. From that perspective, assume that you could then observe each star's coronal mass ejections, sunspots and other surface features. Would these two stars then look absolutely identical? And what about any other differences in their surface textures from a microscopic level?

The whole point of this example is such that two stars, that appear to be identical from a galactic perspective, may differ greatly when looking at them from a much closer viewpoint. Yet, overall, their respective physical _properties_ (the amount of light emitted, their relative size, etc.) can remain the same.

Therefore, if stars can have similar properties, yet also have differences in their close-up physical features, then why can this not also be the case with molecules, or atoms, or even sub-atomic particles, such as quarks?

What this discussion questions is what the true nature of matter actually is.

So, if all matter in the universe, right down to the level of quarks, is physically different, then there exists no two perfectly identical objects.

Secondly, if _all_ matter contains imperfections and variations in terms of its surface features, or surface texture, then there can exist no physical object that has the form of a "perfect" geometric shape, such as a _perfect_ sphere or any other _perfect_ three-dimensional geometric concept.

So, does Euclidean geometry even truly exist in the real world?

If we concede that _all_ matter is inherently different in terms of its physical shape, or physical dimensions, whenever a tangible object moves through space, it leaves behind in its wake, from a temporal and chronological perspective, the tracks of a motion that follows a true geometric form.

In other words, a space ship, floating through space in its inertial straight-line path, _does_ follow a "perfect" geometric pattern, if it is not otherwise disturbed. (I should point out, though, that the "straight-line" path manifests itself throughout the passage of time as a three-dimensional continuity, since a one-dimensional straight-line has no true physical presence in reality).

Thus, the reality is such that perfect geometric forms _can_ exist in the real world, but only as either mental visions of the segmentation of pure space, or, as the true path of the motion of objects through space over a period of time.

And, of course, even though we can "mentally" visualize cutting up empty space into perfect cubes, spheres and other geometric forms, space is a homogeneous essence that cannot be physically divided or separated from the rest of itself.

Many people think of empty space as a " _void_ ," which is really saying a " _nothingness_." Yet this is a confused perspective. Yes, truly empty space is devoid of any and all matter, but this is not to say that space itself does not exist. Space is a real aspect of nature and it _does_ exist. Its true nature is something that only the ongoing study of science can reveal.

To quote a bit of Vulcan logic from Mr. Spock in the movie "Star Trek IV; The Voyage Home," he is quite correct when he states " _nothing unreal exists_."

Empty space is "real" and, thus, does, in fact, exist and is a fundamental aspect of reality.

Even though we live on the surface of a planet that is densely populated with all forms of matter, since matter is also supposedly composed largely of empty space, we can study the properties of space without having to leave our terrestrial environment.

# CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

In Chapter Twenty-Nine, I asked you to explore the possibility of creating fire using the "two rocks" fire-starting method. You likely encountered a fair degree of frustration during that process, but you should also have come to realize that many of the scenarios that appear, repeatedly, in popular literature are also not historically accurate.

So, how did ancient man first "create" and learn to control fire?

This chapter will deal with the most probable candidate for the very "first" fire-starting method discovered by ancient man, that being fire created by the friction method, or, more specifically, the " _fire plough_."

To commence this experiment, I need you to gather numerous samples of wood. Don't be too particular in choosing what types you may encounter. I want you to gather samples of both live wood (green wood) and dead wood that you find in the wild. For the green wood, you may have to break the odd branch or tree limb off of a live tree. Regarding the dead wood that you find on the ground, gather both samples that have only recently fallen and a few that have been lying there for quite some time and that may have begun to soften or even commenced to rot.

You will also need to gather twigs, branches and tree limbs in a wide variety of shapes, sizes and compositions. If possible, try to collect samples from different tree species, too.

To commence your trials, step one is for you to simply discover what two samples will create a bit of friction when rubbed together. If you try various samples of rounded tree limbs rubbed against one another, you should quickly discover that a round piece of wood scraped against yet another round piece of wood will likely never produce a positive result. You will need a rougher, or sharper, piece of wood to use against the surface of another.

If all of your wood samples are rounded pieces of tree limbs, you will first need to do a little "woodworking" to produce a handful of pieces that will have an irregular shape or form. To accomplish this, you can try a few different strategies. One method would be to place a piece of wood on the ground and, by taking a large rock, to try to smash the piece of wood into pieces by dropping the stone from a height. This method can be dangerous however as the rock may bounce after impact and could hit you in the foot or shin. I would not suggest this as a viable method. You could also try using the rock as a "pounding stone" and try to break up the wood into pieces by repeatedly hitting the tree branch while it is on the ground. Unfortunately, unless the branch is composed of a very soft wood, this method is not really effective. Also, if you try using the pounding rock on a soft grassy surface, like an urban lawn, you may find that the rock only pounds the wood deeper into the soft soil and does not break it into pieces at all.

The best method to use is to take a fairly long and slim piece of tree branch and to hit the end of it firmly against a thick, sturdy, live tree branch.

What will usually result, if you do this correctly, is that part of the branch should split down the middle and create a reasonably sharp piece of wood in the shape of a crude "blade." It will be one of these bladed pieces of wood that you will use in a sawing motion against another piece of wood.

You must be very careful, once again, while doing this, as the broken pieces of tree branch can fly off in all directions as they split away from the impact.

This same method, of hitting a long sturdy tree branch against a live tree trunk, is precisely how ancient man would have formed the very first " _spears_ ," too. If care is taken so that the tree branch only impacts the live tree trunk near its end (or tip), only a small chunk of wood may fly off, leaving a long branch with a tapered "sharp" end on it. Hence, you should have a viable all-wooden spear.

After splitting open a number of tree branches in this manner, you should now have a few pieces of wood that contain sharper edges. They will be your main tools in terms of trying to create friction against a broader "base" piece of wood. When selecting a piece of wood for your base, you must first determine whether or not to choose a soft wood or a hardwood. You may also have to scrape off the rough outer bark of certain pieces of wood first.

Try a number of different combinations of wood with the short-term goal of just creating a "groove" in the "base" piece of wood. It is this depression that you will concentrate all your efforts on in terms of rubbing one piece of wood against the other. After you have tried a number of different combinations and types of wood, record whatever results you get. You will not, initially, be trying to see if you can actually create a fire (hence the lack of need for a tinder pile); you will simply be observing what happens when you apply some repeated frictional force to the piece of base wood. Try not to overexert yourself in doing this, as you will simply be trying to ascertain how ancient man would have even got the idea that he could create fire with two pieces of wood in the first place.

We will return once again to this topic immediately following the next chapter.

# CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

When I earlier alluded to ancient man's basic knowledge of geometric shapes, I used a spider's web as a real world example to display the concepts of a straight line and lines radiating away from a central point.

You will note that, in the above paragraph, I am using modern terminology when I refer to a "straight line" and a "point." But even though ancient man would not have formulated such concepts, he would have known the practical reality of these shapes and forms as they manifested themselves in the tangible material world.

Some of these geometric forms would not have been within "arm's reach" either, but, notwithstanding this, they would have been observable on a near daily basis. The best example of such forms would have been the almost perfectly circular shape of either the full moon or the sun (when safely viewed through a thick cloud layer). Ancient man would have understood exactly what a circular shape in outer space looked like, even though there would have been no need for him to devise the two-dimensional construct that we know today as a "circle."

Thus, if ancient man found a "spherical" rock that was ground down and polished by the constant motion of sand and waves along the seashore, he would have been able to compare its geometric form against that of the full moon and decide whether or not it also presented a "circular" face when held in his hand. Whether or not this would have given him a hint that both the sun and the moon were spherical objects, and not just circular forms painted against the backdrop of the heavens is hard to say. But, if he at all happened to study that same spherical handheld rock in differing degrees of light and shadow, he may have gotten his first clue that the ever-changing phases of the moon and the differing phases of light and shadow on the rock were directly related. It is thus feasible that ancient man knew that the moon was a three-dimensional spherical body.

Relating this to both his knowledge of distance and of visual perspective, he would have known, from such actions as climbing mountains or high hills, that the moon would not have grown larger in his visual field the higher he climbed, and therefore, he would have known that the moon would have been " _very far away_ " in space. He would have realized all of this without the need for telescopes or any other advanced astronomical tools. Using unaided eyesight alone would have been sufficient means for him to obtain such knowledge.

So, it is wholly likely that ancient man would have had an intimate knowledge of the geometric shape and form of a spherical body long before he would have had any knowledge of other three-dimensional bodies that are rarely found freely in nature, such as the cube.

In addition to observing the moon or stumbling across naturally rounded rocks, there is one other possible manner in which ancient man would have come to appreciate the shape of a sphere. This would have been linked directly to his knowledge of the substance we know today as "clay."

Long before ancient man learned to create and control fire, he would have known about the malleable substance that we call clay. Whether or not ancient man would have had a practical use for this substance would not really be of import, since children, even back then, would likely have enjoyed playing with this pliable material. Through simply using the pressure of the cupped inner palms of both hands, a clay "ball" can be formed.

Although a clay ball formed in such a manner will not be as long lasting as any clay item fired in a kiln, it would still have had a fair degree of resistance to breaking down into fragments if only played with in a relatively gentle manner. Thus, ancient man, or ancient children, could have formed a "spherical" body at will, simply by manipulating a clump of raw clay.

In addition to appreciating the geometric form of spherical bodies, ancient man would have quickly come to realize one of the more practical aspects of spheres, too. Consider this. If ancient man were to climb a slope in order to either evade human enemies, or to gain a visual overview of some type of prey, he would have also quickly come to the knowledge that by throwing rocks down onto these enemies, or prey, he would have had the means of killing them, without requiring direct physical contact. In doing this, he might have chosen both "round" rocks and "irregular" shaped rocks to cast down upon his targets.

When he picked up some of these large heavy rocks, he would have discovered two things. Firstly, when casting down a repeated volley of stones, he would have found that, sometimes, the irregular shaped rocks would get caught on other rocks on the way down and stop, long prior to hitting anything. He would have also found that some of the irregular shaped stones, with flat sides or bottoms, would not even have to encounter any object to jam on, as they might come to a dead halt on their own if they rolled onto their flat side. He would have soon discovered that the more "rounded" stones would travel farther, and more reliably, down the slope without getting caught on any objects along the way. Secondly, if he was required to pick up a large number of heavy rocks, he would have found that this repeated action soon got exhausting. It would not take long for him to discover that, since a round rock rolled downhill more easily, it would also "roll" on flat land with much less effort than it takes to pick up and carry an irregular shaped rock. He would, thus, _roll_ large, round rocks to the edge of the cliff or the hill, first, and, then, simply _push_ them down, without the need to have to lift them at all.

