Let us now come down to Earth as it were, and examine the planet on which we live. We have seen how life, movement and energy are synonymous; therefore for life to
exist on our planet, as anywhere else for that matter, there must be a number of natural processes and functions which promote the concentration of the energetic matrix within which physical life can evolve. According to Viktor Schauberger these are created by the 'original' motion of the Earth as it rotates about its own axis and circulates its bio-mag- netic and bio-electrical energies through itself during its 365.26-day, orbital waltz around the Sun.
Contrary to common belief the Earth is not actually a true sphere, but is slightly oblate. That is to say, there is a slight flattening at the poles. According to best measurements the polar diameter is 12,639.648km and the equa- torial diameter, 12,682.176km, the latter being 42.688 km greater. Due to the effect of cen- trifugal forces acting on the greater land- masses of the northern hemisphere, it bulges slightly more above the Equator, making the world pear-shaped, the southern hemisphere being the more 'pointed' end.
This has the effect of displacing the Earth's centre of gravity marginally north of true
centre, producing the so-called 'Chandler Wobble', which is akin to the wobble of a spinning top. One revolution of this wobble takes 26,000 years to complete and in the process causes a variation in the inclination of the Earth's axis to the ecliptic, the plane in
which all the planets orbiting the Sun lie, with the exception of Pluto.
Viktor viewed the Earth as a living organ- ism, a being possessed of intelligence. The word 'organism' actually originates from Aristotle's concept of 'Organon', meaning an 'instrument of reason'. This throws a whole new light on everything we consider organic, in that all physical forms are seen to be the creation of mind or an ordering principle. As an animate being, the Earth also breathes, pulsating its fundamentally female energies outward in tune with its gyration and in response to the energy received from the Sun.
This concept of a breathing planet is not new. The word 'atmosphere' and its associ- ated concepts are interesting and originate inter alia from the Ancient Greek and Sanskrit. From the Oxford English Dictionary1 we discover the following meanings, opin- ions and data, which are relevant to the dis- cussion that follows. Words in bold type are to draw the reader's attention to their further significance.
Atmosphere
GREEK: ATMOS = Vapour
SPHERE = Ball.
SANSKRIT: ATMAN = Breath
OLD HIGH GERMAN: ATUM = Breath
1) The spheroidal gaseous envelope surrounding any of the heavenly bodies. The name was invented for the ring or orb of vapour or 'vaporous air' supposed to be exhaled from the body of a planet, and so to be part of it, which the air itself was not considered to be. It was extended
88 Living Energies
to the portion of surrounding air occupied by this, or supposed to be in any way 'within the sphere of activity' of the planet (Phillips 1696) and finally, with the progress of science, to the sup- posed limited aeriform environment of the Earth, or other planetary or stellar body. (It is curious that the first mention of an atmosphere is in con- nection with the Moon, now believed to have none.)
2) 1677 PLOT: That subtile Body that immedi- ately incompasses the Earth and is filled with all manner of exhalations, and from thence com- monly known by the name of the atmosphere.
3) 1751 CHAMBERS: Among some of the more accurate writers, the atmosphere is restrained to that part of the air next the Earth, which receives vapors and exhalations and is terminated by the refraction of the Sun's light.
4) 1867 E.DENISON ("Astronomy without Mathematics"): The Earth's atmosphere decreases so rapidly in density, that half its mass is within 3.5 miles above the sea; and at 80 miles there can be practically no atmosphere.
5) 1881 STOKES: In the solar atmosphere there is a cooling from above.
6) 1727-51 CHAMBERS: Atmosphere of Solid or Consistent Bodies, is a kind of sphere formed by
the effluvia, or minute corpuscles emitted from
them.
7) 1871 EMERSON: A man should not go where he cannot carry his whole sphere or circle with him, not bodily, but atmospherically.
While several of these quotations underscore some of the comments made in the previous chapter about the Sun, in the main they affirm an apparently earlier held view that the Earth is a living organism, namely an entity that breathes. Viewed from outer space, the atmosphere itself could also be construed as the vital amniotic fluid that sur- rounds an Earth pregnant with life, in which it floats and which shields it from the poten- tially destructive forces of the Sun and Cosmos.
