Читать книгу The Mystery of the Crystal Skulls - Chris Morton - Страница 11

The crystal skull had not only attracted the attention of archaeologists. Scientists too had been fascinated, intrigued by the skull’s mysterious history and all the incredible possibilities it seemed to represent. When Anna Mitchell-Hedges agreed to loan her skull to a team of scientists at state-of-the-art computer and electronics company Hewlett-Packard, they had the chance to examine the skull in detail.

Hewlett-Packard is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of computers and other electronic equipment. They use crystals in a whole range of electronic devices. Their scientists therefore are experts not only on computers but also on the physical, technical and scientific properties of crystal.

The tests on the crystal skull took place in late 1970 in Hewlett-Packard’s crystal laboratories in Santa Clara, California (see plates 34–6). We visited these laboratories, deep in the heart of California’s Silicon Valley, to try to find out what the scientists had discovered.

The tests had been overseen by Jim Pruett, components manager of the frequency standards team. By the time we arrived in California, he was long gone, but Ceri and I were able to speak to the current principal scientist at the lab, Jack Kusters, and the former engineering manager for quartz devices, Charles Adams, who had been present during the tests. Between them these two men have over 50 years’ experience of working with crystal.

As Jack and Charles explained, initially the team was not even convinced that the crystal skull was really made of proper quartz. There are in fact several other materials that look almost exactly the same as quartz crystal to the naked eye, including various types of plastics and glass. Even lead crystal, the material from which most glasses, decanters and other decorative objects are now made, is actually a type of glass and not crystal at all. Also, there is a lot of artificially manufactured or ‘synthetic’ quartz crystal around today.

Natural quartz, or rock crystal, on the other hand, is entirely a product of Mother Nature. It actually grows in the ground, taking sometimes billions of years to form. Crystals grow deep within the Earth’s crust, usually around volcanic and earthquake activity. The process requires immense heat and pressure and always a ‘seed’ crystal is needed to start it off. This seed is created when a single silicon atom, under intense heat and pressure, fuses with two oxygen atoms from superheated water or steam trapped in the same space. The atoms fuse to form a single crystalline cell of silicon dioxide, the substance from which all quartz crystal is made. (The by-product is hydrogen.) Over the millennia, if conditions are right, this seed starts to grow. But the surrounding fluid must contain just the right proportions of silicon and water, or pressurized steam, maintained at a phenomenal intensity of heat and pressure for a sufficiently long period of time. As the primordial fluid oozes over the first cell of silicon dioxide, the cell starts to replicate itself, laying down its complex crystalline structure one atom at a time. Every cell in the crystal repeats the same pattern. Each cell is a tiny little crystal in and of itself, and each cell repeats the same pattern as the one before. In this way the crystal builds up a complex three-dimensional network structure, known as a ‘crystal lattice’, with absolute geometric regularity, where every cell is exactly symmetrical and precisely repeated throughout the whole. And so little by little, over the years, a piece of pure, transparent natural quartz crystal comes into being. In its natural state it is highly angular in shape, always with six sides, tapering at either end to a fine point.

Of course, not every piece of natural quartz crystal is perfect. Impurities can creep in, traces of iron or aluminium or any number of other substances can get trapped in the network. Such traces of other elements show up as discoloration, aluminium for example turning the crystal smoky grey, known as ‘smoky quartz’, or iron adding a tint of pink, known as ‘rose quartz’, to name but two. High levels of radioactivity can also affect growth and cause discoloration. Only if there is no radio-activity and there are no other trace elements in the area is a totally pure and transparent crystal formed.

Quartz, however, is one of the most common naturally occurring materials. As Jack told us, current estimates are that around 80 per cent of the Earth’s crust contains quartz. But much of this is too full of impurities or too small to be of any practical use, other than as sand. And, whilst some of the less pure varieties of quartz are still beautiful, they are of relatively little use to the electronics industry. In fact a problem for the industry has been that large and pure pieces of natural quartz are actually very rare.

Recently this problem has been solved to some extent by the manufacture, or rather growth, of man-made or synthetic quartz. The first experiments in manufacturing or growing synthetic quartz began in 1851, but it was not until the latter part of the twentieth century that the technique was sufficiently perfected for manufactured quartz to be of practical use in electronics. In fact at the time that the tests on the crystal skull were performed at Hewlett-Packard, carefully selected natural quartz was still the main source of crystal for electronic devices, but since then scientists have become so successful at growing their own quartz that synthetic quartz has now all but completely replaced natural quartz as the essential ingredient for most electronic equipment.