It is inconceivable to think that ancient man would not have used this method of casting round rocks down a hill to either kill prey or deter any human enemy or predator. Thus, ancient man would have known that a large spherical stone could be rolled along the ground with much more ease than lifting and carrying it. Much is said in popular literature about the importance of the invention of the wheel, but this knowledge, of the ability to roll round objects along the ground, would have long preceded the concept of a wheel with flattened sides. This knowledge, of being able to roll round rocks along a flat surface, would have easily extended to other heavy rounded objects, such as tree logs, at a much, much earlier juncture than the emergence of the wheel.

# CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Continuing with our examination into how ancient man first achieved the creation of fire using the friction method, what did you learn through your early trials with two pieces of wood?

If you were diligent in terms of using a wide variety of tree limbs and branches, you should have discovered the following:

1.) In order to create a reasonable amount of friction onto the base piece of wood, you must have a sturdy "blade" or "saw" piece that does not bend or break easily. Thus, weak or rubbery tree twigs, or very small tree limbs, will not work. You need a wood saw blade that fits easily into the palm of your hand, and one that you can apply downward pressure to. So, it cannot be too short or too long. Ideally, your saw blade should be somewhere in the range of eight to twelve inches in length if possible.

2.) The straighter your saw blade is near the tip, the better. You want to be able to create a consistent motion without the saw blade moving wildly to the right or left of your grove.

3.) The ideal wood for your saw blade should be a relatively "hard" wood.

4.) In order to create a notched "grove" into your base, or "object," piece of wood, it should be made of a somewhat "softer" wood than your saw blade.

5.) Your object piece cannot be made from either a _very_ hard, or a _very_ soft, piece of wood. The base wood should be softer than your saw blade, but not so soft that the sawing motion just creates a continual stream of very fine "saw dust." Likewise, if the object piece is made from an extremely hard wood, your sawing motion may not create a deep enough grove and, after much repeated effort, you might only find that you have barely scraped its surface.

6.) If you were lucky enough to find the right combination of wood densities, you should have been able to create a groove in the object piece that you could rub your saw blade back and forth in.

7.) After a nominal amount of sawing effort, you should have been able to detect the object piece of wood "heating" up. If you use a bit more force and repeated motion, and then remove the saw blade, what happens if you touch the object piece of wood with your finger in the immediate vicinity of the groove? Don't be too surprised if you can't hold your finger there for any length of time, as the object piece will give off enough heat to create a very noticeable burning sensation on your fingertip.

8.) If you use a fair bit more force and repeated motion than that described in item #7 above, you might also have been lucky enough to observe that the object piece of wood begins to give off some smoke. Also, the object piece of wood may begin to darken, or "char," in and around the groove at the exact same time.

9.) If you get results similar to those in #7 and #8, you might also find that, by using the saw blade over and over again, it begins to get a smooth glossy sheen to its surface. You are actually "polishing" the end of the blade by the repeated sawing motion and reducing its effectiveness as a tool with which to create friction. As such, after a while, you may have to abandon your saw blade for a new one.

Since I never asked you to create a tinder pile, these trials were not intended for you to actually create a fire (yet); they were simply designed for you to question how ancient man first realized that a fire could be created using such a method.

So, prior to knowing that a fire could be created using the friction method, how did ancient man stumble upon this?

It is likely that the action of sawing one piece of wood against another was done, at first, at random, perhaps simply to pass time if one were bored, or, perhaps it was done by a youngster just playing with two pieces of wood. In any event, it would not have taken very long for ancient man to "accidentally" place his finger on the object piece of wood and to discover that it would heat up dramatically, yet also lose that heat again quickly.

If ancient man started to "play" with this phenomenon, he may have applied much more pressure to the object piece and discovered that it began to smoke.

Based on the fact that ancient man would have been well aware of fire through natural occurrences, such as forest fires caused by lightning, he would have been aware of both the smoke and the heat that fire gives off.

This would have caused him to realize that, if he applied frictional force to an object piece of wood, it would at first heat up, and, with more force, it would begin to smoke, perhaps creating a full-fledged flame could also be achieved.

We will now return to your efforts at creating a fire using the friction method.

I now need you to gather a number of items with which to use as your tinder pile. This could include dried grasses, dried leaves, bracket fungus from trees, etc.

Collect these items and then place a number of them into an old aluminium food container. Create a second pile in yet another container.

Using the first container of tinder, return to your efforts with the object of setting this tinder pile on fire. Take your object piece of wood and your saw blade and attempt to heat it to the point of creating smoke.

When the wood starts to give off smoke, you should see that it also creates tiny dark flecks of charred wood. You want to try to concentrate these in a small area and then transfer them to your tinder pile.

There are a few other tips that I could give you, but, for now, I want you to try to achieve success in creating a flame using you own methodology.

Even if you can't create either smoke (or a flame) on your initial efforts, it is important for you to keep trying different methods and/or combinations of wood to determine what methods yield the best results.

I will, once again, warn you that you will likely get frustrated in many of your efforts. But you must realize that ancient man likely encountered many such failures before achieving success. Also, if you discover a viable method of doing this for yourself, you will never forget it and be able to use it in case of any future need in a hiking or outdoor situation that may go wrong.

If you are successful in generating a flame with your tinder pile, you need to be cautious to keep a supply of water on hand to douse it later and to try to contain the flame to the aluminium container if you are in either an urban setting, or in any area where the fire could spread.

For each of you who cannot achieve success, don't fret it. We will return to this topic with more valuable tips and hints a bit later on. But, in the interim, keep trying to learn from each and every failed attempt.

# CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

In Chapter Thirty-Four, we stated that ancient man would have likely possessed a practical knowledge of what a " _spherical_ " object's physical characteristics were, along with a concept of what a " _circular_ " object looks like; thanks to the regular appearance of the full moon in the sky.

But, if we assume that the science of geometry took ages to be developed, what other geometries of space and physical matter could ancient man have had an inherent knowledge of?

In order to devise a number of simple experiments that will bring this ancient knowledge to light, you will first need to prepare some raw materials, taken directly from nature. For myself, I chose to collect a relatively small, yet straight, branch from a nearby bush as one potential tool. I also picked a large number of wild grass plants with straight narrow stems as an alternate natural material. I then allowed these grasses to dry out over a lengthy period of time, after first removing any flower heads or leaves from the stalks, leaving just straight lengths of dry straw.

My next task was to break off, by hand, varying lengths of these straw segments. I also broke down the narrow woody branch into a length that was almost exactly twelve inches in length. Then, using a common everyday ruler, I proceeded to create a large number of straw segments that were, respectively, twelve inches, six inches, four inches, three inches or two inches in length. Although these were all simply arbitrary lengths, they will be useful in bringing a few more realities to the forefront.

Now, if you can also prepare a number of similar linear segments from materials found readily in nature, we can proceed with our investigation. For myself, in addition to the single 12-inch tree branch, I was armed with one 12-inch straw segment, along with numerous 6-inch, 4-inch, 3-inch and 2-inch lengths. (The fact that I chose to use the Imperial system of measure, versus the Metric system is of no consequence. Either measurement system will do, as long as the respective relative length proportions are maintained.)

But, prior to using any of these plant stems as measurement tools, we must first acknowledge some basic concepts that ancient man must have been well aware of.

We already stated that ancient man would likely have had a fundamental understanding of what a "direct path" to an object would be, versus a "circuitous route" that would take much more time and effort for him to traverse. Although he likely had no knowledge of the abstract concept of a "straight line," he would have well understood the difference between a farther distance travelled versus a shorter one.

We also stated that two of the earliest tools that ancient man likely used, that did not require any type of refinement or customization, were the "Reaching Stick" and the "Poking/Prodding Stick." We will use some of our straw segments to mimic these basic tools.

Now let us assume that ancient man wanted to look under the leaves of a low-lying plant, yet he did not want to touch it (such as a poison ivy or a stinging nettle plant).

For you to replicate this scenario, seat yourself close to a patch of plant life and pick up one of the shorter lengths of straw. Ensure that you do not bend too far forward to reach into the area of the plant's leaves. Use the straw, instead, in order to extend your reach. If the straw segment doesn't reach far enough to lift the leaves, proceed to use the next longer length of straw, and so on. Eventually, you will select a straw that is long enough to accomplish the task. It then becomes obvious to you that the first few straws selected were " _too short_ " while the last one you used was sufficient to reach the leaves.

Thus, the concept of the "length" of the straw is a reality that can be directly gauged against the relative lengths of the other items. It becomes immediately evident, by comparing one to the other, that some are not as "long" as others, while other straw segments are "longer" than many of the rest.

While ancient man might not have comprehended the abstract concept of "length" in terms of a one-dimensional vector through space, he would have appreciated that some of the objects had more potential to extend his reach than others, and, more importantly, he would have been able to differentiate the graduated order of the straws, from the shortest to the longest.

All of the straw segments (along with the branch taken from the bush) have what we know as a " _three-dimensional_ " presence in space. Not only do they have a length in one direction, they also have what we might call width and height in the other two directions. (Of course, based on the actual shape and form of each object, what constitutes the "length" could also be an arbitrary and subjective determination.)

Next, we will use our measuring tools to assess some random natural objects. Collect a pile of small stones of differing shapes and sizes. Select one of the shorter straws to "measure" each stone. With what degree of success is your net result?

First of all, if the stones are all comprised of random shapes and sharp angles, unless you can find one direction that exactly matches the length of the straw, the measurement process is pointless. For any stones that are "smaller" than your smallest straw measuring stick (2 inches), you cannot make any kind of an assessment, other than to state that they are shorter than the measuring stick. For any that are longer, unless they are perfect multiples of the various straw lengths added together, the same conclusion applies.

So, what value do the straws have from a practical perspective?

Although ancient man likely did not have the time, luxury or inclination to sit down and examine items such as these in the context of a direct comparison between one measuring straw and another, if he had, the following aspects of reality would have soon come to light.

If we take the two longest items (the 12-inch straw and the 12-inch branch) and compare them to one another, we can see that their lengths are (relatively) the same. The fact that they are comprised of different types of plant matter is irrelevant.

If we now take one of the 4-inch straws and place it next to, and aligned with, two of the 2-inch straws, we can observe that the two shorter straws are equal in length to the longer one.

I would like you now to continue on with this process and select the various lengths of measuring straws and compare them, each and all, to one another in every possible permutation and combination.

As a result, you should be able to confirm the following realities.

1.) All of the items of identical length are equal in length to each other, regardless of the type of plant matter used. For example, the 12-inch branch is equal in length to the 12-inch straw, and each of the 3-inch straws is equal in length to every other 3-inch straw.

