Strange but true: Could nature, wind part Red Sea?
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Published: November 3, 2009
BY BILL SONES AND RICH SONES, PH.D.
Q.
Could the Red Sea have parted its waters as described in the Bible, allowing the Israelites to pass across the previously flooded area?
A. For a fascinating natural explanation of the Biblical event, geophysicists Doran Nof and
Nathan Paldor argue that a storm of even moderate strength, with winds of at least 40 mph, could move the waters of the Red Sea separating
Egypt and the Sinai in such a way that the sea level would drop by as much as 8 feet, says
Randy Cerveny in "Weather’s Greatest Mysteries Solved!” Such a large drop is possible because the
Gulf of Suez is a long, narrow and relatively shallow body of water. Add to this "wind setdown” theory the possibility of a rare tidal situation. According to the
Defense Mapping Agency of the U.S., normal tides in the Gulf of Suez average about 40 centimeters (16 inches) but with strong winds can go to 8 or 9 feet in the Bay of
Suez. "Aha!” exclaims Cerveny: "That would suggest a combination of both wind and tides might produce major sea level changes for parts of the region.”
Nof and Paldor give probabilities for a 10- to 14- hour sustained wind of 40 mph as once every 1,000 to 3,000 years, and for sea-level-reducing tides of 10 to 18 feet as once every 75 years. "The combined probability of an extreme tide and sustained wind event is once every 150,000 years, making such a combination of sufficient rarity, I believe, to almost warrant the term ‘miraculous,’” they say.
Q. What is psychology’s contribution to the intriguing list of "Magic Sevens”? Clue: Do you have trouble recalling 10-digit phone numbers?
A. Researcher
George Miller enshrined our recall capacity as "the Magical Number Seven, plus or minus two,” says
David G. Myers in "Psychology in Everyday Life.” Typically, we can store only about seven discrete items of information (give or take two) in short-term memory. "Not surprisingly, when some phone companies began requiring callers to dial a three-digit area code in addition to a seven-digit number, people had trouble retaining the just-looked-up number.” The original "magic sevens” included the seven wonders of the world, the seven seas, the seven deadly sins, the seven primary colors, the seven musical scale notes and the seven days of the week.
Q. What does paleopathologist Frank Ruhli do that doubtless you don’t, unless you’re fascinated with dead people or their remains?
A. Despite of his training as a pathologist, he followed his childhood infatuation with Egyptian culture to write his M.D. thesis on mummies, says
Amy Barth in "Discover” magazine. Invited to
Cairo to analyze CT scans of
King Tut, he says he could hardly sleep at night anticipating possibly finding out if the king had been murdered, and thus helping rewrite history. Ruhli directs the Swiss Mummy Project at the
University of Zurich, using his skills in advanced imaging to perform autopsies on the long-dead and to investigate the death of famous mummies from Egyptian pharaohs.
"Being alone in a room with a naked, unwrapped mummy is a touching experience,” he says. He doesn’t like the mummies to be pictured in magazines since there’s no way someone who died 3,000 years ago can give informed consent. "I treat the mummy like a patient, as if some sort of human spirit remains.”
Send questions to brothers Bill and Rich at
strangetrue@cs.com.
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