The point about manufactured quartz is that the purity and size of the crystal can be absolutely guaranteed. But this is not to say that the process no longer requires the help of Mother Nature. On the contrary, it is only possible to manufacture quartz by growing it from natural pieces. What the scientists do is to speed up a process that would naturally take an eternity, so that it now only takes a matter of weeks. This is done by artificially creating the optimum environment for growth. In a vast ‘autoclave’, a highly sophisticated type of furnace, natural pieces of quartz scraps or ‘lascas’ are dissolved in water at highly elevated temperature and pressure. But the essential ingredient is still a natural piece of high quality quartz; without it the process cannot even begin. This carefully selected piece of natural crystal is simply suspended in the autoclave and the rest of the process is left to nature itself. The surrounding fluid quite simply grows onto the original crystal and the results are removed from the autoclave, or harvested, when the resulting crystals reach the required size. But these new crystals, even over generations and generations of man-made manufacture, can only ever be as pure as the original piece of natural quartz crystal supplied by Mother Earth.

Given all the different types of material that look exactly the same to the naked eye as natural quartz, the first task for the Hewlett-Packard scientists was to determine exactly what the crystal skull was really made of.

In one of the tests the skull was submersed in a glass chamber containing Benzyl alcohol of exactly the same density and refractive index as pure quartz. As the skull was lowered into the tank it seemed to disappear (see plate 36). This proved that it was made of the most incredibly pure type of quartz. But not only was it pure, it was also natural. Polarized light was directed at the skull in its chamber and vague shadows or ‘veils’ then appeared, which showed that the skull was of natural origin. These shadows, tiny variations in the growth pattern of the crystal, somewhat akin to the rings on a tree, are removed in the precisely controlled environment of manufactured quartz. So the skull was not made from any type of plastic or glass, nor was it made from modern synthetic crystal. It was definitely natural rock crystal supplied by the Earth.

The presence of the veils also revealed something else quite remarkable about the crystal skull. Given its size, unusually large for a natural piece of quartz, some had suspected that the skull had been made from several pieces of crystal carefully pieced together. But the polarized light test proved beyond doubt not only that the main cranium was made from only one piece of crystal, but also that the detachable jaw-bone was carved from exactly the same piece of rock. At some stage the crystal skull had been one solid block of rock crystal.

The investigating team was absolutely astonished by this. For pure quartz crystal is one of the hardest materials in the world. On the Mohs scale of hardness, used by gemologists, it is only slightly softer than diamond. This makes rock crystal an incredibly difficult material to carve, particularly given that it is also somewhat brittle and has a tendency to shatter. The workmanship on the skull was so exquisite the team estimated that even if the carvers had used today’s electrically powered tools with diamond tips, it would have taken at least a year to carve such an incredible object. But the team concluded something even more surprising than this. They felt that it would have been almost impossible to make such an exquisitely carved object using any known type of modern diamond-tipped power tool. This is because the vibration, heat and friction produced by such tools on such a delicate object as the lower jaw would actually have caused the skull to shatter – a fact which apparently led one member of the team to comment, ‘This skull shouldn’t even exist!’

But the original investigating team’s belief that the skull had not been made with modern tools was more than just a hunch. It was borne out by further tests. Even under extreme magnification of the surface of the skull there was no evidence of modern tool markings, no evidence of the usual tool ‘chatter’ or of the tell-tale pattern of repetitive parallel scratch marks. Given that any such markings would have been extremely difficult to remove, these findings seemed to confirm what the team had already begun to suspect – that the crystal skull had actually been made by hand!

