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How to Time Travel and Not Kill Your Grandfather

If you go back in time, do not kill your grandfather.

In the last few blogs, we explored how people time travel in my science fiction series, The Shadows of Time.

How to Keep Time Travelers out of Your Livingroom

How to Time Travel and Not Lose Your Luggage

How to Make a Computer That Sees the Future

But what dangers await a time traveler in the past?

First, let’s give the time travelers in the series a name. They descend from a group of historians, scientists, and soldiers that came from a nation called Avar. They called themselves Avarians.

The Grandfather Paradox

Let’s say you’re a time traveler. Can you change the past? And if you do, does that change affect the altered past affect you? If it does, it might affect you in a way that alters the way you change the past, and so on. You just created the grandfather paradox, otherwise known as a causality loop. Here’s a short video that explains it if you’ve never heard of it.

Three Theories of Time Travel

This paradox may prevent reverse time travel if the universe has some sort of built-in censorship. Don’t worry. There are theories that work around this paradox depends on the nature of time. Harrison Densmore created an infographic that shows how the nature of the time can prevent changing the past.

Don’t ask me who Harrison Densmore is. I tried finding him to give him credit, but he vanished without a trace. Maybe he’s a time traveler.

“3 Theories of Time Travel” by Harrison Densmore

These three theories are not the only ones out there, but they are the most popular.

Fixed Timeline: Can’t Kill Your Grandfather

In this theory of time, you CANNOT change the past because it has already happened.

Some solutions of general relativity theoretically permit time travel into the past. In the mid-1980s, Russian physicist Igor Dmitriyevich Novikov tried to solve the grandfather paradox. He said that if an event exists, that would give rise to a paradox, or to any “change” to the past whatsoever, then the probability of that event is zero. It would thus be impossible to create time paradoxes. Novikov didn’t invent time travel, but at least someone named the concept after him — the Novikov Self-Consistency Principle.

This idea is nothing new. Oedipus Rex (a Greek tragedy by Sophocles first performed around 429 BC) may not be considered the first time travel story, but Oedipus gets information about the future and tries to change it. In this story, he can’t change his fate because he lives in a fixed timeline. Instead of changing the future foretold, he ends up creating it.

Dynamic Timeline: Can Kill Your Grandfather

In this theory of time, you CAN change the past, and the universe freaks out in some way because it’s caught in a time loop. The hero of the story disappears, or the universe explodes, or the hero is caught in a continuous loop.

One of my favorite Star Trek Next Generation episodes is Cause and Effect, the one where the Enterprise is caught in a causal loop. This episode follows the dynamic timeline theory.

Star Trek Next Generation, Cause and Effect, Paramount StudiosStar Trek Next Generation, Cause and Effect, Paramount StudiosMultiverse Timelines: Grandfather Saved and Killed

If we live in a multiverse, don’t worry. Because if you go back in time in multiverse, you simply spawn off another history or timeline. One timeline contains your past, and another timeline contains the past when you came from the future. Never mind about the law of the conservation of energy.

I base The Shadows of Time series on this theory with a twist. The difference is changing the past comes with a cost. If you change the past and spawn an alternate universe, you create temporal tension. I will expand on this in an upcoming blog. Subscribe to get notified as soon as it’s published.

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Who Stared the Meme YHWH Is the Breath of God?

Have you seen the post that says that the Hebrew name for God (Yahweh) is an inhaled and an exhaled breath?

It’s a beautiful concept, but it’s wrong. To see why, check out the post Three Reasons YaHWeH Is Not the Breath of God.

Let’s dig a little deeper.

Where did this post come from?

What is the real meaning behind the post?

Is it a part of Ancient Jewish teaching? Is it a modern Jewish interpretation? Neither.

Sandra Thurman Caporale wrote the original article. It’s not clear who she is other than someone from the Memorial Church of Christ in Houston. The “Ministry of Breath” website picked up her article and published it as a blog post. Somewhere along the line, it made its way onto Facebook as a meme.

Who is the Ministry of Breath? A look at their website shows us they practice and teach somethings called breathwork, which is an alternative therapy practiced by some New Age religious groups.

The Concept of Breathwork

According to the Ministry of Breath’s website, breathwork “is the ability to breathe Energy as well as air. It is the art of learning to breathe from the Breath Itself. This ability involves merging the inhale with the exhale in a gentle relaxed rhythm in an intuitive way that floods the body with Divine Energy.”

