Naked Science Forum
On the Lighter Side => That CAN'T be true! => Topic started by: Helen on 02/11/2011 13:01:03
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Helen asked the Naked Scientists:
What is going to happen on 21st december 2012? One natural world disaster all sources appear to agree on from the Mayan, the pyramids, scientist, christians, astronomers, spiritulists, Nostradamus, list goes on and on, that there is a life threaten, world changing shift coming, soon! i would be interested to know the naked scientists views?
What do you think?
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Scientists and astronomers?????
I think you mean scientologists and astrologers.
Of course there is always a chance of an asteroid or comet strike or even a deadly plume from the sun. Maybe an extraterrestrial virus or bacterium even, who knows what the future holds......
certainly not the Mayans, the pyramids or Nostradamus, spiritualists, scientologists, Christians (or any other religious order).
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I suppose if enough
idiots people predict the end of the World often enough, sooner or later, one of them will get it right. Then they'll be able to say "See! I told you so!" (Oh, wait, that might be a bit difficult.)
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Scientists and astronomers?????
I think you mean scientologists and astrologers.
Of course there is always a chance of an asteroid or comet strike or even a deadly plume from the sun. Maybe an extraterrestrial virus or bacterium even, who knows what the future holds......
certainly not the Mayans, the pyramids or Nostradamus, spiritualists, scientologists, Christians (or any other religious order).
we all look forward to your post here (http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=40843.0) on that day !
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"What is going to happen on 21st december 2012?"
I can't be certain, but my best guess is that my niece will shake off the hangover she got by celebrating her birthday.
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On December 21st 2012 the Sun will be closer to the Earth than at any time in the previous 364 days.
It will be shining fiercely directly above the Tropic of Capricorn. Those are all the scientific portents that I am aware of for that particular date.
There is one other though, that applies more generally to the 2012-13 period: The atmospheric content of carbon dioxide will be higher than at any time in at least the previous half million years. That almost certainly heralds a life threatening, world changing shift. It will likely be a gradual one, stretching over several decades.
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On December 25, 2011,
Santa Clause will realize that 7,000,000,001 people on the planet is just one too many people for him to visit in one day.
On December 26, 2011, Santa Clause will officially retire.
On December 21, 2012, Santa Clause will depart from the North Pole for his first vacation in the Bahamas!!!
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I want to think that even the modern descendents of the ancient Mayans believe that their calender was never meant to end in 2012. It just starts over.
I doubt anything spectacular will happen on that date, unless it takes the form of a self-fulfilling prophecy (maybe some people will commit suicide or raid stores or something out of fear of the date, for example).
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I am not sure but let me guess.Our earth is very old it's around 4.5 or 5 billion years old and it's core is also very old.Our core was burning from very long time and we know if we, burn something, gas will come out,right, and i have also heard that earth is changing it's shape little little because gas is trying to come out and on 21st December 2012 sun is gonna throw some radiation which wouldn't harm the crust of earth but there will be reaction with core's atom and obviously gas exerts pressure
so core's gas and volcano will make path which will cause earthquake,tsunami and volcanic eruption.... i am not sure i guess it's right....Please correct me if i am wrong.
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You're wrong.
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The special effects are quite impressive ...
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So Geezer do correct me instead of saying i am wrong.
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... Our core was burning from very long time and we know if we, burn something, gas will come out,right ....Please correct me if i am wrong.
Radioactive decay heats Earth's core (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth#Heat) : not "burning" (combustion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combustion)).
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........... modern descendents of the ancient Mayans .........
Are there any? I think the ancient Mayans were so good at foretelling the future, they couldn't foresee their own demise.
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So Geezer do correct me instead of saying i am wrong.
Your whole post was utter nonsense. I suggest you pay no further attention to the prophets of doom. Just look back at how many times they have predicted the end of the world, but so far as I can make out, its still here. Anyone can come up with this sort of pseudo scientific nonsense.
