Hawkins's computer was too literal. But his instinct — that Stonehenge handled information — survives every test the sixty years since have thrown at it. An investigation through stone provenance, isotopes, ancient DNA and landscape archaeology, ending with a named, testable hypothesis: the Gathering Engine.
Cities ran sewers and traffic computers long before anyone sold them the word. Around 2008 “smart” acquired an owner. Four product cities show what it cost.
The ancient concept of celestial harmony has found unexpected resonance in modern quantum physics, creating a remarkable intellectual bridge spanning over two millennia of...
Audio discussion about this essay.
I. Introduction: The Grinder of Glass and Gods
In the damp, salt-laden air of the seventeenth-century Dutch Republic, a revolution was...