Notice the terms Energy, Breath, and Divine Energy are capitalized in the quote as if they are proper nouns. New Age religion treats these terms as a vague, universal nature-god. This divine energy is not the Hebrew Yahweh. He is not part of nature but transcendent and the creator of the natural world.

According to practitioners of breathwork, the practice may be used to treat a wide range of conditions, including:

depressionstressaddictionpost-traumatic stress disordermigraine headacheschronic painavoidance behaviorsasthmapremenstrual tension

Mainstream medicine does not support these claims as shown in the following quote:

Breathwork is a general term used to describe a variety of conscious breathing techniques that are used in many relaxation exercises and spiritual healing methods. Available scientific evidence does not support claims for improving health; however, breathwork may help in relaxation and stress reduction.

American Cancer Society Complete Guide to Complementary and Alternative Cancer Therapies, p. 72

YaHWeH is not Breathwork

Although breathing techniques are used in yoga, the form of breathwork practiced by this group takes it a step further in what they call rebirthing breathwork. According to their website, “Rebirthing is perhaps the most valuable self-healing ability that humans can learn. We can not have disease and relaxation in the same space at the same time. Relaxation is the ultimate healer.”

YHWH is not breathwork. The name Yahweh has special significance only in its meaning and how God announced that name, not in how you inhale and exhale when you say it. (More on the meaning of this name in an upcoming blog.)

The True Breath of YaHWeH

Where New Age spirituality offers you an impersonal god you can control and absorb through rituals, the God of the Bible, Yahweh, shows us a personal God who loves you so much to sacrifice for you.

Instead of controlling a life-force through breathing, God breathes life directly into us.

Then the LORD God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. (Genesis 2:7)As long as I have life within me, the breath of God in my nostrils. (Job 27:3)So is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it. (Isaiah 55:11)And with that he [Jesus] breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” (John 20:22)All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. (2 Timothy 3:16-17)

In these cases, God initiates the breathing. He is in control. The breath is his, not ours. Where New Age spirituality does not require us to turn from our sin, receiving the Holy Spirit requires us to turn away from sin and surrender of ourselves to him.

YHWH is not breathwork but a God who breathes into us.

“Watch out that no one deceives you. For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Messiah,’ and will deceive many.”

Jesus, Matthew 24:4-5, NIV

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Check it outSources

“Holotropic Breathwork: Usage, Safety, and More”. Healthline. 2017-10-06. Retrieved 2022-09-12.

Ades TB, ed. (2009). “Breathwork”. American Cancer Society Complete Guide to Complementary and Alternative Cancer Therapies (2nd ed.). American Cancer Society. pp pp.72, 73

Hanegraaff, Wouter (1996). New Age Religion and Western Culture: Esotericism in the Mirror of Secular Thought. Leiden: Brill.

All quotes from the Bible are taken from the New International Version.

The post Who Stared the Meme YHWH Is the Breath of God? appeared first on John Newton.

How to Make a Computer That Sees the Future

A computer that sees the future is the key to time travel … at least in the science fiction series, The Shadows of Time,

But it’s not as crazy as it sounds.

In a way, a forecasting computer that sees the future already exists.

A close-up view of an IBM quantum computer. Superposition—Collapsing Probabilities

Before we look at this forecasting computer, we must understand a little about superposition—at least in its definition for modern and not classical physics. A good explanation for quantum superposition goes way beyond the scope of this blog. To keep it simple, let’s just say the state of a subatomic particle is not set until it’s measured. The measurement itself sets the state.

Until the particle is measured, the particle is in an indeterminate state we call a wave function, a set of possibilities that collapses when observed.

For a better explanation of it in layman’s terms, check out Quantum Superposition, Explained Without Woo Woo – Science Asylum, Nick Lucid.

The Future

In the science fiction series, The Shadows of Time, the future is viewed in the same way as a set of possibilities that collapses when observed. Until the future is observed in the present, we can view it as a wave function. Well, not us. I mean, we’re not smart enough to create a wave function in real time. That would take a computer so advanced that only pan-dimensional beings with whiskers and tails could create it.

The future is a set of probabilities that collapses when observed.

Seeing the Future

So, how would we create a forecasting computer?