I wonder how they feel and explain away their prophecies the day after the predicted end of the world as they sit at the breakfast table which shouldn't be there any more.
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Helium (4He) is a gaseous radioactive decay product, so in part, Dharmansh is not so far off.
This is the reason why 4He is mined with oil and natural gas, and also why 4He is much more prevalent on Earth than 3He.
CO2 is also associated with volcanic eruptions.
Anyway, I don't foresee a cataclysmic out-gassing.
There was a recent National Geographic Special about he Nemesis Theory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nemesis_%28hypothetical_star%29). Very interesting, however, the predictions of imminent doom are about ten million years too early!!!
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Wasn't the Mayan calendar based on some kind of rare alignment of sun, moon, mars and venus or something, which would reoccur on 21st DEC 2012?
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The "Mayan Calendar" thing is the equivalent of a 52 century old Y2K bug.
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Bored chemist is right on the money here.
The wikipedia article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_calendar (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_calendar) provides a lot of useful information about the Maya calendar.
To very briefly summarize: there were several calendars in use for different purposes. The ones relevant to this issue are
(1) A ritual calendar of 260 days that marked the timing of religious events
(2) A seasonal solar calendar with 18 "months" of 20 days, plus 5 or 6 "nameless days" to keep seasons and astronomical/astrological observations in line.
(3) A calendar with 18 months of 20 days as above, but without the odd days, for chronicles or records involving long periods of time -- years or more.
A "creation date" around 3100 BC.
Because the Mayan counting system was based around the number 20, a cycle on the calendar consists of 20 x 20 = 400 years of 360 days, or about 395 years.
So on the "Mayan calendar" referred to, December 12 2012 marks the end of a cycle.
But why is this cycle special? The end of a cycle happens every 395 years, and so far it has not seemed to mean any great calamity. But the important thing about this cycle (I think -- no authority backing me up here) is that it is the 13th cycle, and a little arithmetic will show that at the end of the 13th cycle we will also reach the end of a ritual year. So for the first time the ritual year of 260 days and the "calendar cycle" of 400 x 360 days will both finish on the same day, and realign exactly as they were at the "creation date" when the calendars started.
It is exactly like Y2K. The date does not even mark any astronomical (or astrological) event in particular, because neither the 260 day year nor the 360 day year is accurately synchronised with any motion in the solar system.
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Because the Mayan counting system was based around the number 20, a cycle on the calendar consists of 20 x 20 = 400 years of 360 days, or about 395 years.
So on the "Mayan calendar" referred to, December 12 2012 marks the end of a cycle.
But why is this cycle special? The end of a cycle happens every 395 years, and so far it has not seemed to mean any great calamity.
Well...
Let's think about what happened about 395 to 400 years ago.
At that time the Spaniards were mopping up the last bits of the Mayan Civilization!!!! So, truly that is the end of the cycle that everyone should have been interested in.
The big difference with this cycle is that nobody is left to update the new calendar.
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..... And on the matter of 'The End is Nigh', once again we have narrowly escaped doom and destruction as Asteroid 2005 YU55 passed us by last night without even causing so much as a plate to hurtle to the ground from its shelf.
There's no doubt in my mind, that the only doom and destruction we need to worry about is that caused by the financial wizards who now seem to have all the answers, yet in 2007 (and before) seem to have been oblivious to the encroaching melt down.
We can all be wise after the fact, but you economic Einstein's are being paid huge wads of dosh because you are supposed to be the best in the business. You erstwhile Nostradamuses should have seen it coming. But you didn't, did you? Or if you did, you were too busy making a personal fortune out of it to anything about it.
The time to show your worth has long passed. I suggest you hand back the wads of dosh you have squirreled away, stick your heads' where the sun doesn't shine and never darken our doorsteps again.
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winter solstice?
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Helium (4He) is a gaseous radioactive decay product, so in part, Dharmansh is not so far off.