2.) In addition to each length being equal to every other identical length, we can "build" the smaller segments into lengths identical to the longer ones by pairing them up in the following ways.

a.) One 2-inch length = every other 2-inch length.

b.) One 3-inch length = every other 3-inch length.

c.) One 4-inch length = every other 4-inch length; = two 2-inch lengths.

d.) One 6-inch length = every other 6-inch length; = two 3-inch lengths; = three 2-inch lengths; = one 4-inch and one 2-inch length.

e.) One 12-inch length = every other 12-inch length; = two 6-inch lengths; = three 4-inch lengths; = four 3-inch lengths; = six 2-inch lengths; = one 6-inch and three 2-inch lengths; = one 6-inch and two 3-inch lengths; = one 6-inch, one 4-inch and one 2-inch length; = two 4-inch lengths and two 2-inch lengths; = one 4-inch and four 2-inch lengths; = two 3-inch and three 2-inch lengths.

These are self-evident truths, based on actual, empirical, three-dimensional observations and not based solely on mathematical theory alone.

Ancient man would not have had the use of modern number theory, but if he had, the foregoing revelations could be expressed in the following mathematical formats.

a.) 2 = 2

b.) 3 = 3

c.) 4 = 4; 4 = (2 x 2)

d.) 6 = 6; 6 = (2 x 3); 6 = (3 x 2) 6 = (1 x 4) + (2 x 2)

e.) 12 = 12; 12 = (2 x 6); 12 = (3 x 4); 12 = (4 x 3); 12 = (6 x 2); 12 = (1 x 6) + (3 x 2); 12 = (1 x 6) + (2 x 3); 12 = (1 x 6) + (1 x 4) + (1 x 2); 12 = (2 x 4) + (2 x 2); 12 = (1 x 4) + (4 x 2); 12 = (2 x 3) + (3 x 2)

All of the above equations are simple elementary school expressions, but the value of performing these simple tasks with real world objects only aids in confirming the validity of these basic mathematical calculations.

While, in one sense, I have to apologize for making you play a game of "Pick-up Sticks" with the plant straws, but, you can now firmly state that you have directly applied the basic mathematical processes of addition and multiplication, and of basic geometry, in a three-dimensional, real-world setting. Since we will later on discuss more complex mathematical concepts and theories, you may find that sourcing other real world analogies can get harder and harder to accomplish.

So, in returning to ancient man's scope of knowledge, in addition to a concept of "length," he would also have possessed a knowledge of "similar" and "different" with respect to three-dimensional, tangible objects, and, an good understanding of objects of "equal" size.

Although all of the above objects were sized by using only human hands to segment them into the various lengths, it is amazing how accurate one can be in getting those lengths to come within a small margin of error when compared to a modern graduated ruler. I later used my 12-inch branch to measure a manmade object, the length of a wooden deck. By using the stick along the ground and continuously moving it end-over-end, I approximated the deck to be 9-feet in length. When I then used a store-bought measuring tape, I arrived at a total deck length of exactly 109-inches. That's only a one-inch error, or a less than 1% variance, using only a very primitive and crude tool. This could shed some light on our bias that ancient civilizations could not have had accurate measuring tools.

# CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

In the previous chapter, I made reference to the fact that, prior to sectioning the straw segments into their various lengths, I allowed the plant stalks they were taken from to dry out for a "lengthy" period of time. In actuality, I had stored these pieces of plant material down my basement for years prior to using them for this purpose. In spite of being stored away for such a long time, none of the straws suffered any ill effects from their lengthy period of dormancy.

These plant straws were not the only samples of plant matter that I had collected and stored in my basement for a period of several years. I had also collected sections of woody stems, small branches, other grass plants and "weeds," pieces of tree bark, wild grains, tree and plant leaves, flowers petals, seeds, fruits, bulbs and assorted other bits and pieces of a wide variety of plant species. Some of these were collected by me to examine in more detail later on, often with the aid of a magnifying glass to look at tiny distinctive features. Others were collected with the intent of later identifying the precise genus and species of the unknown plant in question.

The end, and wholly unintentional, result of allowing these plant materials to sit for such extended periods of time however was quite surprising to me. Uniformly, none of these items displayed any tendency to "biodegrade" on their own over time.

Pieces of woody bark that were stripped off of local tree branches were still wholly intact. Although, when originally collected, they may have dried up and curled into twisted configurations; following this, they remained true to how they had appeared mere days after being harvested. In fact, years later, I was still able to strip off pieces of plant fibre from the exposed inner portions of these branches (more on the many uses of plant fibre later on).

Perhaps this was not to be totally unexpected, given that we use wood from trees for construction, furniture and other applications that are intended span over the course of many years. But what was more intriguing was the fact that the leaves on many of these tree limbs remained firmly attached to the branches at the site of their leaf nodes. The leaves may have all dried up and curled up into spiral shapes, but none of them had deformed to the point that they were not clearly still whole leaves. Some of these leaves that were harvested in the fall still showed much of their reddish and orangey tints, years later. Other leaves, picked from low-lying weeds, still displayed a vibrant shade of dark green, even after many years had passed.

Sections of reddish tree bark, taken from local coniferous trees, remained intact and undamaged. (Perhaps this is a testimony to why indigenous peoples in North America may have chosen to use similar materials in the construction of their canoes.)

A few long-stemmed weed plants, picked from local roadsides and lawns, also remained bright green in color, even after many months and/or years had passed. The chlorophyll that scientists tell us gives them their greenish color must remain present in the stems and leaves of these, supposedly, dead plant parts.

With regards to two long narrow branches that I broke off of a young willow tree, I had originally torn off all of the leaves and small side branches from each one, and then, stored the remaining shafts away for a period of years. At a much later date, I needed to use them as "sticks" to prop up a potted plant; so, I inserted them into the soil and began to water the plant. Over time, these willow stems darkened in color from their original bright red to dark brown or blackish hues. Although they did not "come back to life," I must assume that they did begin to soak up some of the water from the soil, which, in turn, darkened their exteriors. And, long after I brought these willow branches back indoors, they remained flexible again, and could be bent to a fair degree, without showing any signs of breaking.

What is it that makes plant species retain their structural integrity over such extended periods of time, long after we might only think of them as being just pieces of "dead" organic matter? Why do they not break up, rot and, otherwise, biodegrade?

The answer to this must lie in the fact that, by storing them indoors in a climate-controlled environment, we have likely extended their ability to remain intact. If left outdoors, these plant items would be susceptible to wind, rain, freezing temperatures in the winter, ice, damage from severe weather, and, degradation by being moved around from place to place by many forms of animal life. And, once they have been continuously broken down into smaller and smaller pieces of matter, perhaps that is exactly what is needed for insects, bacteria and fungi to complete the job of returning them back to the soil as simply dead organic matter.

So, the question that remains is: "Can any of these dead plant materials be brought back to life, after so long a period of dormancy?"

In order to answer this question, I would encourage you to also collect samples of many different plant species, such as I have; store them away over a period of several seasons; and then, try to rejuvenate them by reintroducing them once again to water, soil, air, sunlight and any other natural influences that may bring them back to life.

Among some of the items that I collected to perform similar experiments upon included bunches of ash tree seed keys. How long can these remain dormant without losing their ability to grow into a new tree? Yet other items that I collected included the pits of some local berry plants (chokecherry, mountain ash, etc.). How many years can they sit dormant, and still sprout into a new plant?

You need to answer such questions for yourself. In doing this, you will develop a much greater appreciation of the resiliency of plant life which, in many aspects, would appear to have some unique advantages over animal life.

For example, I also collected several samples of dead insects over the same years as the plant samples. How conceivable would it be to bring any of them back to life? Many plants can not only be regenerated from plant parts, but even many years after laying dormant, some still give off a fragrant aroma. Why is this?

Finally, when some flowers are picked and pressed into the pages of a book, why is that, even perhaps fifty or sixty years later, they still persist in showing purple, yellow and other colors in their flattened dead state?

Isn't it time that you began to try to arrive at some of these answers on your own?

If you can get more closely acquainted with the intricacies of the world of plant life, it will open up your eyes to the true extent of the overall biodiversity of our planet earth (which consists of far more than just the total scope of animal life).

Animals are often the part of nature that we tend to focus on most (after all, we humans are only one form of animal life, so, I guess it makes sense that we would tend to care most about our closest neighbours), but always remember that plants, fungi, bacteria, and protozoa inhabit our planet, too. There is simply no doubt that we could not survive without them.

# CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

While I am not a professional entomologist, I take advantage of every opportunity to better understand insects, and insect life, wherever and whenever possible; normally, that means only during the more temperate seasons of the year.

Yet, like many of us, I often juggle my priorities and do not always have time to devote to the study of nature in the manner that it deserves. With respect to insects, I collected a diverse assortment of specimens to study, but since time did not always permit, I got into the habit of simply storing away many of these dead insect samples in glass jars and plastic containers for more close-up scrutiny later.

But, unlike the plant matter that I collected over a period of years (as mentioned in the last chapter), the insects that I collected did not display the same long-term resiliency after being kept in storage.

Even though I stored each insect in a sealed container (which I believed would protect them from bacteria, fungi and other airborne factors that could accelerate their decomposition), they all dried out and became brittle and fragile to handle. Originally, I believed that most of my containers were "airtight," but, somehow, the internal moisture of the insects' bodies must have escaped in order for them to completely dry up. (In contrast, I simply left all of the plant samples exposed to the open air, and not sealed away in containers, yet they remained far truer to their original form.)

When I tried to later examine dozens of insect samples that I had collected over previous summer seasons, the results were truly disappointing.

Firstly, because many of the insect samples that I collected were tiny (many were smaller than 1/8th of an inch in length), and, because they had dried up and hardened, they were extremely difficult to pick up and examine, even with the aid of tweezers. In turn, I required a steady hand, a delicate touch and a lot of patience, just to be able to examine them.

Secondly, many samples would easily break apart, with their abdomen, wings or legs readily separating from the rest of their bodies. When I tried to dissect any of them, so as to examine their internal structure, they would crack open and simply crumble apart. Each insect only revealed an amorphous mass of a beige, black or brown substance, with absolutely no differentiation apparent in terms of their internal structure.

Clearly, other than displaying each insect's external features, these dried-up samples were of not much practical use. The best practice is to either examine a live insect in its natural state (and not capture it at all), or, to examine a dead insect sample very shortly after collecting it (and not store it away for future examination).

If you really want to collect and display insect samples for later reference, they should be pinned to a collection board immediately after capturing them, while their bodies are still flexible and have the structural integrity to be pinned to the board without falling apart.

But what real value is there, for you, in terms of examining insect life at all?

The real value in examining insect life (or plant life) in such detail is that it affords you with a more intimate appreciation of the overall diversity of all life. Most plant and insect specimens are easy to obtain and can be studied at your leisure. They are also normally: non-life threatening, straightforward to examine, effortless to dissect and legal to collect and store.