In quantum computing, the state of a qubit exists as a superposition of all possible states. The computer assigns each state with a probability of it being of 0 or 1. Until the qubit is measured, it is both 0 and 1, but with a certain likelihood of collapsing to 0 versus 1. The act of measuring the qubit causes the quantum superposition to collapse.

In a study published in Nature Communications, researchers discussed how they accurately predicted the decay of a quantum system. They even prevented this breakdown from occurring.

Pan Dimensional Beings, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams, Paramount Pictures 2005Deep Thought, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams, Paramount Pictures 2005

What’s the big deal about a computer than can tell you the position, direction, and speed of a particle at the same time? I want the winning lottery numbers.

I’m glad you asked. In The Shadows of Time series, you can use this computer to:

Seed a wormhole,Hold it open long enough for your safe passage, andMake sure you end up in the right time and place.

In my novels, they call that forecasting computer the Ox Shalay.

A computer that sees the future
is the key to time travel.

Telling the Future

Great. Your Ox Shalay computer is a fancy flux-capacitor. It makes time travel possible. Can I get it to do one more thing for me? Can it tell me the winning lottery numbers? I want the 2052 edition of the Grays Sports Almanac without running into Biff.

How would this super intelligent computer tell me the future if all it sees is a bunch of collapsing probabilities?

The future is not written in stone, at least from our perspective. So, if all the Ox Shalay sees is a bunch of possibilities that collapse in the present, how would it communicate those possibilities? One way is through poetic verse that adds uncertainty to the same degree of the probability rating.

In other words, if there is a 100% chance the light is on in a room I’m going into, then the Ox Shalay would report that the room is bright. If there’s a 50% chance the light will be on, the Ox Shalay will report something like, “the way before you will be unclear.” Whoever reads the Ox Shalay’s predictions will have the same level of uncertainty that the computer has.

Either way, I’m hoping there’s a computer like the Ox Shalay wrapped under a tree with my name on it this Christmas.

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How to Time Travel and Not Lose Your Luggage

The Shadows of Time novel series uses wormholes based on a technique postulated by Kip Thorne to travel back in time. For reverse time travel to work according to this theory, you would need a stable wormhole large enough for time travelers to pass through and an ability to control the nature of the wormhole so that the process doesn’t kill them.

If you don’t do it right, you will lose more than your luggage. You would lose your grandma. So, pay attention. To use wormholes as time traveling mechanisms, you must follow the five principles below.

Principle 1: Special Relativity’s Effect on Time

This is already true and proven, but you must understand this concept for the rest to make sense. An aspect of relativity known as time dilation says that time slows down for someone or something that speeds up when compared to something else. In other words, the faster you go, the slower time is for you. This is not a psychological, but a physical effect. Your watch will run slower. But the effect is so small at any speeds we normally go that we don’t notice it. The faster you go and the longer you travel at acceleration, the larger the effect is.

Wormhole in outer space, conceptual illustration.Principle 2: Wormholes Exist

We have “seen” black holes, which are typically created by the collapse of a massive star. A supermassive black hole rotates at the center of our galaxy. Wormholes, on the other hand, have yet to be discovered, although the theory of general relativity has predicted them. In theory, wormhole creates a shortcut through space-time by bridging two black holes (or a black hole and a white hole).

Warning
Wormholes emit high radiation.

Vantu Space Agency
To Boldly Go to Infinity and Beyond

Principle 3: You Can Travel Through a Wormhole and Talk about It

But natural wormholes (according to theory) are unstable, and the bridge between them is likely tiny. To stabilize them and increase the tunnel size, exotic matter is to be applied liberally through the tunnel surface. (Watch the science fiction author wave his hand as he says, “exotic material.”) The exotic material produces negative energy and gravity, so you’ll be nice and comfy following the worms through their hole. Please note that only a ridiculously advanced civilization would have the technology and the tax base to create a machine that can safely stabilize a wormhole.

Warning
Avoid contact with exotic matter that stabilizes the wormhole
but destabilizes your molecules.

Spitzer Exotic Materials Emporium
We don’t make the things you use. We make them weirder.

Principle 4: You Can Control the Nature of a WormholeTime Travel: using wormholes

Stabilizing the wormhole and increasing its size with exotic matter only gets you so far. Now that you have a stable wormhole, you can travel through it to the other side of the galaxy. But wait. There’s more.