This is the reason why 4He is mined with oil and natural gas, and also why 4He is much more prevalent on Earth than 3He.
CO2 is also associated with volcanic eruptions.
Anyway, I don't foresee a cataclysmic out-gassing.
There was a recent National Geographic Special about he Nemesis Theory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nemesis_%28hypothetical_star%29). Very interesting, however, the predictions of imminent doom are about ten million years too early!!!
Thanks CliffordK. As I am getting lots of knowledge from all you people. I am just in 9th standard so any of my question might be irrelevant, but being a student i am so curious to know certain things which I may not be able to get answers from my professors . So I believe this is the right place to satisfy curiosity with logical answers from the experts.
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Thanks CliffordK. As I am getting lots of knowledge from all you people. I am just in 9th standard so any of my question might be irrelevant, but being a student i am so curious to know certain things which I may not be able to get answers from my professors . So I believe this is the right place to satisfy curiosity with logical answers from the experts.
We all are curious about many things...
And... each of us learns more every day.
I assume that is essentially equivalent to a Freshman in High School. I wish you the best of luck. What you will realize is that there are always more questions... but, hopefully you will have the opportunity to continue into college... and find a field that interests you.
As far as 4He.
There are several types of radioactive decay.
Alpha is a chunk with 2 protons, and 2 neutrons, or essentially a Helium nucleus (4He).
Beta is a single electron. Like alpha, it doesn't travel very far.
Gamma is a high energy photon (X-Ray, or Light). It travels the furthest.
There is also Neutron Radiation and Positron Emissions.
But... in reference to the original question, Helium (4He) is a gaseous substance. I'm not a geologist, but the subterranean pressures are pretty extraordinary. For example, if you followed the BP oil spill at all, essentially the pressure of the weight of the earth and the ocean caused the low density oil to squirt out of the well at a high pressure and volume.
Helium, of course, is also low density, but there is water, oil, and gas in many pockets under the surface of the earth, that could rise to the surface if there was a break or crack in the crust.
Volcanoes, of course, are explosive, but with other (cooler) liquids and gases, they would likely just slowly bubble to the surface, perhaps with some subsidence of the soil above them. Fire, of course, can be hard to extinguish around places where natural gas rises to the surface.
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Phew! Looks like we managed to squeak past the dreaded 11/11/11.
I think there must have been a typo in the Mayan calendar. They obviously meant 12/12/12, not 21/12/12.
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Phew! Looks like we managed to squeak past the dreaded 11/11/11.
I think there must have been a typo in the Mayan calendar. They obviously meant 12/12/12, not 21/12/12.
Well... We did also make it past 6/6/6 a few years ago without the world coming to an end!!!
is 12/12/12 supposed to be twice as bad as 6/6/6?
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On December 25, 2011,
Santa Clause will realize that 7,000,000,001 people on the planet is just one too many people for him to visit in one day.
On December 26, 2011, Santa Clause will officially retire.
On December 21, 2012, Santa Clause will depart from the North Pole for his first vacation in the Bahamas!!!
nothing happens a routine day commenses n world goes on
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Phew! Looks like we managed to squeak past the dreaded 11/11/11.
I think there must have been a typo in the Mayan calendar. They obviously meant 12/12/12, not 21/12/12.
Well... We did also make it past 6/6/6 a few years ago without the world coming to an end!!!
is 12/12/12 supposed to be twice as bad as 6/6/6?
Was 9/9/9 half as bad again as 6/6/6?
I'll tell you what though, we'll be in serious trouble on 13/13/13 (https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fbestsmileys.com%2Flol%2F4.gif&hash=dc0017defb1737ae43c0ff6efcb35b2a)
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I'll tell you what though, we'll be in serious trouble on 13/13/13
I think I need to get a copy of your calendar.
I'm having troubles locating that date on my calendar to mark it as a day to stay in bed!!!
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You need to go here (http://www.leonardrossiter.com/reginaldperrin/Grot.html#Grot).
