NARRATOR: The Bible is
one of the most important historical documents
that exists today. Within its pages are a
multitude of ancient facts and scholarly details,
intriguing references to ancient technologies and
phenomena, many of which are dismissed as exaggeration
or believed to be impossible. But think again. [music playing] Re-examination of the text
may unlock the secrets to some of these mysteries. Was the famed Tower
of Babel real? And could the Israelites have
built it taller than anything on Earth today? Could David have killed
Goliath in precisely the way the Bible describes? Did the ancients discover
a miracle technique that created fire from water? And could the Ark
of the Covenant really have flown, using a
super science so mysterious, it is only today
being rediscovered. By recreating
supernatural phenomena, using the latest
technology and by decoding the words of the Bible itself,
the forgotten technologies of the holy land
are re-examined. "Ancient Discoveries" are
investigating the lost science of the Bible. [music playing] For thousands of
years, the miracles described in the
Holy Bible were taken to be genuine in every detail. But in modern times, the
literal accuracy of the text has been questioned. Many believe that the
stories are symbolic. The meanings are
enshrined in truth, but the details are sometimes
exaggerated or embellished. But maybe the words
of the scriptures are more accurate
than some now believe. Our ancestors had a surprisingly
advanced understanding of science and the
world around them. "Ancient Discoveries"
will use this knowledge not to prove or
disprove the text, but to discover whether
the fantastical details of the Bible are
scientifically possible. It's a journey that begins
literally at the height of ancient architecture. It was believed to be the
largest building ever erected, a tower so high, it may
have reached heaven itself. But the people who
built it defied God. God saw what was happening. This was an evil plan. It was not going to benefit
society in the long run. NARRATOR: So according to
scripture, God intervened. RABBI EPHRAIM MIRVIS:
People started to speak different languages. They started to argue
with each other. And the disunity caused them,
eventually, to disperse. And the tower came
crumbling down. NARRATOR: It was called
the Tower of Babel, and some believe
it really existed. [music playing] Today, the world's tallest
building, the Burj Dubai, is over 2,000 feet high. But what if science could
show that the Tower of Babel could have been even taller? The Tower of Babel was just
like one of the skyscrapers that we have today
in our cities. You know, often, the top
of it is covered by cloud. They said it's so
large, it reaches heaven. NARRATOR: Come let us build
ourselves a city with a tower that reaches to the heavens. Modern historians
and archaeologists believe this story to
be an exaggeration. But what if science could
prove that the ancients really did have the technology to
build such huge constructions? The key is to test
ancient materials and architectural techniques
to show their limit. Using information directly from
the pages of the Bible itself, researchers will
use modern science to calculate how high the
ancient engineers really could have built. The story says that when
they came to build the tower, they used brick. NARRATOR: So how tall could
an ancient brick building have been? If one wanted to figure out
how tall a building you could build with a brittle
material like bricks, you can get a rough idea of
this by calculating the weight of one brick, and then figuring
out how many bricks you could pile on before it starts
cracking unacceptably and falls apart so your
foundation starts crumbling. NARRATOR: So the first
step in this investigation is to reproduce
an ancient brick. Linn Hobbs is a professor
of materials science at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology. He is making a sun-baked
brick out of clay, using the same technique
as 3,000 years ago. Straw and sand are added,
which binds the clay together, strengthening the
resulting brick. LINN W. HOBBS: The next
stage is to dry it out. And easiest way to dry it out
is just leave it in the Sun. And then the brick gets hard. NARRATOR: To calculate the
maximum height of a building made up entirely of
these sun-baked bricks, you need to find out the
strength of a single brick. To do this, professor Hobbs
is using an Instron machine. This crushes the brick in a
steel press until it breaks. The maximum load this brick
sustained was 800 pounds. And that's over 2 square inches. NARRATOR: This is the crushing
weight that a single brick can withstand vertically. So that means that