This was phenomenal, as the only hand-carving techniques for crystal currently known take an incredible length of time. The scientists could only assume that the skull had been carved by slowly and patiently rubbing the original block of quartz down by hand, probably using a mixture of river sand and water. Even with the use of copper rods or hand-held carving ‘bows’, the team concluded that the crystal skull must have taken several generations of effort to carve! Whilst the precise length of time this had taken was impossible to confirm, the Hewlett-Packard staff magazine Measure put the nearest estimate at ‘300 man-years of effort’!¹

As Jack and Charles explained, whoever made the skull would have had to have started with a huge chunk of angular quartz crystal around three times the size of the finished skull, and when they first started carving they would have had no way of knowing whether the inside was pure or full of fractures and holes. They would have had to carefully grade the sand by the size of each of its grains, starting with the largest grains to rough out the overall shape and gradually reducing their size as the work became more detailed, right down to a microscopically fine grain size, like powder, to finish off the final smooth polish. What is more, if they had made a mistake at any point, they would have had to start again from scratch. If even a single grain that was too large had fallen onto the surface on which they were working as they neared completion of the skull, they would have had to start again. This must have been a truly formidable task.

I explained that I had heard the rather outlandish theory, suggested by the ancient legend and also by many of those who had spent considerable time with the skull, that the skull might actually have been made by extra-terrestrials. After all, if it could not even have been made with modern tools, then how could it possibly have been made by hand? But the scientists from Hewlett-Packard, perhaps understandably, dismissed this theory. As Jack Kusters said:

‘Being a scientist, I find it very hard to believe that people, pardon me, creatures, from other universes came and dropped things off here and then disappeared and never bothered us again. These other alternatives are simply not within the realm of possibility. I do not believe in the existence of aliens, so I have to conclude that it was made by human hand.’

This finding was of course incredible enough itself. But it was one that Frederick Mitchell-Hedges had already suspected:

‘It must have taken over 150 years, generation after generation working all the days of their lives, patiently rubbing down with sand an immense block of rock crystal until finally the perfect skull emerged.’²

Likewise, in the 1936 study in Man, Adrian Digby of the British Museum had already observed that ‘Mr Burney’s [presumably Mr Mitchell-Hedges’] skull bears no traces of recent (metal age) workmanship.’³

Here, though, was what appeared to be proof positive, using the latest scientific techniques, that the skull had been made entirely by hand and without the use of any kind of modern metal age tools.

However, it was absolutely impossible for the scientists to tell exactly when this had been done. For, as Jack and Charles explained, quartz crystal does not age. It does not corrode, erode, decay or change in any way with time. This is actually one of the many unusual properties of quartz that makes it so vital to the modern electronics industry, but it also makes it impossible even to carbon date. With other materials, even if there are no visible signs of ageing, as in the case of the crystal skull, scientists can usually work out very accurately both the age of the original material and any workmanship thereon by measuring the degree of radioactive decay in the carbon atoms of which it is comprised. When you are dealing with quartz crystal, however, this is just not possible.

So, for all the team’s scientific knowledge, up-to-the-minute technology and specialist expertise, there was absolutely no way of knowing how old the crystal skull really was. It could have been hundreds or even billions of years old. For all the scientists knew it could be as old as the Earth itself, or even older. It could even date back to the very beginning of time.

But the scientists at Hewlett-Packard were able to uncover one more potential clue to the mystery of the crystal skull. Other tests showed that the skull was not only made from a single piece of natural quartz, but from ‘piezo-electric’ silicon dioxide, precisely the type of naturally occurring quartz that is so widely used in modern electronics.

As Jack explained, the piezo-electric properties of some kinds of quartz were only discovered towards the end of the nineteenth century by Marie Curie’s husband and brother-in-law, Pierre and Jacques Curie. Piezo is Greek, meaning ‘to squeeze’, and electrose means ‘to get a charge from’. The fact that the crystal skull is made from this type of quartz means that it actually has a positive and negative polarity, just like a battery. It also means that if you apply pressure to the skull, or ‘squeeze’ it, it is actually capable of generating electricity! Alternatively, if you apply an electric charge to the crystal skull it actually changes its shape, without in any way affecting its mass or density.

But, like all piezo-electric quartz, the crystal skull is anisotropic in this as well as every other respect, which is to say that all of its properties, other than its mass, are different in every direction. In the case of its electrical properties, its precise orientation is defined by its X–Y axis, in other words, it can carry an electric current, but only in six particular directions relative to this X-Y axis. In any other direction it acts as an insulator.