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You need to go here (http://www.leonardrossiter.com/reginaldperrin/Grot.html#Grot).
Now look here! I didn't get where I am today reading a lot of nonsense like this.
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Sorry CJ
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On 12-21-2012 Godzilla will emerge from the sea, and the nation of atlantis will make them selves known and pretend to be our friends briefly to gain access to the japanese military Mecha Godzilla project. Shortly after the atlantians will deploy King Ghidorah and cause Mecha Godzilla to malfunction as they try to take over the world.
Meanwhile out in Detroit the autobots will crash land and decide to transform into automobiles [only cause it would be silly for something named "autobot" to transform into something else] Optimus Prime will put together a resistance to stop King Ghidorah.
Out in New Mexico Dr. Thomas Light will build a bitch made house cleaning robot named Rock. And six highly dangerous "industrial" robots [like one that throws bombs named bombman] which is cousin Albert Wily will reprogram and use to take over the world. During the process wily will steal the malfunctioning Mecha Godzilla as part of his global domination plot. And that bitch made house cleaning robot will volunteer to be transformed into a much more awesome robot megaman.
Which is when AstroBoy will get pissed that Megaman ripped off his original plot, and he'll be so freakin' mad he'll destroy the world on 12-21-2012
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I've heard lots of theories; Earth and all "our" planets are aligned with the centre of the Milky Way; we are coming to the end of an 11 year cycle when solar flares increase; the frequency of the earth is increasing and reaches the same Hz as a human upon waking... It seems to be a time when a number of cycles come full circle simultaneously, including winter solstice.
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Halfway through the year, and no sign of the return of the Nemesis star. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nemesis_(hypothetical_star)), or any comet on collision course with Earth.
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No, but there seems to be a rapidly increasing number of entropy indicators.
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It seems to be a time when a number of cycles come full circle simultaneously, including winter solstice.
Most people seem to believe that the "end of the calendar" is merely the end of one cycle and the beginning of he next. Thus, it would not be surprising to be occurring on or near the winter solstice. And perhaps other cycles too.
In the western culture, sometime about now is also the end of the Age of Pisces, and the beginning of the age of Aquarius. Unfortunately it isn't well defined to a specific date.
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Isn't that the day that the sun appears to be in the center of the galaxy (from our perspective)?
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It has just occurred to me -- the date we all need to fear is not that date, but the one just 100 years beyond it. By that time the whole world will have seen the sense of the Aussie convention DD/MM/YYYY, and we will all have 21/12/2112. Numerologically speakinig, the world will have a lot of trouble getting past that one!
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Does the universe use the same time counting system we do?
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Good point that numbers are just numbers, and really only have significance to humans.
And, we can't even agree on the significance of certain dates, for example the Russians and the Romans can't agree on which day Christmas should be observed.
The orbital period of Earth around the sun, of course, has significance to us when coupled with Earth's axial tilt. However, even that would hardly have a lot of significance to long period comets, except for whether or not Earth gets in their way.
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Whew, just 2 weeks left until the end of the world.
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Whew, just 2 weeks left until the end of the world.
2 weeks? 13/12/12? That would be the ultimate joke! Imagine the headlines. "World ends one week early! Doomsayers get it wrong!"
Oh, wait...
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You mean to tell me the world is going to end before the 25th.???
WOW!!! In that case, I'm not buying anyone any presents.
Do you think I can get a refund on the 2013 calander I bought the other day? I wondered why it was blank!
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Ok, so I had confused 12/12/12 with 12/21/12
I keep looking out my window for a comet heading towards Earth, and all I see are clouds.
Would a comet heading towards Earth have a visible tail?
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Would a comet heading towards Earth have a visible tail?
A comet would develop a tail when within the orbit of Jupiter (approx 6AU (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronomical_unit) from the sun).
An asteroid wouldn't have a tail ...