a brick laid down could take 800 times
5 or 4,000 pounds. NARRATOR: Each brick
weighs 1 pound, so they can be piled
4,000 bricks high. So if we have 4,000
bricks, each an inch and a quarter high,
that equals 500 feet. NARRATOR: A 500-foot structure
is as tall as the Washington Monument. But archaeological
evidence suggests that the Tower of Babel
could have been even taller. The story is set in ancient
Mesopotamia, modern-day Iraq and Syria, a land
that still today has ruins of ancient mega
structures called Ziggurats. Ziggurats were the skyscrapers
of ancient Mesopotamia. On their tops,
temples were built, which were believed to be the
dwelling place of the gods. The dozens that
still stand today have been dated
by archaeologists to be from the same era as the
story of the Tower of Babel. They were created
first around 2000 BC. The ziggurats still stand today
because of their very strong pyramidal structure. The ziggurats are part of
a very ancient tradition. And so the people
of ancient Iraq were very experienced in
dealing with the materials for the platform. They understood that
the increasing weight of these platforms needed
spreading of the load. NARRATOR: Buildings
with a wide base, like the Great Pyramids of
Giza, spread the load better than straight towers. This makes them more
stable and, therefore, able to be built taller. A pyramid could be built 3
times higher than the tower. And if we take 500 feet,
and we multiply that by 3, we could actually have a
1,500-foot pyramid built out of sun-baked brick. 1,500 feet is more than
a quarter of a mile. That's pretty amazing
for a bunch of clay that you've dug
out of the ground. NARRATOR: So using sun-baked
bricks in a ziggurat shape, they could have built
1,500 feet high. That's more than the height
of the world's tallest brick building today, the
Chrysler Building. But amazingly,
the Tower of Babel could have been even taller. There was a new and
revolutionary technology so important, it is even
mentioned in the pages of the Bible itself. That treatment of
burning the brick changes its properties
quite drastically. It makes it much, much stronger. NARRATOR: Firing the
brick at 1,500 degrees Fahrenheit for 24 hours, like
the Mesopotamians would have done, causes the clay
particles to stick together. This results in a more
consolidated and stronger material. But just how much stronger
and, therefore, how much higher could the Tower of Babel have
been, using this new technology of fired brick? The sun-baked brick failed
with 800 pounds of weight. The fired brick should
be much stronger. LINN W. HOBBS: We already have
1,000 pounds on the brick, much more than we had
on the sun-dried brick. You can see it's starting to
crack at about 2,000 pounds. Now we're up to 5,000, almost
6,000 pounds for strength. There we go. As you can see, it
almost exploded. NARRATOR: At 6,000
pounds, this means the fired brick
is 7 and 1/2 times stronger than the
sun-baked brick. Professor Hobbs is
using these new results in the same
calculation to find out just how high the ancient
Mesopotamians could have built. That's 2 miles. So in principle,
using fired brick, we could build a pyramid 2 miles
high, well up into the heavens. NARRATOR: Astonishingly, this
is nearly five times higher than the world's
tallest building today. So in theory, it is possible
that the ancient Mesopotamians really could build into
the heavens so high, they would actually have
suffered altitude sickness. But in practice, could they
really have had the resources to do so? LINN W. HOBBS: Even
though, theoretically, we could have a 2
mile high ziggurat, it would have been impractical
because the fired brick consumes so much
energy to produce. We understand the story
of the Tower of Babel to have actually happened. Just look at any
skyscraper in Metropolis, and you'll see great towers
reaching up to the heavens. [music playing] NARRATOR: Can modern
analysis of biblical text also shed new light on one of
the most famous stories ever told, that of the shepherd
boy David, who single-handedly killed the giant Goliath
and revealed the weapon and technique deadly
enough to bring down a giant in a single blow? It is one of the most famous
underdog stories ever told, an attacking force, armed
with technologically superior weapons, is led by a giant
warrior feared by all. He is brought down by just a
stone, hurled by a boy named David. SHALOM PAUL: David not only
defeated Goliath, but defeated the philistines, and, by
defeating the philistines, was actually the motivating
force for the beginning of the history of Israel. NARRATOR: How difficult
would it have been for a boy to strike and kill a giant