They do not normally: pose a biohazard to the examiner; represent a highly endangered species; need specialized storage protocols; or fail to display most of the prerequisites that define what a true life form is. (The latter includes such defining characteristics such as growth, respiration, nutrition, excretion, response to stimuli, etc.)

For example, in addition to my collection of insect specimens, I gathered some other "biological" samples for study. Some of these items included things such as lichens and molds. In examining a few samples of household black mold that I had collected, aside from being able to examine the irregular, jagged shape of several dried up clumps of it, there was no real way for a science layperson, such as myself, to determine that it was a real life form. Aside from perhaps monitoring it for signs of growth in a dark, humid environment; it did not readily display any of the other prerequisite factors that define life. (In fact, some _non-biological_ phenomena in nature are also capable of displaying growth, such as mineral crystals, yet are not defined as life.)

So, unless you are about to embark upon a career as a professional biologist, there are many areas of nature studies that will not yield much in the way of practical knowledge for the science layperson. Perhaps if you were to invest in an electron microscope, or set up a complex DNA lab, you could hope to find answers to questions posed by ambiguous life forms such as molds and bacteria; or other things that exist on the borderline of life, such as viruses.

But the simple intent of this book is to empower you with a much more rounded knowledge of science that can be utilized to dispel false theories, shed light on how current technologies came to fruition, and make you feel that you have a better grasp of how we, as a society, have progressed to our current state of scientific wizardry.

To accomplish this, a much more intense study of biological life forms within the context of this book will not readily achieve that goal. You should, however, continue to blend an ongoing study of plants and animals in with the upcoming experiments and processes that I would like you to perform.

The goal of these experiments will be to give you a firm understanding of how the entire process of our technological development was even able to commence, and what factors were critical prerequisites in each stage of the evolution of practical tools and other vital discoveries and inventions.

# CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

In Chapter Thirty-Five, you were asked to create a fire by simply using a few pieces of wood and the friction method. You were also asked to create a "tinder" pile, comprised of dried leaves, grass and other plant matter.

At the conclusion of that chapter, I stated that I would share a number of tips and hints with you, should you not be successful in your attempts at primitive fire starting. But first, it is important to define the following terms, prior to discussing exactly how it is that you can achieve success.

Below are dictionary definitions for the following terms:

Tinder – a dry, flammable material, such as wood or paper, used for lighting a fire; a very flammable substance adaptable for use as kindling.

Kindling – easily combustible small sticks and twigs, used for starting a fire; easily combustible material for starting a fire.

Coal – a piece of glowing carbon or charred wood; an ember.

Ember – a glowing fragment (as of coal) from a fire; especially one smoldering in ashes; a small piece of burning or glowing coal or wood in a dying fire.

Char (noun) – a charred substance; a material that has been charred.

Char (verb) – to convert to charcoal or carbon, usually by heat; burn; to burn slightly or partly; scorch; partially burn an object so as to blacken its surface.

Charcoal – a dark or black porous carbon prepared from vegetable or animal substances (as from wood by charring in a kiln); a porous black solid, consisting of an amorphous form of carbon, obtained as a residue when wood, bone, or other organic matter is heated in the absence of air.

Carbon \- the chemical element of atomic number 6, a non-metal which has two main forms (diamond and graphite) and which also occurs in impure form in charcoal, soot, and coal.

Ash – the solid residue left when a combustible material is thoroughly burned or is oxidized by chemical means; the powdery residue left after the burning of a substance.

Soot – a black substance formed by combustion, or separated from fuel during combustion, rising in fine particles, and adhering to the sides of a chimney or pipe conveying the smoke.

Although I apologize for compelling you to read each of the above definitions, it is important to note that different primitive fire "experts" use these same terms in many different ways.

In order for us to be " _on the same page_ " with respect to the terms that I will use going forward in this chapter, I will now point out the following:

Scientists tell us that the residue left behind by a fire is a form of " _carbon_." Of course, for a science layperson, to be able to distinguish the element carbon, in its pure form, from any other substance would be a truly daunting task. Although the residue left behind by a fire is said to be an "impure" form of carbon, we will concede that such residues are _primarily_ composed of this element, if only for our discussion purposes.

The definition of " _charcoal_ " states that it is a substance formed when matter is heated " _in the absence of air_." Since a primitive fire requires oxygen in the form of air to subsist, we will not use this term to define the material left behind by a fire.

In a similar vein, since the definition of " _soot_ " requires that it be found adhering to the sides of pipes or chimneys, we will also not use it to describe the blackened and burnt residue left behind, other than perhaps referring to some of this material as a " _sooty_ " substance.

In spite of the fact that one of the definitions of an " _ash_ " demands that the combustible material be " _thoroughly_ " burnt, we will use the more commonplace definition that it is simply the residue left behind by a fire, and not demand that it be _completely_ and _absolutely_ converted to a carbonized state.

When we talk about the term " _char_ ," in the context of a noun, I will use it not only to describe the blackened surfaces of the pieces of wood being used, but also to the small loose brown fragments of substance that separate themselves from the main body of the wood and flake off.

The dictionary defines an " _ember_ " as a glowing fragment from a fire (an existing fire) or, more specifically, from a fire that is " _dying out_." However, in a similar manner to most primitive fire experts, we will use the term "ember" to not only describe a glowing ember from a dying fire, but also one that could be used to start a fire. In this sense, we will consider an "ember" to be synonymous with the definition of a " _coal_."

Although I may use the term a " _hot coal_ " to also describe an " _ember_ ," I will try to avoid usage of the word " _coal_ ," to allay any confusion created by reference to the mineral substance of the same name.

The definitions of " _tinder_ " and " _kindling_ " seem, on the surface, to be identical, however, it is important to note that a pile of kindling may not necessarily require the presence of sticks and twigs (if its intend is to be synonymous, that is). A pile of "tinder" can consist of many diverse materials, as long as they easily catch fire and can be used to build a larger fire with the later addition of other combustible materials.

Now that we have our key terms defined, I can finally provide you with some sage advice, taken directly from first hand experience.

Over a period of several years, I attempted to create a primitive friction fire using a wide range of natural materials. Most of these "attempts" at creating a fire were based upon a " _fire saw_ " or " _fire plow_ " method (similar to what I also asked you to attempt).

With regards to some of my attempts, I picked up tips from several " _so-called experts_ " as to how to achieve success. Some of them suggested that I use bracket fungi (or shelf fungi) taken from the bark of dead or dying trees. Others suggested that fuzzy milkweed seedpods would make an excellent tinder material.

Still other experts stated that " _it really didn't matter what type of variety of wood you used for a friction fire_ " and that " _any and all types of wood will ultimately work_ " if you simply apply the correct principles of primitive fire starting.

I had many different options, too, when choosing the wood for my experiments. At one point or another, I collected wood from many local North American trees, such as ash, elm, maple, oak, willow, pine, spruce and any number of other varieties.

When many of these trials didn't work, I even tried a piece of store-bought lumber to use as a "fireboard." I became frustrated that, regardless of the precision that I took in creating a narrow groove in the wood to produce sufficient friction, even this smooth flat piece of machined lumber didn't seem to produce any results. (Also, by simply using a piece of lumber, I was defeating my goal of using only materials found readily in nature, and not altered in any way by modern man.)

One of the biggest problems associated with my repeated attempts was not being able to bring my tinder pile close enough to the wood components to allow some of the charred wood to ignite the tinder (and, without having my tinder pile also getting directly in the path of my sawing motion). When some of the wood pieces that I used started to produce smoke, I also noticed that there were often no loose flakes of "char" produced that might drop onto my tinder pile.

Even if I did produce some blackened flakes of char, by the time they travelled the distance from my fireboard to my tinder pile, they had lost sufficient heat to ignite the tinder anyways.

So, the most valuable lesson that I learnt from this was that many of the so-called experts lie. I discovered that it does matter what type or variety of wood that you use in order to achieve success. Many North American varieties may never work. And, even though the "experts" may extol the virtues of any one type of material for your tinder pile, most of these will not catch fire, even in the presence of a smoking piece of charred wood. Many, or most, require the presence of a glowing ember, first, in order to burst into an open flame.

It finally dawned on me that, in order to replicate ancient man's first attempts at creating fire, I was using the completely _wrong_ materials. While it may be possible to use North American trees and tinder to create a fire, with respect to the "fire saw" or "fire plow" methods, ancient man would _not_ have been use oak, or elm, or ash trees. The tree and plant species used would have been grown in a much less temperate climate zone.

This prompted me to purchase a _bamboo_ stalk from a local garden centre to use as the material for my saw, fireboard and primary tinder bundle.

And, voila, success at last!

By using bamboo, I was now using a plant species more consistent with the hotter regions of the world, and one that could very well have been used by ancient man. (Or, if not, some similar plant species would likely have been available to him that would have posed less of a problem to ignite than the plants found in a typical North American forest.)

I can now guide you through the process of primitive fire starting, using this bamboo fire saw method, in the very next chapter.

# CHAPTER FORTY

This chapter will now assist you in the process of starting a friction fire by using bamboo materials and a moderate amount of your own energy.

The section of bamboo stalk that I purchased from a local garden centre was about six feet in length and approximately 1½ inches in diameter.

The bamboo shaft that you choose to obtain can be of a different size, but I found that the 1½ inch diameter made it perfect for splitting in half and still being left with pieces that were easy to handle (not too big and not too small).

Next, I must note that, although it is always ideal to use the identical processes (and raw materials) that ancient man would have used, in this particular case, it will be acceptable to use modern tools (metal saws, hammers, nails, knives, etc.) in order to expedite the process. After you have achieved success starting a primitive friction fire, we will analyze the net effect of those modern tools, and whether or not ancient man could have achieved a similar end result without them.

Here is what you need to do in order to prepare your bamboo fire-starting items.

Step one of the process is to split your rounded piece of bamboo into two halves. You need not be exacting with this procedure, but you do want each piece to be wide enough to easily fit into the palm of your hand (for a firm grip). Also, the total length of these two split sections need only be about 36 inches in length. You do not have to split the entire six-foot length of bamboo all the way down the shaft in order to obtain the two required items.

So, to start with, use your saw to cut off a three-foot length of the bamboo. Then, proceed to cut down the middle of its shaft, lengthwise. You may find that one side of the bamboo already may have an open spilt. If so, this will be to your advantage. This means that you will only need to make a single cut down the opposite side for your bamboo to separate into two half-sections. You may also find that, once you commence sawing, the stalk may, on its own, split further down its shaft along the same line that you started with your saw, thus making your job even easier.