One of the most recent close calls occurred on March 23, 1989, when an asteroid 0.25-mile (0.4-kilometer) wide came within 400,000 miles (640,000 kilometers) of Earth. Surprised scientists estimated that Earth and the asteroid -- weighing 50 million tons and traveling at 46,000 miles/hour (74,000 kilometers/hour) -- had passed the same point in space just six hours apart.
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/text/asteroids.txt
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Nothing will be happened that day u all know that every day lots of peoples are died and born so this is not the logic that, in this day world is finished so relax GOD knows better that day because he make this world and he finish it. But not now. So relax...do your work..
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Yes....
But, if the comet is heading towards Earth.
Then our view should be head on... the tail would generally be behind it...
So, it should appear as a single spot, perhaps blurry around the edges.
Of course, if it was visible for a month or so, then Earth would be slowly orbiting around the sun, and may initially have a partial side view.
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it was the aztecs not the mayans that predicted a cataclysmic end to the world age ending on the solstice. they said the world would be destroyed by earthquakes. lot's of fracking triggering earthquakes lately. Now the tibetan oracle of Sham-bala says that indeed we will have a mini apocalypse which is linked to earthquakes. he says the world won't end but we will lose 10% of the world population and people in cities will lose their minds. he says don't look out your windows cuz ghosts will appear to be everywhere and that we will have no electric power for two months.
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it was the aztecs not the mayans that predicted a cataclysmic end to the world age ending on the solstice. they said the world would be destroyed by earthquakes. lot's of fracking triggering earthquakes lately. Now the tibetan oracle of Sham-bala says that indeed we will have a mini apocalypse which is linked to earthquakes. he says the world won't end but we will lose 10% of the world population and people in cities will lose their minds. he says don't look out your windows cuz ghosts will appear to be everywhere and that we will have no electric power for two months.
The doomsday predictions can be quite extraordinary.
Although, if you look at the storms in NY and New Orleans, as well as past earthquakes in Japan and California, it is clear that our infrastructure is quite vulnerable to insults, and it can take weeks or months to even make a partial recovery in a hard-hit area.
It would take a huge cataclysm to wipe out 10% of the global population.
- Disease
- War
- Yellowstone Eruption
- Global lost growing season, likely due to atmospheric particles
- very large body strike
Perhaps a combination of the above.
Even a synchronized earthquake along a fault line, say from San Diego, LA, San Francisco, and extending up into Oregon, and Washington, Canada, and Alaska. It would still likely leave the overall global population loss far less than 1%.
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Does anyone know what time the apocalypse is scheduled? I've got some christmas shopping to do and would hate to miss the shops before they explode in a fiery inferno.
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Well, I'm still here.......
No ghosts, no power cuts, no rending of the Earth's crust, no comet........
BUT WAIT, That's it..........
Yes, those Mayans were right all along...... just a couple of days out...... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20765983 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20765983)
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Well.. a few hours left of the 21st. And, so far no comet. But, of course, with all these clouds, I'd never see it coming.
Perhaps the Mayans were predicting the coming of the fiscal cliff (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_fiscal_cliff)
Consider a long period comet such as Haley's comet. Perhaps with close astronomical calculations, they could have discovered its period as Haley did. But, even so, Earth is a very small target, astronomically speaking, to be shooting at.
Even with far better telescopes than the Mayans had, it is hard to predict Haley's position 75 years into the future to within about 10 minutes, and 12,000 km which would be necessary to predict a collision course with Earth.
What about a longer period comet? 300 years? 500 years?
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Well, it looks like the world hasn't come to an end so I'd better go and celebrate Christmas/ the Solstice/ Saturnalia/ any excuse to stop work for a while.
Hope you all have a fun time in the coming orbital period of your choice.
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Damn! And still I'm still here!
I bought a Lamborghini yesterday and thrashed it into the ground thinking 'what the hell, I'll never have to pay for it'. Boy am I gonna be in the s**t when the credt card bill comes in.
Bloody damn fool Mayans.