Here’s where you can apply principle one above. Move the other side of the wormhole fast, I mean insanely fast. So fast that time slows down for it. Now you have one end of the wormhole in your time and the other end in yesterday or last week. Voilà! You now have a time machine.

Warning
Wormholes are for external use only.

Centers for Time Traveling Control and Prevention
Saving Time and Protecting History

Principle 5: You Can Speed Dial the Time You Want

Nice. But your time machine is stuck on one channel. By moving the other end at relativistic speeds, you’ve adjusted the time on the other end. You can keep moving it, but it’s always stuck in the recent past.

If you want to talk to King Tut and the other end of the wormhole can’t go back any earlier than last week, you have a problem. You won’t be able to have it further back in time than when you started moving it unless you dial into a primordial black hole.

Let’s say you’re part of an uber-ridiculously advanced civilization … I mean, so far advanced they’re able to block telemarketers …

Okay, I just lost all credibility, but suspend your disbelief for a moment longer. Ok, so a future with no telemarketers and the ability to like one end of a black hole to any of the microscopic black holes dancing around the quantum foam all around us. Yes, that advanced. Now you can link to that wormhole, expand it, and jump through.

Warning
Some time travelers have experienced
nausea, vomiting, terminal dandruff,
and visions of their naked stepmother.
If you continue to loop in time for more than four hours,
seek medical attention immediately.

Fyser Pharmaceuticals
Entrust your health to Fyser One Booster at a Time

Now, I better stop. My hand hurts with all the waving.

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Check it outMore about Black Holes and Wormholes

If you would like to know more about Kip Thorne’s research, check out his book Black Holes & Time Warps: Einstein’s Outrageous Legacy.

I came across his theories while meandering through the Auburn Science Library. I should have been studying for a test in Electrical Engineering, but this was more fun.

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What Is The Shadows of Time Series?

The Shadows of Time is a series of science fiction novels I’ve been working on for … well, let’s just say, a while. I’m excited to soon share all the plot twists, intriguing technology, thrills, emotional rollercoasters, and characters you’ll love.

Here’s a quick glimpse behind the scenes at what started the events in the series.

The Temporal War

Soldiers from a future war went back to 3188 B.C. to alter events and avert bloodshed …

Temporal Archives, Records of Epi, Vol. I

Problem: The enemy nation is about to overwhelm your country. You fear genocide. Their technology is centuries beyond yours. They even have time machines.

Fix: Kill their founders.

I have no choice. Steal their time machine. Go back in time and kill the founders of their nation. Return home to a glorious future.

Can they follow you back in time?

Yes.

Too bad for you. They follow you back and then wipe out your founders. You
both lose.

Well then, I can set things up to give my nation an advantage. I’ll just go back farther and—

So do they. You’ll just keep going back and so do they until your equipment breaks down, you kill each other, or you realize there’s nothing you can do to recreate your home. Even if you jump back to the year you left, history has changed it. It’s gone. Your family, your nation, your culture are lost.

Stuck in the Past

… but the soldiers could not return to their time. Stuck in 3500 BC, they chose their new destiny. Should they become like gods with their technology and rule these primitives, or should they stay in the shadows and try to fix the mess they made?

Temporal Archives, Records of Epi, Vol. I

If you were stuck in the past with technology, what would you do?

I would try to make the world a better place. We can learn from history. That’s another advantage I have over people in the past. I know what could happen. Socialism will work this time.

As you consider the best way to experiment with our ancestor’s lives, there’s something you should be aware of.

What?

We Are Ripping Spacetime

The soldiers from the future split into two groups. The Key’ari view the new timeline as a fresh chance to correct the errors of their past, and they intend to manipulate it in hopes of creating a utopia. The other faction, the Sittiri, fear that continued intervention will further disrupt the spacetime continuum and destroy the galaxy.

Temporal Archives, Records of Earth, Vol. I

Forget climate change. Our jumping back in time is threatening the fabric of spacetime.

I don’t believe it.

Every we jumped back we created at least one new timeline. This created temporal tension that won’t be resolved until the two timelines recombine. The more we jumped back, the more the temporal tension increased. Eventually the tension will rip spacetime itself.

I still don’t believe it.

Neither did the Key’ari.

A Race to Save Time

The Sittiri fear that continued intervention will disrupt the continuum and destroy Earth. As the war escalates, the Sittiri discover Francisco; a teenager predicted to be “One of Six” who will end the war. Each faction strives to recruit him without killing him or ripping apart time.

