The Ports and Portals of the Zelaznids
Page 12
[111] Catherine de Medicis (1519-1589), wife of King Henry II (r.1547-1559); Nostradamus supposedly predicted the king’s death.
[112] According to our research, Ikraam Huda did not have any children at the time of his death. He might, therefore, have been referring to his intellectual progeny.
[113] The “wise and cruel founder of Cordoba” is likely Abd-ar-Rahman, the Umayyad leader who fled Damascus to found a new dynasty in Spain (c.750 CE).
[114] According to Portuguese documents, an unnamed adventurer claimed to have found a city in an unexplored region of Brazil in 1753. British explorer Percy Harrison Fawcett later asserted that he, too, had found evidence of the city, which he dubbed ‘Z’. Fawcett left the British army in 1909 and spent the rest of his life searching for ‘Z’ before finally disappearing in the jungle in 1925. While it is a provocative coincidence, there is no reason to believe that Fawcett’s decision to call the city ‘Z’ was in any way related to the Zelaznids. However, it is interesting to note that the natives of the Amazon still claim that Fawcett did not die, but rather traveled through a door in the mountains to another world. See David Grann, The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon (Doubleday, 2009).
[115] Although George Stephenson did not inaugurate full rail service for goods and passengers until 1825, steam locomotives had existed at least as early as 1804, when Richard Trevithick used his machine over a nine-mile stretch of the Abercynnon in Wales.
[116] In 1653, a Frenchman named de Son designed the 72-foot long “Rotterdam Boat”, the first combat submarine. With too little horsepower to sustain forward motion, the Rotterdam was successfully used in combat.
[117] In 1797, Robert Fulton offered to build a submarine for the French to use against the British. The first prototype, called the Nautilus, took to the seas in 1800 or 1801 but proved ineffective against the faster English ships. Fulton was rumored to have constructed an improved version, though the inventor denied this.
[118] This is the only internal reference to the existence of the second (lost) Zelaznid volume.
[119] The use of ‘we’ in the final chapters suggests the input of someone other than Huda, as earlier chapters do not use this pronoun with such frequency.
[120] It is unclear what writings these could be. We have found no published works attributed to Abdul Hazred.
[121] It is unclear what city serves as the subject of this editorial or what personal troubles were at issue.
[122] Muhammad ibn Musa Khwarizmi (fl.820), the inventor of algebra.
[123] According to Professor J.R. Ring, the formulae in this chapter mirror twentieth-century wormhole theories. This particular formula seems to refer to a positive curvature in a curved universe. See C.W. Misner, K.S. Thorne and J.A. Wheeler, Gravitation, 2nd ed. (W.H. Freeman, 1973).
[124] There is no evidence that Khwarizmi expressed mathematical theories this advanced.
[125] This formula refers to the concept of embedding a Euclidean surface so that the embedded surface is effectively a three-dimensional sphere within four-dimensional Euclidean space.
[126] Theoretically, an un-curved (flat) universe might produce an infinite embedded hypersurface.
[127] Dr. Ring proposes that this ‘darkness’ refers to a non-Euclidean universe with negative curvature.
[128] According to Dr. Ring, the Zelaznu method of portal creation, as described here, has parallels with another wormhole theory. In Schwartzchild geometry (for universes of positive or negative curvature) different parts of a universe might be bridged by a wormhole. The formula for this theory is: r = (c^2/G).2.M +Z^2/(8.M.(c^2/G)); wherein ‘M’ represents the mass-energy of the object creating the wormhole. This object must be comprised of phenomenal energy (i.e. a black hole). It is, therefore, impossible that an individual could create a wormhole through the force of will, even if we accept the possibility of telekinesis.
[129] This presumption that Hooshyar gave his life to save the Zelaznids contrasts sharply with Huda’s earlier expressions of hope that the leader might have survived the explosion that buried the portal at Quiqanyu. As such, it is another strong indication that this chapter was penned by someone other than Huda.
[130] At the end of his life, Nostradamus was plagued by gout and edema (dropsy).
[131] A possible reference to the death of Ikraam Huda.