[Helen]

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?

[Don_1]

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).

[Geezer]

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.)

[neilep]

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 on that day !

[Bored chemist]

"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.

[damocles]

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.

[CliffordK]

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!!!

[Kryptid]

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).

[Dharmansh]

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.

[Geezer]

You're wrong.

[RD]

The special effects are quite impressive ...

[Dharmansh]

So Geezer do correct me instead of saying i am wrong.

[RD]

... 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 : not "burning" (combustion).

[Don_1]

........... 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.

[Don_1]

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.

[CliffordK]

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.  Very interesting, however, the predictions of imminent doom are about ten million years too early!!!

[Nizzle]

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?

[Bored chemist]

The "Mayan Calendar" thing is the equivalent of a 52 century old Y2K bug.

[damocles]

Bored chemist is right on the money here.

The wikipedia article at 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.

[CliffordK]

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.