with just one accurate blow? The sling is great
ignored and underrated weapon of the ancient world. It's very cheap. It's the weapon of poor people. But it was-- [whizzing and snapping] --incredibly effective. NARRATOR: As two great armies
stood facing each other on the edge of battle, why was a
boy matched up against a giant? It was the 11th century BC,
and the people of Israel were confronted by their
enemies, the Philistines. The Philistines came from
the area of the Aegean Islands, equipped with the
most modern tech biological weapons against
a very small, minor nation. NARRATOR: The Philistines'
champion, Goliath, was covered in an armor of bronze. He had a tremendous amount of
armor which, when we actually weigh by that which is
mentioned in the Bible, it will come close
to 125 pounds. So you see this unbelievably
large, monstrous creature. NARRATOR: When Goliath
offered to settle the battle by a single combat,
David stepped forward. But David was not just any boy. He would become King David. After Jesus, his is the
most complete biography in the Bible. I think that David had a plan
because as he mentions to Saul, I can handle Goliath,
just as I have handled the bears and the wolves
that have attacked my flock. My flock now is
the Israelite army. My weapon is the slingshot. There is the wolf and the bear. NARRATOR: "Ancient Discoveries"
will use modern technology and clues from the Bible itself
to discover David's technique. First, we must find the perfect
sling for one-to-one combat. The most advanced
sling of ancient times was one that was
adapted for extra power. This device I'm holding is
called a staff sling, which is basically a sling which
is attached to a long pole. NARRATOR: This poll gives
the slinger a greater reach and, therefore, greater
power in every throw, which made it a favorite for
heavier projectiles, like primitive bombs
used like mortars on ancient battlefields. But would this have been
the best sling for David to have used against Goliath? [fire crackling] I think the idea that
David could have used a staff sling is fairly unlikely. This isn't a particularly
accurate weapon. The way I like to think of this
is that the highly-trained hand sling throwers were more like
a modern-day sniper, in that there were highly
skilled, highly trained. And they could send a
very small projectile with amazing accuracy. NARRATOR: So David
needed a hand sling. The kind of slings that
are used in the Near East throughout the late bronze age
are made pretty much like this. It's braided out of hemp. This is the sort
of projectile that was used in Judah, in Israel. You're looking for a very
specific size and shape, a nice smooth oval shape. NARRATOR: This improves
the aerodynamic nature of the projectile,
maximizing accuracy. You need a certain
amount of weight to get the projectile to stay in
the pouch of the sling happily. If it's too light,
it will just fall out as you swing the sling back. If it's too heavy, it won't
go as fast when you shoot it. So between those parameters
is the ideal sling stone. NARRATOR: Now we have
a sling and a stone like the one David
himself would have held, we can test this
weapon's capabilities. Luis Pons Livermore is
the slinging champion of the Balearic Islands, home
for millennia to the world's greatest slingers. HARRY SIDEBOTTOM:
The Balearic Islands get this reputation
of being the best slingers in the ancient world. They get an inherited
expertise in using the sling. NARRATOR: Luis has
traveled to the Holy Land to test the destructive power of
a replica iron age woolen sling and stone. He is investigating
the exact technique David himself would have
used to bring down Goliath. LUIS PONS LIVERMORE:
[non-english speech] INTERPRETER: The sling is
like an extension of the arm. It has three sections. One ring is here, and then
there's the middle part where the stone goes. It ends in a knot here. You put your middle
finger in here and you hold it in
a pinch, not a grip. [non-english speech] INTERPRETER: The stone is
put in the top part of it. You simply spin it three
times, stretch your arm, and open your hand. [non-english speech] [snapping] NARRATOR: The snap heard
from a sling is a sonic boom. So much power is released
that the end of the sling actually breaks
the sound barrier. Luis has erected a 9-foot
Goliath target, whose forehead is represented by a load cell,
a device that measures impact. It is only 4.6 square
inches in area, equivalent to the region of
Goliath forehead that was not protected by armor. The device will tell
Luis just how much force would have hit Goliath's skull. So for a missile the size
