Chapter 38 True Wisdom in Laughter Part 5-8

Nina Byers was a professor at UCLA, and around the early 1970s, she took on the responsibility of arranging physics seminars. The participants in this symposium are usually physicists from other universities, and they discuss very specific topics.But partly because of the circumstances at the time, she felt that physicists should receive more cultural influence, so she wanted to arrange a lecture on this topic.Due to the proximity of Los Angeles to Mexico, she wanted to arrange a lecture on the ancient culture of Mexico, discussing the development of mathematics and astronomy by the Mayans.

She looked around for a professor who was suitable for this lecture, but at UCLA itself, she couldn't find a qualified expert.She called other places, but they haven't been found yet. So she thought of Professor Otto Neugebauger of Brown University.He is an expert on Babylonian mathematics (when I was a young professor at Cornell, one year Professor Negie Bauer gave a series of lectures on the mathematics of the Babylonians, collectively known as the "Messenger Lectures") ’. He spoke brilliantly! Oppenheimer was the speaker the following year. I remember thinking, “If only I could give these kinds of talks one day!” Over the years, I turned down many But Cornell happened to invite me to be the keynote speaker of the "Messenger Lecture". Of course I couldn't refuse, because it was a wish for many years. So I accepted Wilson's invitation and stayed at his house for a weekend. Many ideas were discussed. The result was a series of lectures entitled "Characteristics of the Laws of Physics".).She called him and asked if he knew anyone on the West Coast who could teach Mayan mathematics and astronomy.

"Yes!" he said. "I knew there was a suitable man—his field wasn't anthropology or history, he was an amateur; but he obviously knew a lot about the subject. His name was Feynman." She almost jumped off the building!What she wants to promote is to bring a little cultural atmosphere to physicists, but the only way now is to invite physicists to give lectures! The reason I know some Mayan math is purely from the exhaustion of traveling with my second wife, Marilou, on our honeymoon in Mexico. She is very interested in the history of art, especially in Mexico.So we went there for our honeymoon and I went up and down the pyramids with her.

She introduced me to a lot of interesting things, like the relationship between certain images and designs, but after days (and nights) of walking in the hot and humid jungle, I felt exhausted. In a small town in Guatemala that lays no eggs, we walked into a museum; they displayed a document full of strange symbols, pictures, lines and dots.This is a copy of what is called the Dresden Codex, copied by a man named Viragota.The ancient tome was written by the Mayans and was found in a museum in Dresden.I know those lines and dots are numbers.When I was a kid, my dad used to take me to New York to see the World's Fair, where they put up a replica Mayan temple.

My father told me how the Mayans invented the number zero, and many other interesting things. Museums in Guatemala also sell copies of the codices, and I bought one too.On the left side of each page is a photocopy of the ancient book, and on the right is a brief introduction and a partial translation into Spanish. I love solving puzzles and codes, so when I saw those lines and dots, I couldn't help but think, "This is fun!" I covered the Spanish part and started playing Solve the Mayan Lines and Dots. game.I stayed in the hotel to study, while my wife still climbed up and down the pyramid all day.

I soon discovered that a line equals 5 dots, the way zero is written, and so on. But after spending more time, I found out that the line and point are always rounded up every 20 the first time, but every 18 the second time around (making a 360 cycle). I also studied the meaning of each face: they must represent how many days and weeks. After returning to the United States, I continued to study.Solving these things is fun, because you start out knowing nothing—no clues at all; but then you notice certain numbers that come up so often that they add up to other numbers, and it goes on and on.

Somewhere in the ancient book, the number 584 stands out.This 584 is divided into 236, 90, 250 and 8 cycles.Another prominent number is 2920, or 584 times 5 (or 365 times 8).In addition, there is a multiplication table there, all multiples of 2920, the largest is 13 times 2920, followed by many multiples of 13 times 2920, very funny numbers!I looked at it and thought it was all a typo.It wasn't until years later that I figured out what they were. Since some graphics related to the number 584 represent days, and 584 is so special, I thought: If it is not some mysterious cycle, it is probably related to astronomy.Finally, I went to the astronomical library and found that the period of Venus is 583.92 days from the observation of the earth.Then 236, 90, 250 and 8 became obvious.They are the different profit and loss periods of Venus.As a morning star, it is invisible at night (when it is on the other side of the sun); then it appears at night and finally disappears again (between the earth and the sun).