Temporal Archives, Records of Earth, Vol. XLVII

The Shadows of Time series shows how the Sittiri strive to recruit six people who will end the time war while preventing the Key’ari from ripping spacetime.

The first of these novels is The Healing Stone, coming soon.

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How to Keep Time Travelers out of Your Livingroom

Let’s Build a Time Machine

Suppose we can. Then what? What about time travel security?

Let’s say you have a device that transports you into the future. Well, we’re doing that already, but I mean faster than we’re traveling now. I’m not talking about losing a second or two by flying at Mach 6 for three days, I’m talking about jumping into your time machine and a minute later stepping out into next year.

Problem: The Earth Moved

Depending on the method of time travel, this could be a problem.

Fix: The time machine also moves, so it shows up in the same place you left.

Good. Now you have a forward-time and space traveling machine with a wave of the author’s hand. Will that work for you?

I can suspend my belief for that if the story’s good. Make the characters engaging or funny and I’ll close my eyes to any violation against the laws of physics. Oh, and you must be consistent. You can’t say, “It is not possible to use the transporter during warp” one episode and then do it the next.

Great. Let’s call the time traveling machines “pods.” They can jump forward in time and space.

Problem: No Time Travel Security

If the bad guys have these pods, they can just show up in your headquarters or even living room and demand all your Halloween candy. No problem, if there’s any candy left, which there won’t be because your brother ate it all.

Fix: Create a dampening field that makes the pod’s navigation computer go wonky.

Uhm.

No, seriously. I’ll give you some Halloween candy if you go with it.

Got any of those little Snickers bars?

Uh, no. How about black licorice?

Uhg, no way.

Kit Kat? Three of them.

Ok, but how are you going to jump your pod into your own city if this field thing is running?

I can only jump into specific places that are shielded from the dampening field. Let’s call them “gateways,” and I’ll make three of them and add a lot of security. You land your pod in the gateway and then take a shuttle to the city.

That might work.

Okay, then. I’ll put it in my second novel. Thanks!

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Giving Respect Freely Is a Counterfeit Form of Selfless Love

Respect everyone.

That rule has never sat well with me. I think I have figured out why.

Treating others as you would like them to treat you is what we should do, but it is not respect. That is politeness.

Respect is earned, not freely given.

The Death of Manners

Demanding respect or honor when you haven’t earned it is stealing valor. A war veteran may earn your respect because of a self-sacrificing act for the security of society. But a person who merely wears a uniform with ribbons or metals he or she didn’t earn deserves scorn.

We give respect to someone who has earned it, whether by action or by title. If the person holding the title has not earned our respect, we can at least respect the title itself. A ball player may be this year’s MVP, but if he has been convicted of rape, we respect his title but not him.

Even respecting someone’s right to do something—as in, “I respect your right to free speech”—means you respect the right itself, not necessarily the person or what he or she has to say.

I will be polite to you, but I will not respect you until you have earned it.

Twisting the Meaning of Respect

We have been misusing the word respect because our PC culture has all but stopped using the words “manners” or “politeness.” They associate those words with a bygone era filled with what they consider patriarchy, racism, and misogyny. To them, being polite is based on a set of rules that oppressed women and minorities.

The alternative is a diverse and inclusive society that holds all codes of conduct as equal, except for those that eradicate traditional values. This has created a vacuum for the concept of civility. Enter the new definition of the word “respect.”

A progressive ideology dictates we give respect automatically to everyone and to all cultures and to all religious beliefs. Why not? They are all equal.

No, they are not. If your religious belief is that you need to sacrifice infants (human beings) in a ritual to placate the fertility god, well then, no, I do not respect it. In fact, that belief has earned my scorn, and I will oppose it.

The same applies to social norms. Not all social norms are equal. There are behaviors and practices that bring death and not life. Even if enough people in a community support it so that it becomes a norm, it has not earned my respect. I will oppose it.

Source: WNYC New York Public RadioNot Going Far Enough

If anything, progressive ideology does not go far enough. Giving respect freely is a counterfeit form of selfless love. As Christians, we are to go beyond politeness and sacrifice ourselves for others, even if they don’t deserve our respect. The Bible tells us to, “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves” (Philippians 2:3).

