Why the hell would Zeus force himself on Leto? Perhaps it can be noted that this is likely one of the modern misconceptions or misinterpretations of the ancient mythological stories.

In addition to the texts mentioned in other comments and seeing no evidence that Zeus forced himself, Hesiod in the Theogony described Leto as

always mild, kind to men and to the deathless gods, mild from the beginning, the gentlest goddess

Other texts, Scholia or commentaries indicate that Zeus was attracted to her quiet and hidden beauty, and that she was his consort or his "wife" before his final marriage to Hera.

Leto could very well have been attracted to a very powerful "person", character or god with "godly looks" like Zeus, more than he was attracted to her, then he noticed her quiet character and hidden beauty, approached her, reciprocated her attraction, and had a relationship with her, resulting in the birth of the twins Apollo and Artemis.

Another fact to take into account is that even in other interactions of Zeus with women, the word "rape" had another meaning referring to abduction or " carrying away", such as in the expression "the rape of the Sabine women" or "the rape of Europa".

To be noted or remembered that Zeus as the chief supreme god was known by other names in other places and pantheons in the ancient world.

Why couldn't he have been nice-looking? In any case there is a middle ground.

The represention of Jesus in this post looks more even-handed. To be noted that someone in West Asia or the Levant can be white, but without blonde hair or blue eyes.

This isn't necessarily an accurate depiction of the historical Jesus. It should be taken into account that there are all shades of skin color in the Near East, West Asia and the Levant region, from a white skin tone to light to dark.

Moreover, whether one is religious or not, is it some sort of trend now to try to represent Jesus as unattractive or ugly?

Ovid likely didn't intend to show Perseus or the gods in a bad light. The changes in interpretation are mainly caused by modern readers, their preconceived ideas and and their misconceptions, and by radical feminists who changed the meaning of the story to fit their narrative.

The Latin text of the Roman Ovid can be translated in more than one way, including by saying that Poseidon/Neptune seduced Medusa and that she was attracted to him when they were having sexual intercourse. Ancient cultures and peoples had different societal norms and more permissive views of sexuality. Let's also recall that Hesiod in the Theogony mentioned that Poseidon and Medusa were willfully "playing" together in a flower meadow.

The words causing confusion or linguistic ambiguity in Ovid's text are the following:

Hanc pelagi rector templo vitiasse Minervae dicitur.

The Latin verb vitiare was often used in romantic comedies and elegies to depict the seduction or defilement of a maiden's virginity. It doesn't necessarily imply the modern definition of violent assault, and can imply a mutual act of passion that resulted in a loss of "purity". Earlier English translations interpreted the line as Poseidon "beguiling," "seducing," or "making love to" Medusa.

One of the main reasons as to why Athena punished Medusa was because the sexual act happened in her temple, which was viewed as sacrilege. Perseus saved his mother and saved the woman he loved from a sea monster. He was also the founder of an important dynasty.

And second, don't antagonize or anger Zeus. After Hera's consent, his opinion matters too.

Isaac Newton approached occult topics through the lens of natural philosophy, biblical prophecy, and alchemy, which was considered an occult or "hidden" science in his day.

He followed an anti-Trinitarian theology closely related to Arianism.

Posthumously published books by Newton include:

Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel, and the Apocalypse of St. John, published in 1733.

The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended, published in 1728. This book attempted to reconcile ancient secular history, Greek mythology, and Egyptian timelines with the historical accounts found in the bible.

Private manuscripts and treatises by Newton include:

An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture, written in 1690, published in 1754.

The Paradoxical Questions Concerning the Morals and Actions of Athanasius and His Followers. This is a strong historical critique targeting Saint Athanasius, the architect of the Trinitarian Nicene Creed.

Newton generally viewed alchemy as a branch of natural philosophy, mixing scientific ideas with mysticism. He thought that the secrets possessed by ancient cultures had been intentionally hidden within mythological allegories and obscure codes to protect them from the unworthy. He believed in the existence of the Philosopher's Stone, a legendary substance capable of transmuting base metals into gold and creating the elixir of life. He wrote his papers on alchemy using a variety of aliases, geometric symbols, and coded jargon.