Once you have your two three-foot halves, you will need to prepare one section to use as your " _fireboard_." Select one of the two half-sections and then saw it, crosswise, into two half sections measuring about 18-inches in length. One of these 18-inch pieces will become your fireboard, one 18-inch piece will be a spare, and the 36-length will now become your " _fire saw_."

Step two of the process is to prepare your "fire saw" and "fireboard." For the fire saw, take a knife (such as a simple Swiss Army knife) and shave off some of the inside and outside material, along the length of your fire saw, just enough so that your saw gets a bit of a sharpened and rough edge. It need not be too sharp, as long as it is capable of creating friction, and is no longer either a thick or a rounded edge. You may also want to do the same to the other edge of your fire saw, too, just to give you a second viable surface. Your fire saw is now ready for use.

With regards to your fireboard, it will require a bit more patience to prepare.

The first thing that you need to do is to flip your 18-inch board upside down, so that the rounded exterior is resting on a flat surface, and the curved interior portion is facing upwards. Next, with a knife, you need to commence making a small hole in the interior part of your board. You can drill away a small bit of the inner bamboo to get closer to the outer surface, but try not to make too large a divot. Once you get close to the outer bark, you may need to apply more pressure, or to use a sharper tool, in order to punch through, as the exterior glossy surface is rigid and not easy to puncture. (You can also use a small nail and a hammer to punch your final way through, but be careful. If you strike the hammer and nail too hard, your fireboard is prone to splitting.)

If you have breached the surface with the head of your knife, or a nail, turn the bamboo piece over and locate where the head of the nail (or the tip of your knife) has poked through. You want to make sure that this surface hole remains relatively small, about the size of a small nail head. You also want to ensure that the hole is fairly close to the centre of the board, from both length and width perspectives.

Now, after having located the hole, at that precise location, start to make grooves with your knife blade directly over top of the hole and running across the width of your fireboard. Saw back and forth with your knife until a distinct groove is not only visible, but is also capable of being dragged along the edge of your fire saw without it slipping out of this groove. The groove doesn't have to be very wide or deep, just deep enough to accept the edge of the fire saw.

You now have completed your fireboard.

Step three is to prepare your _tinder_ bundle. To accomplish this, take one of the other spare pieces of bamboo (one of the pieces that you haven't used yet, and that hasn't been split down the middle) and, using your knife, start to drag it back and forth along the surface of the bamboo, thereby creating shavings. Keep doing this until you have a pile of wood shavings that form a ball about the size of a large egg. Make sure that your tinder pile consists only of these fine shavings and remove any sharp woody portions of bamboo that may fall into your pile. Next, separate the pile into two halves and flatten the surfaces of both bundles, by pressing them down with your hand.

Next, turn your fireboard over (with the interior face up again) and locate the tiny divot hole. Place your tinder bundles next to the hole, one bundle on each side, yet both situated very close to the hole. Finally, find a skinny piece of wood about twelve to fourteen inches in length, and place it over top of the two bundles, so as to hold them firmly in place. You should be able to grasp your fireboard by its ends and also hold down on your backer piece of wood at the same time.

Before you can commence the process of "sawing" the fireboard along the edge of the fire saw, you need to find some way of anchoring your saw so that it won't move around. You can attempt anchor it in the ground, but if you are in an area where the soil is soft, your fire saw will just pop out and move about, thus defeating your attempts to generate any type of heat.

I was able to place my fire saw into the ninety-degree angle formed by one of my back porch steps and then further anchor it with a couple of heavy rocks. But, even with this extra support, my fire saw tended to shift and roll sideways when any pressure was applied to it. The solution that I found was to saw off a small portion of the bottom tip, at roughly a forty-five degree angle. In doing so, I was able to get the fire saw to rest flat on the base portion of the stair and to stay stable while I was performing the sawing motion.

In addition, in order to hold the fire saw firmly in place, you will need to anchor the upper end of it with the hip area of your body. If you are wearing thick clothing, such as heavy pair of blue jeans, or a wide leather belt, this can help protect you from jabbing yourself should the bamboo shaft slip out. I also chose to tie an added long-sleeved fleece top around my waist area and then to use the knotted arms and the bulky bunched-up clothing material as extra protection.

Once you have anchored the fire saw, commence by sawing up and down along one of its edges, with your fireboard held firmly in both hands. Make long slow strokes at first and just try to heat up both the saw and the fireboard until you see that the edge of the saw starts to turn orange or brown in color. Once you see that a length of the saw's edge has turned color, it's time to take a break and to ensure that your heart rate is back down to full resting before commencing any further.

Of course, it goes without saying that should you have any type of a heart condition, or any serious health problems, you should not be doing this experiment. If you really want to prove that it can be done, enlist the aid of some young, healthy individual to do the heavy work of generating the heat necessary to create an ember. You can do all of the other components of this experiment, but just avoid the strenuous part. Also, even if you are healthy, but start to feel light-headed or dizzy while doing this, it's time to take a rest break, at least until you are certain that you feel normal again.

So, you should now be fully rested up and ready for the challenge. Find a section of the fire saw's edge that seems to give your fireboard the most resistance (and therefore friction) and start to saw. As before, start by using long strokes. Then, after you think that you have heated up the fireboard and the fire saw sufficiently, commence to shorten your strokes over a more focused portion of the saw's length. Pick up speed a bit more and use a little bit more downward pressure, too. Once you see signs of smoke, it's time to add yet more downward pressure and to go much faster, until the bamboo begins to really discharge an abundance of smoke.

I should now warn you that, even if you succeed in getting the bamboo to start to smoke nicely, once you stop the sawing motion, unless the tinder bundle of bamboo shavings also begins to smoke, both the fire saw and the fireboard will rapidly cool down and no more smoke will persist.

The trick is to get a hot charred piece of bamboo to enter the tiny hole in the fireboard and to start the tinder bundle smoking. This is not an easy task, as the tinder bundle is located _above_ the bits of charred wood that will be flaking off of the saw blade and the fireboard, and one of them must travel upwards (against the direction of gravity) into the hole to ignite the tinder bundle. That is precisely why the hole in the fireboard should be relatively tiny.

Once you have used the fireboard on a number of occasions, you will notice something else important, too. Not only will the edge of the fire saw get blackened, the groove in your fireboard will slowly expand and also blacken. The tiny hole that you made will gradually expand, too, from the burning processes that take place when the fireboard and the saw are jointly heated up.

The bottom line is that, after numerous trials, the existing groove and hole in the fireboard will no longer be suitable and you may have to make a brand new hole and groove in order to continue any further. If you had placed your initial hole and groove near the middle of the board though, you should be able to make a second one in close proximity to the first and, ultimately, be able to use a single fireboard to produce at least five or six different viable grooved locations.

Now, assuming you were successful in getting your tinder pile to start smoking, what next?

First of all, even though your tinder pile may be smoking, and the tinder material burning, if you simply place the burning tinder into one of the aluminium trays containing yet more tinder (in the form of dried leaves, grass and other combustible plant matter), the new material will likely also start to burn, but it will simply begin to smoke and char, just like your tinder bundle. There will be no open flame. Why?

In order to create a blazing fire, a bit of smoking, burning, charred material is not enough; you need to produce a _glowing ember_ to produce a flame.

To accomplish this, you need to do the following.

When your tinder pile of bamboo shavings is smoking sufficiently, you need to fold some of it inwards to compress the material and slowly, gently blow onto the bundle, until you see that a couple of embers in the internal part of it start to glow.

Next, when you place your burning tinder pile into your tray of additional dry plant matter, and the new material also starts to blacken and smoke, you need to blow some more air onto it, too, to cause parts of the pile to also start to show glowing embers.

You may even have to pick up the bundle of dried grasses and compress it to make sure that the internal heat of the burning matter increases to the point of glowing. When more air is added, via blowing on the bundle, or waving it around in the air, you will eventually see the pile burst into an open flame.

You have now created a primitive friction fire.

To compare your fire to one created by modern methods (using a match), place a second tinder pile in an aluminium tray close to your primitive fire tray, light it, and analyze both of them for any differences.

If the plant materials used were the same in each tray, is there any difference in the color of the flames?

What about the heat generated? Place your hand over top of each tray to feel the heat generated by the flame. Is there any difference in the level of heat produced?

What about the patterns created by the flames dancing and shifting about in the air. Do they appear to be similar?

Finally, extinguish both fires by pouring water into each tray. Does the water douse both fires in the same fashion?

If your end conclusion to each of the above questions is that both flames react in an identical manner, then you have scientifically confirmed that there us absolutely no difference between a fire created by primitive methods (friction) versus one created by modern science and technology (matches).

Thus, for all future experiments that might require a flame, whether matches are used (or not), the net effect of the fire will be 100% identical to those produced by early man. You have confirmed that " _fire is fire_ ," regardless of the method used to generate it.

And finally, with regards to our use of modern tools in this endeavour (such as a hammer, metal saw, knife, nails, etc.), I will grant that we, perhaps, have "cheated" a little by using manufactured tools. But, would ancient man have been able to do everything that we just did, without using these modern tools?

Consider the first part in our preparations, sawing a bamboo stalk into two halves. Ancient man could easily have accomplished this by smashing his piece of wood against another tree, a rock or some other hard, solid object. While he may not have achieved two symmetrical halves, he could easily have produced a similar piece of wood to the ones that we used as our fireboard or fire saw.

Next, we should analyze the grooves in the bamboo generated with a modern knife. If you take a sharp piece of granite rock, try rubbing it repeatedly over the surface of a piece of bamboo. With enough pressure and repeated rubbing, you should begin to see a groove start to appear in the surface of the bamboo. While it may not be as straight as the one produced by a knife, it will produce a distinct groove that can be later enhanced by rubbing it against the edge of the fire saw.

The tiny hole that we made with our knife (or a hammer and nail) may have proved much harder for ancient man to replicate, but I must also point out that insects regularly make similar such small holes in the wood and bark of both live and dead trees. Pieces of dead wood can readily be found lying around with these tiny "pre-drilled" holes in them and all ancient man would have had to do would be to pick one up off the ground in order to obtain this item, too.

Scraping the exterior of a bamboo stalk with a knife does create the fine tinder that is necessary for our tinder pile and, without a doubt, we likely could not replicate this process by simply using a hard rock. Having said that, there likely were hundreds of other types of dry tinder that could have been be substituted for the bamboo shavings in ages past. This is largely an academic argument, as ancient man would never have used such a complicated fire-starting method as this one anyhow.

In all likelihood, ancient man would have discovered how to make a fire by rubbing two pieces of wood together in the immediate vicinity of some unintentional pile of tinder. By simple happenstance, a few pieces of the charred wood could have fallen directly onto the tinder pile and set it burning. All that would be needed next would be a gust of fresh air to set the fire ablaze.