Since we tend to value ourselves higher than others—that is our fallen nature—we must fight against it. The Greek word Paul uses here is ἡγούμενοι (hēgoumenoi), which means putting first in priority such as “the leading thought” in one’s mind. Think of other people first, not by putting them on a higher pedestal of unearned respect, but by lowering ourselves out of humility. We do not know everyone’s story. We should treat them with the same kind of love and grace that God has granted us.

So, even if someone’s philosophy, religion, morals, or actions are wrong, I am called to think of them higher than myself. But—and this is where we must make the distinction—I do not have to think their philosophy, religion, or way of life is better than mine. If I did, I would think and live the same as them.

Rice fields belonging to local hill tribes in Sapa, Viet Nam.
Source: United Nations PhotoHumble Living

The Chinese church leader and teacher Watchman Nee told a story of a poor Christian rice farmer. His fields lay high on a mountain. Every day, he pumped water into his rice paddies and every morning, he returned to find an unbelieving neighbor who lived down the hill had opened the dikes surrounding the Christian’s field to let the water fill his own. For a while, the Christian ignored the injustice, but at last he became desperate. His own rice would die if this continued. His family prayed and came up with a solution.

The next day, the Christian farmer rose early in the morning and first filled his neighbor’s fields. Then he filled his own. Watchman Nee told how the neighbor subsequently became a Christian because the genuine demonstration of a Christian’s love for others overcame his unbelief.

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How to Tell the Difference Between Hubble and Webb Images

Artist’s rendition of the JWST in spaceMore than Meets the Eye

The difference between Hubble and Webb images is more than simple clarity or resolution. Here is a simple way to tell the difference between images taken by the older. The most glaring difference—pun intended—are the eight-pointed diffraction spikes jutting out from some stars in the image.

Telling the Difference Between Hubble &Webb ImagesEight-Pointed Diffraction Spikes

Diffraction spikes—the flares pointing out from some of the brightest stars—are interference patterns that come from light scattered off mirror struts that support the secondary mirror on the telescope. The edges of all the eighteen hexagonal mirrors on the Webb create additional diffraction patterns. Since these flares result from interference patterns, the intensity of the spikes depends on the brightness and wavelength of the object observed.

Source: Space Telescope Science InstituteOne More Difference: The Snowflake Pattern

The image below does not show a new type of star or an alien spacecraft. The snowflake-like arrangement in the star appears to mimic the mirror’s structure in various colors. Different wavelengths show as separate variations of the interference patterns.

More about Space TelescopesA really cool way to compare images from the Hubble and the James Webb space telescopes is to view their images side-by-side. You can see that in the post 3 Amazing Hubble and Webb Telescope Images Side-by-Side. And just for grins, check out the Startling Webb Telescope Image of Doomsday Machine – Parody.Sign up for NewtonSciFi Updates

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Startling Webb Telescope Image of Doomsday Machine – Parody

Gas, Cosmic Caterpillar, or Doomsday Machine?

Doomsday Machine?

Indeed.

At first, NASA scientists believed this light-year-long knot of interstellar gas and dust called IRAS 20324+4057 was the first citing of a space caterpillar (source: APOD: 2013 September 4 – IRAS 20324: Evaporating Protostar (nasa.gov)). Rumors that a real-life Mothra could emerge from the colossal beast shook the world. Some believed this could be Mothra, and she would protect the earth. Others feared this was the first of many, and entire species of planet eating lepidoptera infesting the galaxy.

Further analysis showed this stellar object was nothing more than hot gases coalescing to form a new star. Harsh winds from nearby stars (15 light-years) had formed the gas and dust into a long tail. NASA released this update 63 days after the initial images went public, and it has taken years for the urban legends of Mothra or her evil sisters to fade.

Now the new Webb space telescope, with its enhanced sensor package, discovers a more sinister reality. Fresh from Photoshop Labs in Hollywood, New York, the James Webb Space Telescope transmitted images of the protostar. Here is our exclusive side-by-side comparison of the Hubble and Webb images.

Pseudo images of protostar IRAS 20323+4057

This image does not look like recent Webb telescope images.

I’m sure they come in peace.

Let the rumors commence.

I’m a doctor, not an engineer.

Dr. McCoy, Star Trek the Original Series, The Doomsday Machine – S2-E6

Cover image taken from Review: “The Doomsday Machine” Remastered – TrekMovie.com

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How to Ransom Captives in Medieval Spain

How would you ransom captives? Money? Threat of war? Let them rot?