and shape of a sling bullet, how much force needs to be
exerted in order to kill? If we're talking
about how much force that is necessary
to kill somebody by an impact to the brain,
anything over 3,000 newtons spread over an area of
30 millimeters squared is enough to kill a human being. A shockwave goes
through the brain and causes the brain to strike
the inside of the brain case, irreversibly damaging the
brain tissue to such an extent that it couldn't work again. NARRATOR: 3,000 newtons
or 3 kilonewtons is equivalent to the
force necessary to smash a concrete block in half. Luis readies his
sling for the test. The target is tiny, equivalent
to the only area of Goliath's forehead that was not
protected by armor. [whizzing and clunking] [non-english speech] INTERPRETER: 3.62 kilonewtons. That's sufficient
to eliminate Goliath with a sling and a stone. Goliath is now dead. NARRATOR: But to have
achieved this must have taken extraordinary skill and nerve. Even Luis, the world's foremost
champion slinger today, has found it exceptionally
difficult to obtain power and accuracy at the same time. To be able to take out an
armored man with one sling stone is a lucky or an
incredibly skillful shot, even for a very skilled slinger. He must have been endowed with
some tremendous skill, ability, and capability that came to
fore at the time of a crisis. And the fact that he was able
to face a crisis successfully is one of the basic requirements
for ultimate kingship. NARRATOR: "Ancient Discoveries"
have revealed that it is possible for a mere boy to sling
a stone so accurately that he could kill a distant target. But to do this,
David would have been more skilled than the average
shepherd boy in the arts of a warrior, or very lucky,
or, as the Bible suggests, truly blessed. Throughout the reign of King
David and still to this day, man has attempted
to control fire. Could ancient documents
reveal that the people of biblical times had a
miraculous technique, a way to create fire as
if from nowhere? [fire crackling] most mysterious wondersOne s is the story of an
altar of stone and wood described in 1 Kings. The altar burst into
a fiery inferno. But amazingly, no spark
was used to ignite it. The flame appeared to
spring from nothing. Analysis of accounts by some
of the greatest historians of the ancient world
could shed new light on this biblical puzzle. They describe a mysterious
man-made chemical that would burst into flame
without the need for sparks or embers. It was called automatic fire. Automatic fire, as
it sounds, is fire that seems to spontaneously ignite. I think a lot of this is
mysterious, supernatural, that there are magical
powers at work. NARRATOR: "Ancient Discoveries"
are investigating the secrets of automatic fire. The story begins
nearly 3,000 years ago on Mount Carmel in Israel. According to the
Bible, the Israelites had been rejecting
Jehovah and worshipping Baal, the god of rain. Now there was only one
priest of Jehovah remaining, the prophet Elijah. [music playing] He had to lay
down the gauntlet. And he said, come on,
bring your prophets of Baal and let's see who
the real god is. NARRATOR: So Elijah
set them a challenge. He and the prophets of Baal
would both build altars and call upon their
gods to ignite them. RABBI EPHRAIM MIRVIS: He
told the prophets of Baal, you build your altar. Offer whatever prayers you want. And that's exactly what they
did, without any response. NARRATOR: The prophets
of Baal failed. No fire appeared. Now it was Elijah's turn. He built an altar out of wood. He got the people to dig
a furrow going around to fill it with water. And then he prayed
to God, save us. Answer us our prayers. Fire came out from heaven
and consumed the entire area. Elijah had won them
back to a belief in God. [fire crackling] NARRATOR: Fire on an
altar drenched with water. Is it possible the water
itself somehow actually ignited the blaze? We're used to water
putting out fires. But sometimes, water
can create a fire. NARRATOR: What
substance could they have had in the ancient
world that would display such a supernatural quality? Documents written in Israel
in 232 BC harbor clues about the mystical
substance automatic fire. BETTANY HUGHES: There's this
man called Julius Africanus who lives in Jerusalem. He talks about this
automatic fire. What it probably is is
a mixture of naphtha, and sulfur, and quicklime. Because this was
such a potent thing, the recipes for automatic
fire were always very, very closely guarded. NARRATOR: And the secret
remains hidden again for hundreds of years. Until in the 1st century AD,
the great Roman historians Pliny and Livy both write accounts of