In the case of the crystal skull, the scientists found that it was ‘vertically piezo-electrically oriented’, which is to say that its X-Y axis runs directly through the centre of the skull, from top to bottom. This means that if you apply an electric charge to the top of the crystal skull, not only does its shape change in the process, but also the electric current passes from the very top of the skull’s head straight down to the Earth below. In the case of squeezing the skull to generate electricity, strangely enough, if you reverse the direction of pressure, the direction of electrical polarity in the crystal also reverses.

The Hewlett-Packard team also examined the skull’s unusual optical properties, such as its ability to channel light from below, so that it is focused out through the eye sockets. Apparently, this is only possible on account of the orientation of the skull’s optical axis, as quartz crystal has an optical as well as an electronic axis. What this means is that light actually travels quicker through the skull in one direction than another. Jack explained that not only was the skull able to perform these incredible tricks with normal multi-directional light, but also that if you shine directional, or polarized, light at the skull, not only does the light pass along its optical axis quicker than in any other direction, but the skull also actually rotates that light as it travels along its axis!

Another characteristic of the skull is that it is incredibly environmentally stable. This is another of the properties of piezo-electric silicon dioxide that makes it so invaluable for use in modern electronics. What it means is that the crystal skull is highly resistant to changes in the environment. It is particularly resistant to chemical changes. Most similar natural materials are slowly attacked by various chemicals, whether acids or even just plain water. The crystal skull, on the other hand, is resistant to chemicals. As Jack explained,

‘Quartz crystal is highly stable, physically, chemically and temperately, and whilst it does respond to light and to electricity, this is precisely what makes it so useful in electronics.’

For modern science has also established that one of the particularly unusual properties of piezo-electric quartz is that it can function as an excellent oscillator or resonator. Jack explained this as follows:

‘If a thin slice of crystal is cut parallel to its electronic axis and subjected to an alternating current, the crystal can be made to vibrate. The dimensions of the cut crystal are such that it will vibrate most strongly at the a.c. frequency that corresponds most closely to its own natural frequency. At this frequency, the mechanical motion of the crystal will reinforce the a.c. voltage.’

In other words, crystal, unlike other materials, has an amazing ability to hold electrical energy under control and to oscillate at a constant and precise frequency. This means that, in theory at least, the crystal skull may actually be able to hold electrical energy, potentially a form of information, and send out electrical impulses, or vibrating waves of information.

This ability to oscillate is yet another of the many unusual properties of this type of quartz that makes it so invaluable to the modern electronics industry. Its use in oscillator circuits for example, makes it vital to any piece of equipment where extremely accurate control of electronic frequencies is required. It is particularly important in precision electronics, especially in those instruments used for time-keeping. Indeed, quartz crystal is now found in almost every piece of precision time-keeping equipment from wristwatches to clocks. It is even used in the atomic clock, which is the most accurate clock in the world, the one by which all others are now measured. It is accurate to three seconds every million years (although its manufacturers only guarantee it for the first three years!) Quartz crystal is at the very forefront of scientific advance in this and every other respect. The atomic clock, for example, has been used to test Einstein’s theory that time actually travels more slowly as the speed of light is approached. This clock is also vital to research into measuring seismic (or earthquake) activity on distant planets. And the whole device is based on a simple quartz crystal.

But quartz is not only found in the most advanced time-keeping instrumentation, it is also vital to the fields of information technology, telecommunications and mass communication, not to mention navigational equipment, radar and sonar systems, and the latest medical and ultrasonic technology. Its incredible electrical properties mean that it is now found in all manner of electronic devices, from radios to computers, from terrestrial television systems to even the most advanced telecommunication satellites that now orbit the Earth in space. All of these use quartz crystals in one form or another. Even the vast information superhighway has only been possible thanks to recent developments in the field of crystal research and technology.

So the crystal today is at the very forefront of scientific advance. It lies at the very heart of the modern computer, electronics, telecommunications and mass communications industries. Indeed, the power of crystal has quite literally changed the face of society. We now live in a world where electronically-based information and communications are an everyday part of life, a world where even the time of day is determined electronically. We are able to communicate instantaneously with people maybe thousands of miles away and to store and retrieve vast quantities of information from all over the world quite literally at the touch of a button. Crystal has been at the core of probably one of the greatest technological revolutions the world has ever seen. We have become so dependent on all the devices containing quartz crystals that it is now even vital to our civilization.

Why had the crystal skull been made from precisely the type of quartz whose properties and potential we have only just begun to recognize?