In a previous post (Abduction Leads to Slavery in the Iberian Frontier), I listed some examples of how captives were taken in Medieval Spain along the Christian/Muslim border.

But what happened to them after they were taken?

European and North African slave trade routes 8th to 11th century ADA Constant Threat

Raids and abduction were not new to medieval life or restricted to religious warfare. Abduction for ransom or slavery was “a constant in the life of the western Mediterranean from antiquity until the demise of the Barbary pirates in the nineteenth century” (James William Brodman, Ransoming Captives in Crusader Spain: The Order of Merced on the Christian-Islamic Frontier, 1863). But where cultures collided along the border in Medieval Spain and down the coast of the Mediterranean and its islands, raiding and abduction increased.

The Slave Market, Constantinople, Paining by William Allan, 1838A Slave’s Options

Before 1150 AD in this region, prisoners of war expected death or slavery after capture. Held in chains and on the verge of starving or dying of thirst, slaves had little hope. They could:

Escape – Few attempted this. The price of failure, usually the loss of a nose or an eye, was higher than most were willing to risk.Convert – Slave owners did not always offer freedom after conversion.Keep calm and carry on.

If a slave could do none of these, he or she would have to rely on outside help. No one would physically rescue him or her because the slave owners typically kept them deep within the country. Only one option remained for outside help: REDEMPTION.

The Concept of Redemption

Around 1150, the charters of Aragon and Castile stressed the obligation to try to redeem Christian captives. They did this by keeping Muslim captives whom they used to trade for their Christian counterparts. (A Society Organized for War, James F. Powers, Ch. 7.) 

Let’s define redemption as ransom through (1) the payment in coin or in kind, or (2) the exchange of a suitable captive held by the other side.

Redemption was an ancient practice according to both Roman and Visigothic law.

For the Romans, the law of Diocletian stipulates that anyone who buys a captive must free him upon repayment of the purchase price or the completion of not more than five years of servitude (Silvo Romano, Redemptus ab hostibiis, Rome, 1930 as cited by Brodman).

For the Visigoths (who the Spanish kingdoms of the time descended from), Visigothic law allows a commission of 20 percent of the ransom for anyone who frees a Visigoth from captivity. (“Collectionis iuris Romano-Visigothici capita VII-XX (Fragmenta Gaudenziana),” in Leges Visigothorum, ed. Karl Zeumer, vol. 1 of Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Legum, Sectio I, Leges nationum germanicarum (Hanover and Leipzig, 1902), 471 as quoted by Brodman).

How to Ransom Captives

In the Christian North, ransom usually came through three channels:

The KingTheir HometownThe ChurchThe King

In Medieval Spain, the quartermaster on duty rewarded those who brought a Muslim commander (adalid) to the council (concejo). Should a Muslim high-ranking official such as a captain survive capture, the king maintained the first option to claim the captive and pay the town one hundred maravedís. The monarch would typically use this high-ranking official to bargain the release of his own subjects.

Their Hometown

Towns felt a particular responsibility toward their own captive militiamen. As an act of charity, they offered captured Moors, livestock, or shares of the booty as contributions toward their ransoming. These frontier towns helped negotiate redemption. Town councils hired Christian and Muslim merchants engaged in the flow of trade across the military frontier. The towns of the Aragonese and Castilian frontiers paid the merchants a twenty percent commission to transfer ransoms to Muslim captors and safely return Christian captives to their hometowns.

The Church

The family of the captured typically helped raise funds for the ransom, but when they could not raise enough even with the town’s aid, the church typically stepped in. The church elevated ransoming from a work of civic importance to an act of religious charity that was meritorious in God’s eyes.

“One of the first efforts to apply the institutions of religious charity to ransoming grew out of the initiative of Alfonso VIII of Castile and of Alfons I of Catalonia-Aragon to entrust this work to the military orders of their realms. But the initiative for them actually to undertake the task came from Alfonso VIII (1158- 1214), who established a number of religious ransoming centers in the trans-Tagus region of Castile and entrusted these to the knights of Santiago. The first so-called Hospital of Mercy was founded and royally endowed at Toledo in 1180.”

James William Brodman,
Ransoming Captives in Crusader Spain: The Order of Merced on the Christian-Islamic Frontier

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The post How to Ransom Captives in Medieval Spain appeared first on John Newton.