this magical mixture igniting with water. Using these accounts and
the chemicals they describe, "Ancient Discoveries" will
attempt to relearn the secrets of automatic fire. Tim Gallagher is the
head of chemistry at Bristol University, England. He has been
conducting experiments using only substances
available in Elijah's time. We have three
components, calcium oxide, quicklime; sulfur; and naphtha. These are the three
components that are mentioned in the ancient texts. NARRATOR: Sulfur and naphtha
both occur naturally, and quicklime comes
from burning limestone. We're going to try
and create a fire by combining these
components and adding water. The easiest way to
start a fire with water is to have a reaction that
generates a lot of heat. And in principle, that heat
could then ignite something close by that's also flammable. NARRATOR: Fires start when a
flammable fuel is subjected to heat. When you mix water
with quicklime, you generate a lot of heat. The reaction of water with
quicklime is highly exothermic. NARRATOR: An exothermic reaction
is one that releases heat into the atmosphere. This happens because
chemical bonds are being formed between
the water, and the calcium, and the quicklime. [sizzling] And what I'm going to do now
is cook an egg with the heat generated by the quicklime. Over 500 degrees Fahrenheit now. I didn't think we would generate
such a large amount of heat so quickly. If you can harness that heat
in the presence of something that will ignite,
then you have a way of generating fire with water. But what we don't
have in here is anything that will catch fire. NARRATOR: So Tim is going to
redo this test in the presence of the two fuels, naphtha
and sulfur, in the hope that these will ignite
from the heat generated. But this experiment will
be on a much larger scale. Tim has built a replica
of Elijah's altar. So the altar is comprised
of 12 large stones, which represented the 12
tribes of Israel. We've added all the quicklime
into our little trench. Here we have pieces
of rock sulfur. And then the last
thing that we'll do, which is the last
thing that Elijah did-- Elijah poured 12 barrels
of water onto his altar. We think that some of
that water was naphtha. Naphtha looks just like
water, pours just like water. And then we're going to try
and ignite that with the heat we generate by adding
water to quicklime. NARRATOR: The
quicklime and water need to raise the ambient
temperature past 449 degrees Fahrenheit in order
to ignite the sulfur. Once the sulfur is alight,
the naphtha and the altar should burst into flame. In Tim's earlier
laboratory test, the quicklime reaction reached
527 degrees Fahrenheit. So in theory, this
experiment should succeed. But in practice, it hasn't been
tried for thousands of years. It's catching, so it's
igniting the naphtha. That will spread the fire,
and you can see it now spreading through. And everything's coming from
a quicklime end of the altar. So you can see now, the fire is
really beginning to build up. It doesn't prove that this is
how Elijah created the fire. What it says is this is a
possible way that you could have created the fire. The ancients knew
about quicklime. They knew about the reaction
between quicklime and water. They had naphtha
available to them. So certainly, this remains
a possibility as a way that one could utilize
that chemistry knowledge to create a fire using water. NARRATOR: People,
thousands of years ago, had an advanced understanding of
substances and their reactions. But how they use this knowledge
and how much secret wisdom remains lost to science
will never be known. Another closely-guarded
secret at the time was that of one of the earliest
biological weapons, a honey that was toxic and was used
by ancient armies to poison the enemy. [coughing] strike fear into most of us. Even today, bees kill up
to 100 people every year. And in biblical times,
military leaders used this fear to terrify enemy armies. In the Bible, if you take
all the references to bees, you will notice
that some of them present bees as being a danger,
as being even a lethal weapon in war. People develop all
kinds of ways to use bees. They pack them into
little clay pots, which are almost
like hand grenades. They attach whole hives to
catapults and shoot them into cities. NARRATOR: But in
an ancient account by Greek historian Strabo lies
evidence that this weapon was taken one step further. In 67 BC, something happened
in the north of Turkey that is still not fully
understood by historians. One of the strangest
examples of biowarfare was used against the Roman Army. It involved a honey trap
of an ingenious nature. BETTANY HUGHES:
There's hugely varied, different forms of