When the Earth was first formed, suppos- edly from a molten mass of condensing gases, it is believed to have been totally cov- ered by water before the dry land eventually came into being. Apart from volcanic emissions, in the main these 'vaporous
exhalations' are the water vapour present in the atmosphere. Due to the heating effect of the interaction between solar radiation and atmosphere, the water covering the Earth's surface gradually evaporated and became dispersed through the atmosphere, ulti- mately charging the atmospheric envelope with water vapour, though mainly in the tro- posphere which extends to an altitude of about 6km at the poles and 18km at the equa- tor. According to H.L. Penman's paper, "The Water Cycle"2, water has the greatest specific heat known among liquids (=1) and also has the greatest thermal conductivity of all liquids, whereas iron, which heats and cools more rapidly, has a far lower specific heat of 0.107.
Its great specific heat means that, for a given rate of energy input, the temperature of a given mass of water will rise more slowly than the tempera- ture of any other material. Conversely, as energ is released its temperature will drop more slowly.
Owing to its high specific heat and its capac- ity to retain heat, the water vapour gradually absorbed the heat of the Sun, and in doing so raised the general level of temperature. Because it absorbs heat strongly in the infra- red portion of the spectrum and is transpar- ent to (i.e.unaffected by) ultraviolet light, during the night when there is no heat input, heat losses are kept to a minimum. Had water not this capacity, if this water vapour buffer did not exist, then the Earth would have remained cold, lifeless and barren. Water, initially in its vaporous form, is there- fore responsible for the emergence of all life.
When water vapour reaches extreme alti- tudes, however, it then becomes so rarefied that it is dissociated into its constituent atoms of oxygen and hydrogen through the action of strong ultraviolet radiation. Being the heavier element, the oxygen then sinks back to Earth, while the lighter hydrogen atoms rise to rejoin their peers in space. Now sepa- rated from the hydrogen, the oxygen is exposed to high levels of ionising radiation through which the now single oxygen atoms are made to combine with the molecular oxy- gen (O2) into an allotropic form of oxygen, O2
tion of otherwise dangerous levels of ultra- violet radiation, a process which is vital for all life on Earth. The result is a net loss of water. The greater the amo unt of water vapo ur propelled into the atmosphere through the overheating resulting from excessive defor- estation, the greater the consequent losses; losses indeed that can never be recovered (see pp. 121 & 123).
What differentiates water from all other liquids, a factor that will be discussed in more detail later, is its so-called 'anomaly point' or 'point of anomalous expansion'; that is to say, water's volume does not decrease continually with increasing cold. Its behaviour is anomalous, and hence the term 'anomalous expansion' or 'anomaly point'.
This point of reversal is reached when the
water attains its greatest density and energy content at a temperature of +4°C, below which it eventually crystallises as ice at 0°C, a process greatly assisted if so-called 'impuri- ties' are present which provide the nucleus around which the ice forms. Another important factor is water's dielec- tric value. The base dielectric value for calcu- lating all other values is based on the permittivity of a vacuum and has a value of 1. Permittivity is the extent to which a sub- stance can be penetrated or traversed by an electric current or charge. Apart from a vacuum, a dielectric can be formed of an
electrically neutral, interstitial membrane separating positive and negative electric
charges, i.e. a non-conducting substance such as paraffin wax.
The dielectric value of pure water (distilled water) is 81 (=92) and is therefore 81 times more effective as a charge separator than a vacuum and almost the highest dielectric
value there is 1 mm3 of the purest water at room temperature, for example, has an elec-
trical resistance equal to a lmm2 copper wire,
15,000,000km long. It thus possesses a tremendous innate resistance to the transfer of charge. Pure water will only freeze at tem-
peratures of around -40°C or in clouds at about -10°C, which again is fairly important, as we shall discover later. In comparison with a temperature of -273.15°C (= absolute zero or 0oKelvin), supposedly the lowest possible
temperature to be found anywhere in the Universe, the temperature of 0°C, or freezing point, is relatively warm.
Lying between approximately +40°C and -10°C, the temperature range in which we live is not very large. In fact it is a fairly nar- row band-width between extremes to which we are not normally subjected. Our radius of action, our living space, as it were, lies within the upper and lower boundaries of the troposphere, itself a stratum or 'sphere' within the overall atmospheric envelope and defined by temperature and water vapour content.
To glean more facts about the structure of the atmosphere, from the Phaidon Concise
Encylopedia of Science and Technology3 we are
provided with the classifications shown in fig. 6.1, which should be viewed in conjunc- tion with fig. 6.2. My own questions and com- ments are printed in bold type.