The reason for the difference between 90 and 8 is that when Venus is on the other side of the sun, it moves slower than when it is between the earth and the sun.The difference between 236 and 250 may represent the difference between the Mayan east horizon and west horizon. I also found that another nearby watch had a period of 11959 days, and it turned out that this watch was used to predict lunar eclipses.There is another table, which is a multiple of 91, descending from the largest number.I never figured out what it was (and neither did anyone else). After researching more or less, I finally decided to look at the Spanish instructions to see how much I got right; only to find out that they were all bullshit!

The instructions would say that this symbol represents Saturn and that one is God - totally nonsensical: so I don't need to cover it up anymore; and I can't learn anything from their instructions. Later, I read a lot of books about the Mayans, and I knew that the expert in this field was a man named Eric Thompson, and now I have collected several books written by him. When Bias called me, my copy of the Dresden Codex had long since been lost—I lent it to Mrs. Robertson.She had previously found some Mayan manuscripts at an antique dealer in Paris.She showed it to me—and I remember putting it in the front seat of the car when I got home, driving and thinking, "I'm going to drive carefully, this is the new codex"—but when I took a closer look Look, it's fake right away.With a little effort, you can recognize which part of the Dresden Codex the picture above is from.So I lent her my ancient book, and then forgot that it was with her.The librarians at UCLA had a hard time finding another copy of the Dresden Codex copied by Villagota to lend me.

I recalculated, and I actually learned more this time than last time: I figured out what those "funny numbers" were.I thought they were clerical errors before, but I found that these are all integer multiples of 583.923, which is closer to the correct period. Rarely guilty of exaggerated inferences, he said that just by looking at the numbers in the table, you can deduce how the Mayans calculated the correct period of Venus - using the number 4 times and the difference once, it can be concluded that there is only one day in 4000 years The cycle of errors; that's amazing! Especially since the Mayans observed Venus only for hundreds of years.But in fact, Thompson just picked some combination of numbers to arrive at what he thought was the correct period of Venus—583.92.But if you consider a more correct number, like 583.923, the error increases.Of course, you can also find different combinations of numbers from the table to get 583.923, and the accuracy is equally high! ) after his lecture at UCLA, Professor Byas presented me with some beautiful, colored copies of the Dresden Codex.A few months later, Caltech asked me to speak again on the same subject in Pasadena.A real estate agent lent me some very valuable stone and ceramic statues of Mayan gods.

In fact, it's probably not legal to bring these antiquities out of Mexico, they're so valuable, and we have specially hired security personnel to protect them. Days before the Caltech talk, The New York Times (The New York Times) reported that some new manuscripts had been discovered. Until then, we only knew of 3 codices (the other two were hard to figure out what was written in)—thousands of them had been burned by Spanish missionaries as "works of the devil."I had a cousin who worked for the Associated Press and she got me some photos of the codices that the New York Times published; But this new ancient codex is a fake.In my speech I pointed out that the numbers were in the style of the Madrid manuscript, but the numbers happened to be 236, 90, 250, 8 - what a coincidence!Out of thousands of books we have found another small piece of codex that just happens to be exactly the same as the other small piece!Clearly, this is again something cobbled together with no creativity whatsoever. These people who only know how to copy will never have the courage to make something different from others.If you find something truly new, there must be something different about it.You can use the cycle of Mars, make up some myths, draw some pictures, use appropriate numbers-not too obvious, but use some period multiples; and deliberately add some mysterious "errors" into it.The numbers take a bit of work to come up with, and people say, "Wow! This must be about Mars!" Also, it's better to include things that are beyond comprehension, rather than similar to something you've seen before.That's a good fake. My lecture title is "Unraveling the Mystery of Mayan Hieroglyphics".From this speech, I got a lot of fun.So again, I'm "doing nothing" up.Audiences pass the glass cases before queuing into the lecture hall, admiring colorful reproductions of the Dresden Codex and authentic Mayan artefacts guarded by armed guards; they then listen to a two-hour In the speech, this amateur expert told them about Mayan numbers and astronomy, and even taught them how to distinguish the authenticity of ancient manuscripts; after listening to them and leaving, appreciate the exhibits.In the next few weeks, Gellman was not to be outdone, and gave six wonderful speeches, talking about the relationship between various languages ​​in the world from the perspective of linguistics.