power struggles going on throughout Roman history
and lots of kings who are very unhappy with
their lot and try to repel. NARRATOR: One of
these rebellions was led by King Mithridates. He was one of Rome's
most successful enemies. He really gives the
Romans quite some trouble. NARRATOR: The Roman
General Pompey the Great was charged
with leading a large army against King Mithridates. After a year of
battle, the two forces reached the shores of the
Black Sea in northern Turkey. The Romans had the upper hand,
and Mithridates is retreating. What he does very
cleverly, though, is he leaves in his path
these pots of honey. The Romans advance. They come across what they
think of as delightful little tributes from a fading
enemy, eat the honey. But it turns out to
be viciously toxic. [buzzing] NARRATOR: Could
this honey really have been a ready-made
biological weapon? The soldiers go
slightly crazy. It's as if they're high,
drunk, then very agitated. And then a lot of them
throw up and have diarrhea. And then they get very, very
high again and kind of rush around. And this lasts for
about three days. NARRATOR: Amazingly enough,
the Bible itself might warn of this terrible bioweapon. How can a honey become toxic? The answer lies in the
rhododendron bushes that cover the hillsides
of northern Turkey. There are many examples
in nature of toxins, and the rhododendron plant
itself is capable of producing natural toxins. NARRATOR: These toxins
are called terpenoids and are found in the nectar
collected by the bees. These terpenoids can become
incorporated into the honey from the nector the bees a
gathering from the rhododendron plant. NARRATOR: For a window into how
honey intoxication by terpenoid affects the body,
"Ancient Discoveries" have brought in a human Guinea
pig, former military officer David Shaw. He will be administered
15 fluid ounces of the terpenoid solution
under medical supervision. I'm pretty anxious, really. It's kind of a step into
the unknown with this test. The side effects listed range
from just mild dizziness and perspiration to
vomiting and coma. NARRATOR: David will be
overseen by Dr. Adam Cunliffe here at the Human
Performance Laboratory at the University of
Westminster in central London. He will be put
through a test that will push his cardiovascular
system and coordination to the limit. But he will carry out this test
twice, once before and once after taking the terpenoid. Dave is running at 10 miles
per hour for 10 minutes. The test will measure his heart
rate and oxygen consumption at low levels of activity. ADAM CUNLIFFE: Your heart
rate here was 164 on average throughout that
test, and we can also see your oxygen consumption. And that turned out to be
about 3.8 liters per minute. And it is the oxygen which
is required by the exercising muscle, so the higher
you're working, the more oxygen you're
going to be consuming. NARRATOR: Dave is in
peak physical fitness, just as the Roman
soldiers would have been. His test results
are above average. But what effect will the
terpenoid have on his body? Terpenoid is highly
toxic, and Dave is only able to do this under
strict medical supervision. Do not try this at home. ADAM CUNLIFFE: Really, we want
to see if his performance is affected. Dave's looking a little bit
unsteady on the treadmill. He's finding it
difficult to keep in the center of the track. His heart rate's about 10
beats higher per minute than it was in the
previous experiment. And his respiratory exchange
is quite a bit higher than it was on the previous test. His performance on the
treadmill was significantly affected in a negative way. When we looked at his
physiological data, we saw that he
was working harder running at the same speed. Any form of coordinated movement
as a battle would certainly involve would be
seriously affected. I had no control over
my cardiovascular system. And obviously, the results show
that I was greatly diminished. ADAM CUNLIFFE; In
essence, we could see it as an early application
of a kind of chemical or biological
approach to warfare in getting the opposing
forces to actually ingest this toxic substance. We could see it almost as a
form of culinary Trojan horse. NARRATOR: So the results suggest
that toxic honey would work by confusing coordination
and accelerating fatigue. The three squadrons
of Pompey's army that found and eight the honey
on that fateful day in 67 BC became violently ill. That night, the sick
Romans, still suffering from the effects of the
toxin, were annihilated by King Mithridate's army. [shouting and swords clanging] War drove technology to
develop in biblical times. But in making weapons,
did the Israelites also discover a super science