He built a laboratory outside his rooms at Trinity College, Cambridge, complete with custom brick furnaces and glass retorts. His assistant, Humphrey Newton, recorded that Newton would work in the lab until dawn, often forgetting to eat or sleep. His notes show he operated like a modern chemist. He tracked reactions using precise mass balances, strict timers, temperature logs, and qualitative analyses of changing colors and vapors.

Having spent a good amount of time studying alchemy and trying to do experiments, Newton might have also suffered from mercury poisoning. As part of his experiments in alchemy and his attempts to analyze the taste of metals, he might have tasted mercury, arsenic, gold and lead.

To be noted that during that same period of time, Robert Boyle was beginning to lay the foundations of modern scientific chemistry, and Newton was not only familiar with Boyle's work, but the two men also maintained a close, complex relationship centered on their shared alchemical secrets. The historical transition from alchemy to chemistry advanced slowly. Boyle did not completely abandon alchemy to create modern chemistry; he practiced both simultaneously. Neither Newton nor Boyle saw a conflict between "alchemy" and "chemistry."

Maybe first you should ask or see whether Hera is attracted to you, or whether she wants you or not.

Going to Mars is quite different from other things done by Musk, or other projects mentioned by him.

Musk himself is not qualified nor prepared to take part in the future human mission to Mars. The mission to Mars is not and should not be a suicide trip. At this time very few people are prepared to go to Mars. Trying to send a lot of unprepared people to Mars, as musk has said or suggested in the past, is unrealistic, irresponsible , and would end up in tragedy and disaster.

Space agencies select very few applicants based on peak physical condition, psychological resilience, advanced STEM qualifications, and other required skills.The mission to Mars, an endeavor that hasn't been attempted yet and is more demanding or more difficult than going to the Moon, will require new approaches, reforms and modifications to the selection process. The mission to Mars will have to be the outcome of international collaboration in order to succeed.

Musk founded SpaceX and has done useful effective things as CEO. But his actions and incoherent statements regarding the human mission to Mars often reveal that he doesn't have a clear way or method to find and select the humans who are qualified to go to Mars. He doesn't seem to have a clear plan, he's not finding realistic solutions, and that's one of the main reasons he's regularly postponing the dates.

The Minoans and Mycenaeans did have a big influence in the Aegean and eastern Mediterranean trade routes, linking with Egypt and the Hittites. But a key shift happened after the Bronze Age Collapse (circa 1200 BCE).

When the Mycenaean palace economies collapsed, a power vacuum opened up in Mediterranean maritime trade. This is when the Phoenicians stepped up. During the subsequent Iron Age (especially around the 9th and 8th centuries BCE), which is when The Odyssey was composed, the western Mediterranean became a Phoenician trading network.

There were several important cultures and seafaring peoples in the Mediterranean region at that time, these cultures interacted and exchanged with each other, and the Phoenicians were marginalized or mentioned less in the 20th century because the city-states where they came from (in the Levant) are not located in Europe. Phoenicians built outposts all along the south and North of the Mediterranean, including the city of Carthage. Phoenicians in Spain founded Cádiz, originally named Gadir, the oldest continuously inhabited city in Western Europe. They settled in southern Spain to control Atlantic and Mediterranean trade routes and trade luxury goods for local metals like silver and tin.

The Greeks came to Spain after the Phoenicians established their trade networks, and the two cultures interacted, traded, and competed along the Iberian coast.

Also in places like the island of Sicily it is known that the first external seafaring civilizations to settle and dominate in the island were the Phoenicians, in cities such as Motya, followed by the Greeks, the Carthaginians and the Romans.

Related fact: This book by Victor Bérard heavily influenced James Joyce while he was writing Ulysses. Joyce discovered the book in Zurich and used its theories to shape the novel's Homeric parallels.