So, although primitive man would not have used such a precise and complicated fire-starting method as this one from "day one," our experiment does prove, conclusively, that it is possible to start a fire using only a similar friction fire method and a handful of natural materials readily found in nature.

# CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

In previous chapters, I spoke to you about the value of examining diverse forms of life; plants and insects being perhaps being the easiest of these for you to study from a close up perspective.

In this chapter, I will prompt you to examine some _inorganic_ substances. The most important of these being something that is vital to all life on earth, water.

I want you to collect as many " _natural_ " forms of water as possible. Note that this collection process may take you a fair length of time, and, in order to collect all the various types of water that I will suggest, it may also span over several seasons, too.

Here are some examples of water from different natural sources that I collected in jars and containers for later use in this experiment. In separate containers, I collected varying amounts of: rain water, lake water, river water, pond or ditch water, and melt water from winter snow or ice. In addition, I also added a jar of city tap water, simply to determine whether or not its properties would differ in any manner from those of the fresh water collected from wholly natural sources.

Next, I took my separate containers of each water sample, and used a spoon to dole out small amounts of water from each jar. (If you want to be authentic in respect to the tools that ancient man would have had on hand, rather than using a modern metal spoon, you can easily substitute a seashell or two, as they will serve as excellent alternatives.) Find a flat surface and scoop out a small teaspoonful amount of water from your first jar. Then, allow a small droplet of the water to run onto the flat surface. Repeat this procedure for the rest of the containers, trying to ensure that all of the droplets are of relatively equal size, and that they are separated from one another so they won't merge or run together.

Simply by the process of inserting your spoon (or seashell) into each jar and drawing our a measure of water, is there an observation that you can make?

The first conclusion that you will be able to make about all of the water samples is that there is no detectible _resistance_ offered when a small quantity of water is separated from the main body of water. This is one of the properties of a "non-viscous" fluid.

Next, you will need to allow your various water droplets to sit, undisturbed, for a number of hours. Depending on whether or not you have left them outdoors, directly in sunlight, or subject to other natural factors, the amount of time that it takes them to evaporate may vary, but you should be able to conclude that the " _rates of evaporation_ " of all of them are near identical.

Now, find a long flat surface, such as a long board, piece of plywood or any other flat surface that can be easily lifted at one end. Systematically, pour a small amount of each water sample onto the board and track it as it runs down the board and cascades off its end.

What can you conclude from this experiment?

It should reveal to you that the manner of _flow_ of each type of water is also nearly identical. Each sample of water starts to run down the board in a single, uniform mass, but part way down the board, each will, usually, branch off into a number of separate, independent rivulets of water, following the path of least resistance.

Now, scoop out a spoonful of water from each jar and, one by one, turn your spoon upside down from a height of three or four feet above the ground. Watch as some of the water will eventually break up into droplets before it hits the ground. Examine the "spatter pattern" of the water as it hits a hard flat surface. Do you see any difference in the samples when they are dropped from this height?

Next, select a separate spoon for each different type of water sample and scoop out a small measure of water, being careful to try not to spill too much from each spoon. Transport these samples to your refrigerator's freezer compartment and gently lay each one down onto a flat base. Close the freezer compartment's door and allow each sample to remain inside for a few hours.

When you remove all of the samples, what do you see? Each spoon should now hold a tiny mass of clear ice. Touch each clump of ice to determine its hardness and relative temperature. After having confirmed that each sample froze in an identical manner, now allow all of the samples to thaw once again into a liquid state.

Even though these are all very simple and fundamental experiments, they do, however, reveal some very meaningful data.

First of all, even though the city water is processed and contains other additives and/or chemicals, it would appear that there is no meaningful difference between it and rainwater, or water from snowmelt. The tap water freezes, thaws, evaporates, flows and otherwise behaves in a similar manner to the water that you collected outdoors.

Also, you can conclude that, regardless of whether or not the source of fresh water was snowmelt, ice, rainfall, a lake, a river or a pond, they all represent a single homogenous substance. In other words, " _water is water_."

The value of doing these water experiments isn't that they reveal anything new or shocking, but it is the " _process_ " that you are undertaking that is so important for you to become comfortable with, and accomplished at. The "scientific method" can often be tedious and painstaking, but, at the end of the day, it is the only way to confirm a theory, or to reveal the true nature of any aspect of reality. Only when all possibilities are examined in a thorough scientific manner, can we be certain of our conclusions and content with that same knowledge.

The above experiments examined such defining features as water's viscosity, surface tension, flow, rate of evaporation, freezing point and melting point. That's a pretty impressive list for just a few simple, childlike tests. If you apply the scientific method to every aspect of nature, just imagine what other universal truths it could reveal?

In addition to the various water samples, I also collected some samples of soil, sand, rocks and clay. I would urge you to now do the same.

What observations can you make about soil?

Well, if you scrutinize some with a magnifying glass, the unfortunate answer will be " _not much_." But, you should be able to differentiate the powdery fine black soil particles from the slightly larger grains of sand and broken rock. You will also commonly find all sorts of plant matter, such a parts of dead plant stems and leaves, along with evidence of some animal matter, such as the odd strand of hair of an unknown origin, in amongst it.

But the true chemical composition of any sample of soil is far beyond the scope of a simple visual scan of this substance.

Let's now take a look at your sample of beach sand. What can you say about it?

There is likely even less that you can say about sand, other than it appears to be comprised of countless grains of tiny rock fragments, some being smooth and rounded while others appear to have jagged edges or sharp contours. These small grains will be multi-coloured in a wide array of black, white, gray, green, pink and various other hues.

If we look at a homogeneous clump of clay, we can state even less about it.

But, we must ask ourselves if the true practical value of these substances is to be able to define their chemical makeup and component elements, or, can they be used in some manner to aid us in determining how ancient man produced basic tools that have evolved into modern technologies over the eons?

Take rocks for example. Over the years, I have collected many different types, sizes, varieties, and configurations of them. Some rocks were collected to determine their exact mineral nature, while others were collected as potential tools. With respect to defining exactly what type of rock or mineral they represent, I was only able to do this with the help of experts, as many rocks display similar features and are nearly impossible to determine exactly what they are from just visual and tactile clues.

For example, I had gathered up small collections of granite, basalt, white quartz, cherty flint, chalk and, limestone. But, aside from those particular varieties, I would be at a complete loss to define what the other rocks and stones are that I currently possess. But should that really matter?

The true value in being able to state any rock's accurate name lies in being able to communicate that revelation with another human being. If you are not speaking with someone else, then the name that is given to the mineral substance is a moot point. The only things of import would be its physical properties and functionality for an end user.

So, you can spend years trying to determine the names of every type of rock and mineral, or, you can simply use and enjoy these marvels of nature, and leave nomenclature up to the experts.

# CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

Now that we have examined how ancient man may have used his first tools from rocks and wood found readily in nature, we can proceed to examine what other forms of early tools he would have fashioned that demanded a bit of "customization" on his part.

Using wood, once more, thanks to its malleable nature, he most likely found it very easy to tear off branches, remove leaves, or otherwise customize plant matter into forms that could be integrated into more intricate and advanced structures. One of the tree species that lends itself well to this process is a _willow_ bush.

If you collect a number of thin, pliable willow branches, you can easily surmise how probable it would have been for ancient man to twist, bend and otherwise try to fashion these into some sort of useful tool by "weaving" them together. Eventually, it would have been discovered that, through this inter-weaving process, these creations would have held together. This would have been the start of making baskets, jars, plates and other such utilitarian items from different types of plants and trees.

I would now like you to try your hand at a crude form of "basket weaving" by collecting some willow branches and, without a lot of guidance, try to produce some usable object made from them. Without prior knowledge of how to weave a basket, you may soon find that your efforts just end up with a loose mass of co-joined branches. You can "cheat" a bit if you can get your hands on a basket-weaving instructional booklet. This may give you the necessary configuration of branches to start any type of a wicker project.

So, if you gave it the old college try, how did you do?

When I tried this for the first time, I was able to construct as sort of wicker "tray" that could hold solid objects. I even went so far as to fashion a handle that was connected to the tray by thin strands of willow that, when knotted and dried, held firm and allowed me to pick up the tray and carry it around in one hand.

Having said this, my wicker tray was pretty crude, due mainly to the fact that I used varying widths of willow branch. To really accomplish a tight weave, you would need to collect a large quantity of near identical branches, with similar widths and lengths. This, in turn, could translate to a very long time out in the field selecting and picking these branches off of trees and bushes.

Still, even though my tray was a crude invention, I could pick up a large number of small stones, place them on the surface of the tray, and transport them around without much problem. This would have proved easier than trying to transport the same quantity by hand. The latter would have surely entailed multiple trips instead.

And, as an extra bonus, I also found that, when I picked up the tray by its top handle and placed any number of small stones on each side of it, the tray also acted as a sort of unexpected set of " _scales_ " and that I could determine if the weight of the stones on one side equalled those on the other when the tray didn't tip to one side. Such similar chance discoveries over the ages would have, undoubtedly, been commonplace.

# CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

History books tell us that the most important discoveries that ancient man made were the creation of fire and the invention of the wheel. While I don't dispute the value of those two great discoveries, there is one other extremely important primitive invention that usually evades commentary. It is the creation of string, rope and thread.

We will allude to these various items in this chapter under the generic name of _cordage_.

In the last chapter, we spoke about how ancient man would likely have tried to fashion a form of basket from willow branches. This process would have evolved over time, simply as a result of him taking time (in whatever hours of leisure that he had available to him) to experiment with soft, pliable willow branches.

In a similar manner, in his daily efforts to collect various forms of food derived from plant matter, he would have soon discovered that the inner stems of various plants and trees yielded a long, stringy, fibrous substance. He would have eventually found that, by rolling these fibres between his thumb and forefinger, he could create a sort of primitive form of string. Albeit, not one that would hold together under any tension.

In addition to these wispy fibres, taken from the inner barks of trees, back then there may have also existed such items as strong vines that, in their natural state, formed a type of instant cordage, without the need for any human processing.

But, in the absence of such sturdy vines, if man had already learned to become somewhat reliant upon primitive forms of rope and string, he would have eventually devised the means of manufacturing strong lengths of cordage from fibrous plants through a process known as the "reverse wrap" method.

While the reverse wrap method is easy to demonstrate, visually, it is rather hard to describe in words. Nonetheless, I will attempt to do my best.

To commence this procedure, I will need you to first collect a sufficient supply of plant materials containing strands of fibre. Although many options exist, I will use two commonly found North American plant species in the following examples, those being _American Basswood_ trees and _Swamp Milkweed_ plants.

With both of these items, you first need to process each type of plant in order to extract the inner fibre.

