[net.misc] Strange Practices at Harvard

bruce@garfield.UUCP (Bruce Keats) (07/30/85)

In article <290@mit-athena.UUCP> martillo@mit-athena.UUCP (Joaquim Martillo) writes:
>
>I  heard a good rumor recently.  In the past few years, a circular array
>of stones was placed in front of the Harvard University Science  Center.
>These stones are affectionately called Bok's Rocks.
>
>Anyway at various times during the day sprinklers within the array spray
>water over the stones.
>
>The reason for this array of  stones  with  sprinklers  is  obscure  and
>mysterious.   I  have  recently heard suggested that the array of stones
>forms some  sort  of  primitive  altar  for  strange  sacrificial  rites
>(probably  of animals given the size of the stones).  The sprinklers are
>there to wash the blood from the altar.

	One possible explaination is that the people at Harvard are trying
to create another Stonehenge.  The stones are actually Megalithe seeds 
(available from ACME Megalithe Co. at a nominal cost) and sprinklers are to
make the them grow.

--------
	Bruce Keats, Memorial Univ. of Nfld., St. John's, Nfld.
UUCP:	{philabs,utcsrgv,masscomp,mcvax,siesmo,astorvax}!garfield!bruce
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bhs@siemens.UUCP (07/31/85)

peoplethinkthatthislineiseatenbutitisnot,isit?youcanseeitafterall,canyounot?

Well, actually, please do not forget that MIT is just down the road.
Of course, there will be intense rivalry with MIT, and it is only
understandable that Harvard will fear some form of evesdropping. MIT being very
clever, Harvard has not actually been able to identify any instance of this,
but can merely suspect. 
Harvard could set up actual electronic radio frequency jammers to preclude
remote sensing of Harvard test equipment, but since there has been no known
case of bugging, it would not be the correct academic style. Thus, a
distinguished Harvard professor, whose name momentarily escapes me, came up
with an alternative, legal, solution.
If one can set up an electromagnetic field of suitable shape, one can easily
divert radio frequency waves. The shape can be achieved with the circular
arrangement of the stones. When they are wetted with the sprinklers, the minor
washing off of the mineral surface will generate a dielectric effect, which in
turn will create the magnetic field required.


Bernard H. Schwab
Siemens RTL, Princeton, NJ

tomczak@h-sc1.UUCP (bill tomczak) (08/01/85)

martillo@mit-athena.UUCP (Joaquim Martillo):
>>
>>I  heard a good rumor recently.  In the past few years, a circular array
>>of stones was placed in front of the Harvard University Science  Center.
>>These stones are affectionately called Bok's Rocks.

bruce@garfield.UUCP (Bruce Keats):
>	One possible explaination is that the people at Harvard are trying
>to create another Stonehenge.  The stones are actually Megalithe seeds 
>(available from ACME Megalithe Co. at a nominal cost) and sprinklers are to
>make the them grow.


I actually like the truth all by itself.  The (rich, eccentric?) couple
that funded the building of that fountain apparantly donate money to
universities all over the country to build fountains.  When the woman was
asked what she thought of the Science Center's new fountain after it was
done she said (paraphrased) "Oh this is so lovely, this one actually works!"


Bill Tomczak (Harvard University Science Center)

jhs@druri.UUCP (ShoreJ) (08/02/85)

Re "Bok's Rocks" at Harvard:

Although I rather liked Bruce Keats' "seed" theory, the truth is:

Yale anthropologists and socioligists want to study Harvard
hominids' reactions to the 2001 effect. A Stonehenge patten
was chosen because budget cutbacks precluded manufacturing
another perfect, immutable monolith.

Ethereal voices have been heard in the area, but no burst of 
enlightment has been recorded to date.

--Jeff Shore @ AT&T, Denver
  ..!druri!jhs

"Ackpht!"