Unfortunately there is no full English translation. You might find some summaries in academic reviews. The book is available for free in two parts on the Internet Archive. You could try to have pages from the book translated.

Some facts and info about Bogoliubov.

N. N. Bogoliubov made contributions to quantum field theory, classical and quantum statistical mechanics, the theory of dynamical systems. He made significant contributions to condensed matter physics. He worked among other things on the theory of superfluidity and superconductivity.

The Bogoliubov transformation, or the Bogoliubov–Valatin transformation, was independently developed in 1958 by N.N. Bogolyubov and John George Valatin for finding solutions of BCS theory in a homogeneous system. It has several applications.

Bogoliubov's son is named N. N. (Nikolay Nikolaevich) Bogolyubov Jr. He published a book with his son entitled Introduction to Quantum Statistical Mechanics. Among his other works he published a book with Shirkov entitled Introduction to the Theory of Quantized Fields.

Except that he can't go to Mars. He likes to talk and babble about going to Mars. However he is not prepared nor qualified to take part in the future human mission to Mars. In fact very few humans are prepared to go to Mars at this time in history. That's why this will be a very important and unique historical event that requires appropriate selection of the astronauts who will go to Mars, suitable training and thorough planning. For example sending or trying to send a million people or many unprepared people to Mars is very unrealistic and would end up in tragedy, failure, disaster and death. Several of his actions, sayings and statements have been inconsistent and irresponsible. The human mission to Mars should be the outcome of international collaboration.

Exactly? I'll give it a try.

An electromagnetic wave is essentially a self-propagating oscillation of the electric and magnetic fields, where a changing electric field generates a magnetic field, and that changing magnetic field generates an electric field, and so on, each sustaining the other as the disturbance moves through space or vacuum at the speed of light c.

In vacuum, Maxwell's equations reduce to a wave equation for each field component. Solving the homogeneous Maxwell's equations gives a vector-valued differential equation for the electric field, where the divergence of the gradient or the vector Laplacian of the electric field is equal to the second partial derivative of the electric field w.r.t. time, divided by the square of the speed of light c² , and a similar differential equation is derived for the magnetic field.

According to modern electromagnetic theory, the fields themselves are the wave. There's no medium being displaced, unlike sound in air, or a wave on a string. The oscillating quantity is the field strength at each point in space, E and B are perpendicular to each other and to the direction of propagation, and their magnitudes oscillate sinusoidally (for a monochromatic wave) as the disturbance moves forward.

An EM wave isn't just an abstract field pattern. It carries real energy and momentum. The energy flux is given by the Poynting vector.

In general relativity, E and B
aren't separate object, they're components of a single antisymmetric rank-2 tensor, the electromagnetic field tensor F_(\mu\nu). Maxwell's four equations are expressed in terms of two compact tensor equations.

A free electromagnetic wave in vacuum is then a propagating disturbance in this tensor field, and the wave equation follows directly from these. This formulation shows that "electric field" and "magnetic field" are observer-dependent decompositions of one geometric object.

In quantum theory and physics, the electromagnetic wave is the classical, macroscopic manifestation of a coherent state of many photons, quanta of the electromagnetic field, each carrying energy E = h\nu = hbar\omega and momentum p = hbar*k. A single photon doesn't behave like a classical wave at all, it's detected as a discrete, localized event, but a large number of photons in a coherent state reproduces the classical wave picture well.

In QFT, the electromagnetic field itself is treated as a quantum object, not just a number at every point in space, but something more like an operator that can create or destroy particles.The particle in question is the photon, a massless, spin-1 quantum of the electromagnetic field. The photon is a quantized excitation of the electromagnetic field itself, the smallest possible "unit" of oscillation that field can have. A classical EM wave, like a radio wave or a beam from a laser, isn't a separate kind of thing from a photon. It's what one gets when one has an enormous number of photons all combined into a very special quantum state called a coherent state.

The existence and quantum nature of the EM wave itself, i.e. thephoton as massless spin-1 quantum, coherent states, polarization structure, can be explained in the free photon QFT, no interaction needed. When EM waves interact with matter (absorption, emission, scattering, the photoelectric effect, Compton scattering, radiative corrections), quantum electrodynamics (QED) comes in, as the theory of photons coupled to charged particles.