With respect to the basswood tree limbs that I would like you to collect, first you need to peel off their outer bark. On the underside of the bark, you will find long, stringy, orangey or brownish fibres. These will be rough to the touch, but they need to be stripped off and separated into strands. These strands will form your cordage.

With regards to the milkweed, if you allow the plant stems to completely dry out, the extraction process will be much easier. Since milkweed is less rough to the touch, you will be able to roll the stems between your fingers to remove the woody outer bark.

Once you have processed both batches of raw fibre, the reverse wrap process will now be identical for all types of plant material used.

Take a long strand of the fibre and stretch it out along its length. If the batch of fibre starts to separate and is very loosely bunched, you can twist the strands a bit, simply to keep them together before commencing.

Next, take a hold of both ends of the piece of fibre and curl it inward, so that the length of fibre forms a sort of horseshoe-shaped "U" pattern. Now, adjust the shape of the "U," so that one side is clearly longer than the other. This will allow you to continue to add more lengths of fibre to the piece of cordage as you go, and thus extend the length of the rope as long as you want, until you run out of raw material.

Commence the reverse wrap method by finding the top of the "U" and grasping the strand of fibre in both hands, using your thumb and forefinger, but ensuring that a span of fibre, roughly one and a half to two inches in length, remains exposed and lies between both hands.

Now, twist the strand of fibre _forwards_ with your right thumb and forefinger while, at the same time, twisting _backwards_ with your left thumb and forefinger.

Continue to do this until you see the inner portion of the strand begin to twist and curl up, forming a loop. Grasp this loop with your left thumb and forefinger and hold it firmly. This loop will now represent one end of your piece of cordage.

Next, with your right thumb and forefinger, twist the right hand strand of the fibre tightly forward. At the same time, using either your third or fourth finger of your right hand, latch onto the left strand of fibre and bring it over the top of the strand on the right, thus reversing their positions. (The strand on the right now becomes situated on the left and the one on the left now lies to the right.) When you do this, you must ensure that both strands are pulled tight, and that no slack is allowed to develop in the upper section of your cordage.

Once you have done this first step, you must slide your left thumb and forefinger down a little bit, to ensure that the cordage doesn't start to unravel.

You need to continue this same procedure, in a repetitive manner, until you begin to get near the end of the short side of your fibre strands. (You should be able to see your length of cordage begin to develop above your left hand as you go.) When you need to add more strands of fibre, take another length and curve the end of it so that its longest side lies directly alongside of your shortest length of the initial fibre, and a small portion rests next to your remaining longest strand. To integrate the new length of fibre, you will simply merge it with either side by adding it in with each strand as you twist it. The new piece of fibre with now be strongly intertwined in you length of cordage and should not form a weak spot, if done properly.

When you feel that your length of cordage is long enough, simply tie a knot in the end of it and cut away any excess fibrous material that you didn't use.

Although your piece of cordage is now complete, you need to test it using the stretch test.

Grab both ends of your length of cordage and pull strongly. If your length of cordage separates at a weak spot, it will usually be where you added more fibre and didn't ensure that the new length was wound tightly in with the remaining length of any earlier strands.

If you think that you have a completed length of cordage that may have some weak spots, you can often compensate for this by taking two completed strands and adding them together to form a thicker length of rope. By adding two lengths of cordage together, this can sometimes strengthen or compensate for any weak spot.

Of course, the end goal is to ensure that your cordage is so tightly wound that it looks very much like modern store-bought rope or string, and does not contain any weak links at all.

If you used the two types of plant matter suggested in this chapter (American Basswood and Swamp Milkweed), you should find that the basswood material is only capable of resulting in a very rough piece of cordage. The milkweed, however, should result in a much more flexible and tighter (stronger) length of cordage.

Try experimenting with several type of plant fibre and see what results you get.

After primitive man acquired this technology, the myriad of uses for string and rope that he would have discovered would have been virtually endless.

# CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

In this chapter, I will once again ask you to make direct observations of the tangible real world surrounding you, but at the same time, to delve deeply into the world of theoretical conjecture, too.

In order to determine exactly how abstract concepts, such as the science of geometry, were first devised, I will need you to temporarily abandon all you know about length measurement, spatial dimensions, circles, squares, cubes and every single axiom of geometry, and to regress to a state in which you will simply observe the real world as it actually exits.

Prior to ancient man having any solid framework for geometric theory, what observations could he have made, and what was it that he could state that he "knew" regarding this fundamental theoretical concept?

For ancient man, the first step towards understanding the principles of shape, form, scale, measurement and all other similar physical concepts would have been to "compare" one object to another.

Ancient man would likely not have possessed the generic concept of an " _object_ " either, but he would have been able to compare one item to another (or more) if they were placed in his immediate reach.

Take, for example, a pile of stones. While ancient man may not have consciously collected small stones for which he had no practical use, it is entirely probable that he may have sat down on a rock and looked down at a collection of similar small rocks and, by randomly sorting through them, realized that some were "bigger" than others. He would have been able to compare their relative sizes, even though he had no conception of the various geometric shapes and forms as found in textbooks.

While the similar physical properties and features of such small stones would have made comparison between one stone and another a logical outcome, ancient man would also have quickly come to the conclusion that the size of, say, a stone or stick could be gauged against any other physical object (e. g. a fish, a leaf, etc.) and, thus, comparisons regarding the "scale size" of an object against another object of an entirely different character would have ensued. (This would have been the germ for the eventual concept of a "unit.")

But being able to compare the relative _sizes_ of different objects would not have been the only tool that ancient man would have possessed. He would also have been able to compare two different objects in any single primary dimension, too. In other words, he would have compared the length, height and/or width of one object to another, although he would not have been able to label them as such.

For ancient man, most natural objects would have possessed irregular shapes to which defining any one extent as "length" would have been an arbitrary decision, at best. So, the next question is how could these concepts then have further developed over time?

To answer this, we must first attempt to find some real life examples of basic geometric configurations.

We have already stated that ancient man would have had knowledge of the image of the full moon in the daytime or nighttime sky. Although he would not have thought of this image as representing that of a "circle," he would have been well aware of this basic shape.

He must also have been aware of a property that I will call the " _straightness_ " of a physical object. Previously, I asked you to use some plant straws, small tree branches and other relatively "straight" items in doing comparisons of one object to another. Most tree branches will have irregular and slightly twisted shapes, but it is also usually the case that, the smaller the length of a tree limb, the more likely it is that it will possess a straight-line appearance. Although ancient man may not have possessed the concept of a "line," he would have been well aware of the reality that some objects are "straighter" than others.

In addition to skinny tree branches and relatively straight plant stems, ancient man would have witnessed other examples of straight line configurations in his environs, such as a high altitude cirrus cloud that may have possessed a thin pencil-like shape.

By simply comparing one object to another, ancient man would have been able to differentiate whether or not any given object was straighter (or rounder) than another.

When we discussed how to make primitive cordage in the last chapter, it would be reasonable to speculate that, if ancient man played around with this rudimentary form of string, he could well have configured it into a circular shape. He may have then held this piece of rope up to the sky and sized it into a loop that would have fit perfectly around the outer edges of his image of the moon.

We also know that ancient man would have been well aware of tangible objects that possessed a _rough_ surface through simple tactile interactions. Conversely, he would have been aware of objects that possessed a smooth or more rounded surface, too. He would thus have had a fundamental understanding of what a " _curved_ " surface is.

The above examples all pertain to three-dimensional solid objects. But ancient man could have replicated some of the most basic geometric shapes through making a variety of objects move through both space and time, too.

Here is an example of a simple experiment that you can perform, using only a length of cordage and a rock, which will demonstrate this.

Tie a length of the cordage securely around an irregular shaped rock (one that is not so smooth or rounded that the cordage will slip off of it). Then, let the end with the rock dangle downward without touching the ground. Next, begin to oscillate the top of the cordage in such a manner that the rock begins to travel in a circular pattern. The path of the rock will be describing a circle as it moves through the air. But, unlike viewing a circular object (like the full moon), the circle created by this motion only reveals itself when present is combined with the past to reveal the entire outline of the rock's path.

So, does the circle in this case really "exist," or is it only a creation of your mind?

Let's take a look at another example using a three-dimensional tangible object once again. Take a loose length of cordage and allow it to hang limply in between both of your outstretched hands. Now, pull slightly at both ends so that the intervening piece of cordage begins to tighten up a bit. If you compare the initial saggy length of cordage to the second one, you should observe that the second configuration of the rope is somewhat "straighter" than the first. Now, take up some more slack and tighten the rope once again. Continue to do this until the piece of cordage is stretched taught between both of your hands. When you can no longer tighten the string (without perhaps breaking it), you will have achieved the "straightest" possible configuration of the string.

But is this piece of cordage truly straight? If we apply the concept of a straight line as defined in a geometry textbook, does the length of cordage represent a _perfect_ straight line?

The piece of cordage is a real, tangible, three-dimensional object. As such, it might well possess loose fibres protruding from it along any point of its length. Its width might be thinner in some spots and thicker in others, too. It might also have knots or bulges in it. It could have many other surface irregularities, too.

So, given all of the above possibilities, where does the perfect straight line exist within the structure of the cordage? Is it contained at the precise "middle" of the piece of cordage? Can the precise middle even be ascertained if the cordage is only a rough rope that is not uniform anywhere along its entire length?

In fact, can any length of rope, string or thread (including factory produced ones) be said to be "perfectly" straight?

The answer to this is a resounding "No."

Although tangible items in the real world do possess curves and lines that approximate the various illustrations as pictured in geometry texts, _nothing_ in the real world can likely produce a "perfect" sphere, cube, pyramid or the like. When we continually delve deeper and deeper into any object's structure, at smaller and smaller scales, we likely will always find imperfections and irregularities. These might occur at a macroscopic scale, or a microscopic scale, or a molecular scale, or an atomic scale, or a sub-atomic scale, but, sooner or later, divergence from perfect geometric form is likely guaranteed.

So, the question then arises as to what the value of the mathematics of geometry is if these shapes and figures have no tangible place in our real world?

To answer this, I will use another example employing a crude form of measure.

Take a long straight piece of plant straw and use it to measure the height of a small tree trunk, say from the ground up to the first set of diverging branches. Use the piece of straw like you would a ruler. The straw will represent one "straw unit."

When I used a piece of straw that was approximately twelve inches in length, I was able to measure a small tree trunk that was four "straw-units" in length from the ground to its first set of branches.

So, if the straw unit represented a universal standard of measure I could gauge the length of the tree trunk, and the straw itself, against numerous other objects that might later be measured. But how exact was my measurement? Was it exactly four straws in length? Or could I have been a bit off, and could there have been either a small shortage or excess in terms of the tree trunk's true length?