that would allow objects to levitate? The Ark of the Covenant,
containing the Ten commandments of God, was said to
have been able to fly. Can modern research now show
that this really was possible? Yes. Well, now the Ark is really
levitating, hovering freely in the air. The most powerful religious
object in the ancient world was the Ark of the Covenant. We call it the
mysterium et tremendum. It is this tremendous
mystery of divine power, all concentrated within a
small architectural device. NARRATOR: It was said
to be able to levitate, to bare its own
weight in thin air. It was there moving
by itself, supporting those who were carrying it. NARRATOR: Could this phenomena
have been divine power? Or is there another explanation? Could the levitation have been
achieved by lost technologies, technologies that only today
are being rediscovered? Believers believe that
God can do anything, and especially when it
comes to the holy Ark which houses the Ten Commandments,
given by God to Moses on Mount Sinai. NARRATOR: The Ark is mentioned
in numerous books of the Bible, the Quran, and the Hebrew Torah. But the most mysterious
story is that of Uzza. We know from the
first book of Samuel how, in the days of King David,
the time had come for the Ark to come back home to Jerusalem. Oxen were pulling a wagon on
which the Ark was resting. Uzza noticed that the oxen
started to fall to the ground. He feared instinctively
that the Ark could fall, and so he put out his
hand to steady the Ark. And as soon as he did
that, he dropped down dead. Why? Actually, the Ark didn't need an
Uzza or anybody else to steady it. God was powering
that Ark forward. Yes, it was levitating
through the air with that power coming from God. NARRATOR: But can science
offer an alternative theory? Modern scientists have
uncovered a set of substances with mystical properties. They're called superconductors
and could explain the miracle of levitation. Superconductivity is one of
the great frontiers in physics. NARRATOR: Superconductor
expert Professor Tom Johansen at the University
of Oslo, Norway, is investigating the
phenomenon of levitation by superconductor. TOM JOHANSEN: I
have a magnet here. And if this is in the
vicinity of the superconductor when I cool the superconductor,
what is going to happen is that the
superconductor recognizes that there is a magnetic
field surrounding it. And it's going to react on that. NARRATOR: These unique
properties of a superconductor create an effect called
stable levitation. But they only work under
very specific conditions. There are many materials which
are superconducting by itself, for instance, aluminum, lead. Many elements are
superconducting. NARRATOR: So the materials used
to make superconductors were common in the ancient world. But you have to cool
them far down in order to get those properties. NARRATOR: Substances
will only superconductor past a critical temperature. To raise this
critical temperature, metals are combined into alloys. I have here a piece of
yttrium barium copper oxide, and this material has to be
cooled below 91 Kelvin in order to get into the
superconducting state. But this you can achieve
very simply by pouring in liquid nitrogen. NARRATOR: 91 Kelvin is
equivalent to minus 296 degrees Fahrenheit. I can take the magnet
and bring it closer. But if I now put
my hand back, it will stay in the air,
magnetic levitation by superconductivity. NARRATOR: But how can the magnet
oppose the force of gravity? James Dean, a
specialist in creating three-dimensional schematics,
is using technology specifically designed for "Ancient
Discoveries" to investigate. When a superconductor
is cooled below its critical point,
the way in which electricity flows within it changes. If we take the superconductor,
and we place it in the presence of a magnetic field, we can
see that the field lines of the magnet are inducing
a flow of electric charge within the superconductor. NARRATOR: These currents
form tornadoes of charge called vortices, with the
magnetic field passing through their core. If we zoom in and
take a closer look, you can see that the
vortices of currents that the magnetic
field has induced are passing through any little
tiny defects they can find in the superconductor. NARRATOR: These defects pin
the vortices and, therefore, the magnetic field in place. If we move the magnet, we're
moving the magnetic field with it, which means that the
vortices are being dragged away from their pin locations. So they're resisting
this movement. And if we push and pull
it, we can see that it's trying to pop back into place. In fact, we'll find
that any force which tries to move the magnet