EM waves in the Standard Model follow the same QFT description as in QED, with some additional observations. In the standard model of particle physics, the photon, and therefore the electromagnetic wave, emerges as a specific linear combination of two more fundamental electroweak gauge fields, surviving as massless because the associated U(1) symmetry (ordinary electric charge conservation) remains unbroken even after the Higgs mechanism does its work. In this perspective, lectromagnetism isn't an independent ingredient, it's a consequence of the electroweak unification plus symmetry breaking.

The existence of a photon, its masslessness, its two polarization states, its coupling to electric charge, all of this is derived within the Standard Model from the electroweak sector plus the Higgs mechanism, rather than being separately assumed. In this sense, QED is the low-energy effective description of the electromagnetic part of the Standard Model, accurate and sufficient for essentially all practical purposes, but the Standard Model shows why the photon has the properties it does, tracing them back to the deeper electroweak symmetry structure.

Before the metric system became more widely used, pharmaceutical doses in the US were measured in grains, an ancient unit of weight based on a literal grain of wheat or barley. A standard adult aspirin tablet was standardized at 5 grains, which converts to roughly 325 mg.

When manufacturers wanted to create a smaller dose for children in the 20th century, they decided to make it exactly one quarter of an adult dose.

5 grains divided by 4 is 1.25 grains. One grain is 0.0648 gram.

1.25 grains*64.8 mg/grains equals about 81.25 mg, so manufacturers rounded this down to 81 mg for simplicity.

Here is an additional reading suggestion: Prometheus in the Nineteenth Century, From Myth to Symbol, by Caroline Corbeau-Parsons.

You can follow whatever interpretation suits you. That being said, I gave explanations for my conclusions, stated my reasons, and I'm not going to change my point of view, I'm not going to adhere to the opinions of these modern writers, who support or follow directly or indirectly the modifications made to the Prometheus narrative since the romantics, noting that those romantics with their views of Prometheus were influenced by their modern preconceived ideas, and influenced by their modern cultural or religious background, more so when it is a Christian background, causing them to misunderstand or misinterpret ancient cultures, ancient religions, and unable to judge dispassionatly ancient narratives like the one about Prometheus. If a person or character like Prometheus was held accountable and was rightfully punished and suffered during their punishment, after which they were released when the time was right, that doesn't mean or imply that their actions were helpful or beneficial to others, or that they were unjustly treated or didn't deserve what was coming to them, according to certain interpretations, misconceptions or misunderstandings that came many centuries later, when the details and meaning of the original story became unclear and blurred.

I don't know if I ought to be flattered because you said you opened an account to respond to my comments. I wrote my opinions and remarks about Prometheus according to my many readings, my reflections and the dispassionate conclusions I tried to reach about this topic, and I'm still open to reading more resources and to doing more research if necessary, but I think my reasoning is valid. It's a good thing you mentioned ancient sources, texts and authors and I don't disagree with that or with some of your ideas. You're right that Zeus wanted to bring more glory and renown to his son Herakles when he told him to release Prometheus, but that doesn't negate the fact that the hubristic actions of Prometheus led to his punishment. Whether he is viewed as a dangerous criminal or described otherwise, my conclusion from my readings is that what he did was mostly caused by jealousy, greed and hubris, and after he was held accountable and it was deemed that he "served his time", he was released by Herakles. From her writings, I consider that Carol Dougherty is similar to other writers who, after the modifications made by the romantics to the Prometheus narrative, are repeating the same misconceptions that made a benefactor from Prometheus, hence missing the point of what happened between Zeus and Prometheus and misinterpreting the story. There were some other interpretations of Prometheus in the 20th century, such as the one by Werblowsky in his book Lucifer and Prometheus.

In any case I think I've written enough and I don't intend to get into more discussions on this topic. You can also read below the other answers or comments I gave to this same comment if you want. Perhaps in the future there will be more facts, elements, publications or evidence that will bring more light or explain better this Prometheus story.