Of course, I could switch my long piece of straw for a shorter unit to make a more precise measure. But would this be of any practical value?

The answer to this depends upon the need for a greater level of accuracy in your measurement. If the straw unit measure yielded a close enough approximation for your end use (let's say that you needed four-straw-length long tree trunk's to build a wooden wall), then a small variation in the measure would not be a problem.

But, this is the case with _all_ measure at a macroscopic scale; every measure taken has some margin of error in it, as exact measure would appear to be eternally beyond the capacity of man. The more precise we try to be, the more questions we encounter about the true nature of matter and time.

What other geometric concepts would have manifested themselves in the real world that ancient man might have had some inkling of, aside from circles and straight lines?

Take one of your long pieces of straw, or a short tree branch, and stick it into the ground to use as a primitive sundial. When the sun is relatively high in the sky, examine the shadow cast by the stick. It becomes immediately apparent that the shadow is much shorter in length than the stick itself. Now, start to angle the stick downwards, towards its own shadow, yet ensuring that the anchor point of the stick stays at the exact same location on the ground. What starts to happen?

As the stick edges lower and lower, the shadow begins to lengthen. Eventually, when the stick meets the ground, the length of the stick and the length of the shadow equalize and converge. When the stick is raised again, the shadow begins to shorten. The length of the shadow is dependent upon both the height of the sun and the _angle_ of the stick to the ground.

Ancient man may not have known what an _angle_ was, but he would have been aware of this effect in various forms and its relationship to light and shadow.

Another geometric concept can be displayed by once again using our rock and cordage tool. This time, instead of generating a circular pattern, simply allow the rock to swing gently back and forth in a pendulum-like fashion. If you are conscious of keeping the rhythm constant, you will not only be describing a geometric arc, you will also be creating a rudimentary time measurement tool, too.

From a utilitarian standpoint, the rock and cordage tool could be used as a pendulum, a plumb line or a number of other practical applications. But the fact that it could also be used to describe a circle or an arc would not have been at the top of ancient man's "want list."

So, if perfect geometric forms do not exist in reality, why are they so practical when it comes to using them as measurement tools when building anything that mirrors or mimics their shapes.

In actuality, perfect geometric forms _can_ exist in reality, but not as solid tangible objects. They exist in the form of objects moving through space over time (like the pendulum or the rock and cordage circle). Therefore, a planet may move in a perfectly elliptical orbit. But the entire shape that this orbit describes only manifests itself over time.

The fact that objects in motion can accurately describe the types of geometric paths and forms that can be found in a geometry textbook tells us that the natural geometry of _space_ does conform to those same principles as found in geometry texts.

In conclusion, a material object can describe a perfect circle, arc, ellipse, straight line or other such path through its motion in both space and time. But the prospect of any given material object being able to conform to the shape of a _perfect_ square, pyramid, sphere or any other three-dimensional geometric concept is likely only a pipe dream.

Be that as it may, all of the various theorems, diagrams and inter-relationships as defined in a standard geometry text do have useful applications in the real world and should be exploited to their fullest extent when creating tools that rely on those same concepts.

# CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

Having established that _perfect_ geometric three-dimensional bodies, such as the sphere, cube, pyramid and other such forms, exist only as manifestations of empty space being "mentally" divided by the brain of man, we can, nonetheless, acknowledge the value of geometric principles when dealing with material objects, even though true perfection can likely never be achieved. Yet, as stated earlier, from a purely practical perspective, the fact that we can never manufacture a perfect cube, or a perfect sphere, is irrelevant, as long as the item in question fulfills its intended use.

Take for example a baseball, a basketball or a golf ball. None of these items represent "perfect" spheres, but they still can be utilized in each of their respective sports in a wholly effective manner. They only fail to comply with their function if they become so badly damaged that their shape diverges dramatically from that of a round spherical object.

Scientists tell us that, when we examine matter on a sub-atomic scale, all matter is largely comprised of " _empty_ " space. Distances between electrons and their atomic nuclei are vaster than the comparative distances between planets in our solar system, when adjusted to scale.

It makes sense then that, when we get down to the level of electrons, neutrons and protons, or even further down to the scale to quarks, there is simply no guarantee that these fundamental building blocks are "exactly" the same either. When atomic theory was originally first contemplated, it was believed that atoms were the smallest forms of matter and that one hydrogen atom was 100% identical with every other hydrogen atom. But, how can we be sure of this?

Certainly, we know that the basic properties of any one hydrogen atom are identical to every other hydrogen atom. But does this also imply that every hydrogen atom is identical in every physical aspect as every other? The simple answer is, again, "no."

If we could shrink ourselves down to sub-atomic scale, and examine closely the surfaces of the various components of a hydrogen atom and compare them to others, perhaps they would prove to be as different as any two moons of a similar size, any two baseballs or any two golf balls.

Just because atoms, electrons, protons, neutrons, or similar-type quarks react the same way, it doesn't mean that they are 100% identical to one another in terms of their component structure, surface appearance, physical size or any other such tangible physical manifestation.

The bottom line is this. Even at a sub-atomic scale, all matter may prove to have a unique structure and form and it is conceivable that no two bits of sub-atomic material are exactly the same in all aspects. Like the analogy of any two baseballs, as long as they play by the basic rules of the sub-atomic world, they could each prove to possess a slightly different physical form.

So, if no two objects, composed of matter, can be said to be perfectly identical to one another, what does this imply?

It would simply reinforce the hypothesis that the various forms of three-dimensional objects found in a standard geometry text are only realistic as representing sub-components of empty space. But since space is a homogeneous essence that cannot be sub-divided by physical means (only by mental abstraction), these perfect three-dimensional forms can only be visualized mentally as having a real world presence.

But do not also lose sight of the fact that a cube is comprised of six square surfaces. Those surfaces are two-dimensional objects. They, in turn, are comprised of an infinite number of finite lines added together to comprise each square. The individual lines themselves are made up of an endless number of points. Each point is said to have a location in space, but no physical dimensions (no height, width or breadth).

The bottom line is this. In the world of three-dimensional reality, it is highly probable that a "non-dimensional" building block such as a "point" has no real world presence. Furthermore, one-dimensional and two-dimensional abstractions, such as a line and a surface, have no real presence in our tangible universe either.

Whenever we think of a finite _plane_ , we usually conceptualize it as a sheet of cardboard, paper, plywood or some other physical object that not only has two dimensions, but a third dimension of thickness as well.

So, the science of geometry simply represents man's attempt to understand space and to manipulate matter in the only way he can. Concepts such as infinity are beyond the scope of man's brain to fully grasp, but, given that a human brain is only comprised of matter and electrical impulses, it should not surprise us that the overall true nature and structure of the universe is beyond the ken of the finite mind. This does not stop us, however, from continuing to explore our physical world, or from trying to add to our ever-growing body of knowledge daily.

# CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

So, if you've now come this far, can you truly say that there was any value in performing the simple and rudimentary experiments outlined in the previous chapters?

If your answer is "yes," I am also certain that there was much contained in this book that you would have said that you already knew. But, by doing each physical test, the true value lies in confirming that the knowledge that you thought you had was, in fact, reinforced and is now resolved to be the indisputable truth.

If your answer is "no," please consider the following. In doing all of the tests and trials as outlined herein (and shame on you if you only _read_ the content and failed to actually do any of the experiments), you should be able to state that you have examined the following aspects and properties of tangible matter, along with consideration to some philosophical musings, too.

\- Properties of Water – surface tension, evaporation, solid and liquid states, transparency, gravitational attraction, reflectivity of light (mirror properties), propensity to form droplets, etc.

\- Rocks and Minerals – basic fundamentals of the Mohs hardness scale.

\- Basic properties of light and shadow.

\- Principles of measurement and the concept of a unit.

\- Examination of the concept of free will.

\- The laws of visual perspective, the extent of each individual's field of vision, and the phenomenon of parallax.

\- Appreciation of the resiliency of plant matter and the ability of seeds and other plant material to lay dormant and come back to life at a later date.

\- The origin of trail markers and other ancient location guides.

\- A reawakening of your senses and a greater awareness of their capacity to interact with the external universe around you.

\- Confirmation that eyesight is not man's only tool in studying nature and that some phenomena can only ascertained through means other than sight.

\- Man's (and animals') ability to contemplate and/or plan for future events.

\- The throwing of rocks and wood – a precursor to the development of weapons.

\- Examining local insect species from close up.

\- The geometries of space and the application of geometric concepts in the real world.

\- A study of inorganic matter and the difficulty of differentiating it.

\- Observations of the phases of the moon and the implications of those same observations when considering the orbital path of the moon.

\- Realties of our macroscopic, three-dimensional world.

\- Basic basket weaving and the complexity of making wicker objects that can be used as utilitarian items.

\- The creation, by hand, of primitive cordage (string, thread, rope).

\- The theory that no two objects made of tangible matter can be exactly alike.

\- Primitive fire starting methods (fire plough, two rock method, bamboo fire saw).

\- An examination of how ancient man would have first begun to design and modify tools to help him cope with his environment.

With regards to the last item on the above checklist, I have spent a fair amount of time describing exactly how ancient man would have got his start at crafting tools that would later have evolved into the advanced technologies of today. Although some of my speculations as to how many things were first designed and implemented may be incorrect, the important point is that all of these speculations _could have happened_.

It is not necessary to determine, precisely, where, when or how an invention got its start, merely that it could have occurred. This is the only proof that we need to state that each invention's implementation was well within the scope of man to develop and that no metaphysical or divine intervention was required. Given the vast amount of time allowed for each progression to take place, all we need to know is that it could happen for us to be confident that, sooner or later, it would have happened, either through man's intent or by mere happenstance.

If you have successfully completed all of the content of this book, you are now ready to move forward with more challenging examinations of the physical universe, should you so choose. Each item that you can confirm on your own then gets added to your growing arsenal of incontrovertible facts. With each fact ascertained, your sense of confidence and certainty only grows stronger. We apologize if any of the simplistic experiments contained herein caused you embarrassment or the potential ridicule of others. If so, they simply do not understand that, by faithfully doing each experiment, you are able to rule out any mote of doubt and attain confidence that you were also able to apply the "scientific method" in its proper manner.

If you feel that you would like to continue on with this journey of discovery, Book Two in this series will carry forward, using this volume as the jumping off point for many more challenging studies of the real world around you. I hope that you will join us in the continuing quest for truth and certainty in, at times, a highly uncertain world.

###

I hope that you have enjoyed reading this book and exploring the physical world around you by doing the many thought-provoking tests and experiments as outlined in these pages. It is also my hope that you will soon join me, once more, in Volume Two of this series and, thus, expand your confidence in, and understanding of, the real world around you yet even further.

Jerry Pitney