and, thus, the magnetic field will be met by an opposing
force, which tries to return it to the same location. NARRATOR: And this is the
key to stable levitation. The pinning of
the magnetic field opposes the very force
of gravity itself. So the magnet
is locked in place because its magnetic
field is locked in place. And it levitates above
the superconductor. NARRATOR: If the
superconductor is moved, the levitating magnet
will follow it, flying at the same
height along a plane. So the magnet not
only levitates, it can also be moved
stably through the air. But could the ancient Israelites
have mastered such a science more than 3,000 years ago? Quite often, when we
look at ancient technology, we're amazed at the
craftsmanship and the skill that goes into the
production of objects. NARRATOR: This was an age
of highly sophisticated metallurgy. War across the
ancient Middle East was fueling the
fires of advancement. Smelting processes were being
improved to produce better alloys for weapons. While making these alloys,
could the ancient Israelites have discovered
this super science? If this were the case, it
would not be the first lost technology puzzling historians. Quite recently, we were
looking at Bronze Age spear heads. And they're amazingly
fine castings, and we were trying to
find a modern foundry that could replicate these. They all had great problems
in achieving anything near the quality that the
ancient metal workers could do. NARRATOR: Was the Ark of
the Covenant also levitated by a lost technology? "Ancient Discoveries"
will put this to the test. Tom has built a model of the Ark
and will push stable levitation to its limits. To levitate this Ark
is quite a challenge because it is a large
object, and it's heavy. And that I've never done before. At the bottom plates, I have
attached four very strong magnets, which are
going to interact with the superconductors
that we are seeing here. And I have put the spacer
in between so I have a gap between the arches
and the superconductor when I will cool them down. [music playing] [hissing] NARRATOR: Tom pours
in liquid nitrogen to cool the superconductor to
minus 320 degrees Fahrenheit. [hissing] For the experiment
to be successful, the four supporting blocks
must be removed one by one, until the Ark's weight
is supported only by the superconductors. Yes. Well, now the Ark is really
levitating about 50 millimeters above the superconductor,
hovering freely in the air. If I touch it then try
to push it to the side, it will oscillate by
2 or 3 millimeters. If I really press
my hand, it's-- I'm now pushing
with a big force, and it's almost not
moving down there. It could take much more weight. NARRATOR: So superconductors
can cause levitation. But could ancient man
really have discovered this super science
3,000 years ago? The physics of magnetic
levitation with superconductors is, of course, part
of the laws of nature. And this has been
like this forever. The discovery of
superconductivity was totally accidental. It happens by
accident, even today. NARRATOR: But there
remains a mystery. How could ancient
scientists have chilled the superconductors to
temperatures hundreds of degrees below zero? It is possible they
didn't need to. They could have discovered
materials that superconduct at room temperature. There is no fundamental
physical principle which prevents room
temperature superconductivity. It could be that people have
not found this material, but we cannot say today
that it's impossible. God works in different ways. And sometimes, you can have an
extraordinary feat from heaven. Sometimes, you have
something which is within the laws of
nature, which takes place. Both come from God. The fact that the Ark
could move by itself is a testament to
the greatness of God. It is not magic, but it's
very fascinating physics. Modern science often helps to
substantiate details and facts that are in the Bible. There are details within
modern science, which are incompatible with the
biblical account of events. But often, actually,
modern science can be an aid to
strengthen our faith and to substantiate
what's in the Bible. NARRATOR: The
mysteries of the Bible have intrigued scientists
and historians for millennia. But the book also
gives us clues, clues to the ancient
civilizations, cultures and technologies
of biblical times. Modern scholars have
used this evidence to advance our
knowledge of history to show that ancient men had
mastered chemistry, metallurgy, and even biological weaponry,
and had the technology to build into the heavens. Today, the modern
world uses technology to bring an ancient
world to life and reveals the lost
science of the Bible.
awesome