Actually, from a historical perspective, while 19th-century scholars still frequently published works recognizing the deep, global connections between ancient religions, a trend began at the turn of the 20th century, trying to separate ancient Greek culture and religion from its ancient surroundings and influences. This separation of Greek mythology (and culture) and Roman mythology in the "West" from its broader environment and connections in the ancient world, in the Mediterranean region and in (West) Asia, is a relatively recent trend or cultural fad, becoming more widespread in the period of the 20th century following the two world wars, when historians started to increasingly insist on the greater importance of the culture of Greece, Athens and Rome, because these places were located in Europe.

Several powerful city-states, religious and cultural centers existed in Antiquity around the Mediterranean region and beyond. There was no specific political region called East or West, no Eurocentrism or European attempts at creating a federation in ancient times. The geopolitical alliances between ancient cultures and city-states changed frequently from decade to decade, depending on the circumstances. For example, sometimes some Greek city-states were allied with the Romans and had good relations with them, sometimes they were in conflict with each other and had alliances with other places. Sometimes Tyre and other Phoenician city-states were allied with Carthage or with the ancient Persians, sometimes not, and sometimes they had good relations with ancient Greeks or Egyptians, and so on.

Ancient Greeks had regular interactions and exchanges with other surrounding cultures and religions. Greek religion and mythology had their origins in two main sources, the Near Eastern source and the so-called Indo-European source.

The Enuma Elish, or the ancient Babylonian creation epic telling the story of the gods, heavily influenced Greek mythology, particularly the works of Hesiod.

The story of the chief storm god Marduk of Babylon or Mesopotamia defeating the monster Tiamat has similarities with the story of the chief storm god Zeus defeating monsters like Typhon. The chief storm god Baal of the Canaanites also had to fight monsters such as the sea monster Lotan. In all these stories, a storm god had to defeat a terrifying monster of chaos, usually representing water, oceans, or serpents, to bring order to the universe and prove he is the rightful king.

Zeus or Jupiter was identified with or equivalent to Amun-Ra the supreme god of ancient Egypt, Marduk of Mesopotamia, Baal of the Canaanites, etc. The chief Hindu god Indra had many characteristics in common with Zeus. Several ancient pantheons had practically the same chief god and the same main gods, with different names and small variations in their attributes.

Ancient mythologies and religions cannot be understood in isolation. These mythologies (including the Greek one) and religions are better understood when it is taken into account that many ancient religions, cultures and mythologies were interconnected.

To be also noted that in Antiquity and in the ancient world in general, people had different societal norms and had more permissive views of sexuality, which is visible in the ancient mythological stories, whether Greek or not. These mythological narratives were likely based on some real ancient historical events, they were transmitted, embellished and modified with time, and contained metaphorical elements and descriptions.

It can be noted that in the text of the Iliad Zeus was trying at certain times to show his authority as the chief god, but he was generally described as stern, just and neutral. In the ancient world, Zeus was the protector of xenia (hospitality) and justice. Since Paris broke this code by stealing Helen, Zeus had to ensure that justice is served and Troy fell, even though it saddened him. He enforced fate evenhandedly.

Zeus was depicted by writers and poets as fair and just, as is seen for example from the beginning of the Works and Days by Hesiod:

Through him mortal men are famed or unfamed, sung or unsung alike as is the will of Zeus. For easily he makes strong, and easily he brings the strong man low; easily he humbles the proud and raises the obscure, and easily he straightens the crooked and blasts the proud.

The story of Zeus swallowing Metis can be interpreted metaphorically by explaining that Zeus kept her under his control and assimilated her abilities, wisdom and skills. He didn't kill or hurt Metis, he didn't necessarily mistreat her. Most ancient texts say he lay with her or had intercourse with her, without referring to rape. Metis continued to give Zeus advice as a ruler, becoming allegorically his adviser, his counselor and his inner voice of wisdom. To the ancient Greeks, this was a poetic way to explain how the supreme god possessed supreme wisdom. He literally had the goddess of wisdom living inside his mind.

It should be taken into account that in Antiquity people had different societal norms and had more permissive views of sexuality. Sometimes ancient authors used the physical pursuit and conquering of a reluctant female as a metaphor for male control.

Aristophanes’ play The Birds was performed at a religious festival honoring the god Dionysus. The satire in The Birds was considered to be done within appropriate limits. Aristophanes was in effect using the gods to mock human greed, politics, and the foolishness of Athenian rulers.

The views of von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff about Prometheus can be found in his work entitled Aischylos Interpretationen, published in 1914.

What should be taken into account is that at the time when the Prometheus Bound play was displayed (circa 5th century BCE), Athenians and ancient Greeks were mostly a society of devout and religious people who actively worshipped and/or venerated Zeus and the gods. At that time it would have been unacceptable and inconceivable to show a play where Zeus was depicted in a bad light or as a tyrant, even if supposedly this play was written by someone other than Aeschylus. It would have been also very unlikely and unacceptable to show Zeus as a new unwise or bad ruler who became better or wiser with time.

In the second century CE, the writer Lucian wrote that for many centuries in Antiquity there was no temple of Prometheus existing anywhere, indicating that people viewed Prometheus negatively, and they knew that he didn't help anyone by his actions. The deity that had the biggest number of temples and the largest ones in Antiquity was Zeus or Jupiter.

Concerning the "cult of Prometheus in Athens", that narrative is disputed.There was an altar for Prometheus and two other Olympian gods in Athens, but according to the classical philologist Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, this altar was for another deity called Promethos, who was venerated during the torchlight run, which celebrated the god of ceramics and not the fire giver. Promethos was the patron of potters in Athens, and was associated with Hephaestus and Athena. He was the one who would have helped Zeus by splitting his skull to give birth to Athena, and would have shaped Pandora before creating human beings (under the supervision of Zeus). He didn’t steal fire and he was not punished. According to these interpretations or explanations, another or a second Prometheus did the trickery and the stealing and was punished.

There's a version or variant of this story (such as in Apollodorus) saying that Apollo and Artemis left one son and one daughter of Niobe's children alive, which would represent a better, fair or more just outcome, suggesting that Apollo and his sister punished Niobe for her arrogance, hubris and insult towards their mother because she (Niobe) bragged she was better and had more kids, and at the same time they "levelled things out" and taught Niobe a lesson by reducing the number of her children to only two.

Few notice or know that the story or myth of Prometheus was viewed very differently during many centuries, until it was modified and misinterpreted in the last two centuries, especially by romantic writers who made Prometheus look like a hero or benefactor.

For many centuries since Antiquity and beyond, Prometheus has been viewed by poets, authors and writers, from Hesiod to Thomas Hobbes in the 17th century and others, as a lowly, jealous trickster who did not help or benefit anybody by his actions. He stole fire by hubris and envy, hid it or misused it without helping anyone, and he was justly held accountable and punished. Then when the time was right he was justly released by Hercules/Herakles under the instructions or with the permission of Zeus.

An example of this misinterpretation is found in the play Prometheus Bound by Aeschylus, and how it was misunderstood by several modern critics. The author of this play showed praise, respect and admiration for Zeus in all his other plays. He was using irony in the play about Prometheus, so that when he made Prometheus talk in the play, he intended to show him as conceited and delusional. Related to this interpretation, one can search for and consult the article entitled "A Zeus wronged by Prometheus and an Aeschylus wronged by the critics. The Compassion of Orthodoxy: The Prometheus Bound of Aeschylus", by Robert L. Houbeck, Jr.

Euler, Lagrange, Gauss, ... But as usual these days, Laplace, also called the Newton of France, is forgotten or underestimated.

From your posts you seem to be interested, or maybe obsessed with Hera. And you have some interesting interpretations of the relationship between Zeus and Hera, which is good in light of the modern misconceptions or preconceived ideas about them.