[Titanscape (OP)]

Hi, I just heard that the alignment of Earth sun and centre of the Milky Way a black Hole could cause a change of Earth polarity and movement of the mantle inside, is that scientifically viable?

[Bill S]

Unless we are talking about astrology, I assume that gravity would be the "force" involved here.  Gravity decreases as a square of the distance involved, so I suspect the Earth's gravity would have much more influence over the mantle than anything that astronomical alignment could achieve.
Of course, I could be entirely wrong, it would not be the first time. []

[Soul Surfer]

The idea is total rubbish the only forces that could affect the earth significantly are significantly greater than the moon's differential gravity  ie something a lot heavier than the earth coming closer than the moon.

To give you a little information on the 4 million or so solar mass black hole at the centre of our galaxy.  The event horizon is about ten times as big as the sun and the gravitational field is about equal to that of the earth at about a distance equal to the orbit of saturn  just a couple of light hours away this black hole is about 25,000 LIGHT YEARS away

[QuantumClue]

This is an idea which spawns conspirators of the 2012 disaster, such as the movie itself which generated the idea of some kind of cosmic disaster in the allignment of the planets and our local star.

Put gently, its a load of codswallop!

[Geezer]

Put gently, its a load of codswallop!

Perhaps, but a modicum of scientific evidence might separate your view from worthless opinion.

[QuantumClue]

Geezer, maybe you would like to share whatever scientific sentiment you have on the subject...

[Titanscape (OP)]

What could a giant black hole so far away in alignment with the sun and the completion of the wobble in the earth's axis possibly do?

[Bill S]

which leaves us with the interesting question: Do black holes swallow cods-wallop, and if so, what happens to any information contained therein? 

[Titanscape (OP)]

Yeah, hope it is so.

[Bill S]

BTW, Titanscape, where did you get the idea in your OP, and did it contain any "scientific" arguments?

[Titanscape (OP)]

I now have 25 GB of downloads per month, up to 1.3 MB/ s, so I looked up 2012 in youtube, and watched some documentaries, about the Mayans and their accuracy and speculations about the cosmic occurrences and the line up, the Earth's wobble cycle and the line up of sun, earth and the centre of the milky way, which has a giant black hole at the centre. Mixed with astrology, the interpretations of star clusters...

Nothing firm.

[RD]

Earth's magnetic poles do flip, the cause could be external (astronomical).
e.g. Earth's magnetic field interacting with the Sun's magnetic field.
[in a similar fashion to Milankovich cycles affecting Earth's climate].

Earth's magnetic field isn't changing quickly enough to flip by 2012 ...

A geomagnetic reversal is a change in the orientation of Earth's magnetic field  such that the positions of magnetic north and magnetic south become interchanged. These events often involve an extended decline in field strength followed by a rapid recovery after the new orientation has been established. These events occur on a scale of tens of thousands of years or longer.

 [ You are not allowed to view attachments ]

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geomagnetic_reversal

If the above image turns out to be the barcode for a book on that 2012 tripe then we may have to reconsider.  []

[QuantumClue]

Oh dear Titan, please do not be drawn in by these fabricated, over-hyped monstrosities of documents. They are responsible for a LOT of bad science.

[Titanscape (OP)]

My concept of polar reversal, did not involve the idea of the mantle turning but only the polarity, I am no cluey geologist!

[Soul Surfer]

A reversal of the earth's magnetic field is overdue and could be under way.  During the period when the field is at its lowest our protection from particulate radiation from the sun may be compromised and radiation levels considerably increased with the corresponding increase in the deleterious effects of ionising radiation.  This has never affected life very significantly in the past so I see no reason for it to be a real problem in the future.

Say for example if cancer rates increased by a factor of ten for a while we could live with it.  It is not nice for the unlucky ones and would put further stress on health resources but would not kill off a significant percentage of the population before they yhad a chance to ensure a new generation.

There seems to be a total obsession around that this world must be a stable place and death optional.  This is not and never will be true we need to be collectively able to survive many sorts of changes and have spare capacity to do this.  Running with the absolute maximum population at maximum utilisation of resources is and always was a stupid idea.  The world needs to get its act together and work things out properly.  Maybe it will only be a really big disaster (several orders of magnitude bigger that anything on record over a large proportion of the earth) that will bang a few heads together and get most of the world leaders thinking on sensible lines  and stop bickering about total inconsequential things like minor differences in religions and precisely who has rights to exploit small patches of land.

[QuantumClue]

A reversal of the earth's magnetic field is overdue and could be under way.  During the period when the field is at its lowest our protection from particulate radiation from the sun may be compromised and radiation levels considerably increased with the corresponding increase in the deleterious effects of ionising radiation.  This has never affected life very significantly in the past so I see no reason for it to be a real problem in the future.

Say for example if cancer rates increased by a factor of ten for a while we could live with it.  It is not nice for the unlucky ones and would put further stress on health resources but would not kill off a significant percentage of the population before they yhad a chance to ensure a new generation.

There seems to be a total obsession around that this world must be a stable place and death optional.  This is not and never will be true we need to be collectively able to survive many sorts of changes and have spare capacity to do this.  Running with the absolute maximum population at maximum utilisation of resources is and always was a stupid idea.  The world needs to get its act together and work things out properly.  Maybe it will only be a really big disaster (several orders of magnitude bigger that anything on record over a large proportion of the earth) that will bang a few heads together and get most of the world leaders thinking on sensible lines  and stop bickering about total inconsequential things like minor differences in religions and precisely who has rights to exploit small patches of land.

I do understand there is a science behind magnetic pole shifts. I just want titan to know that there is absolutely nothing scientific which links the mayan calanders doomsday proposals to either - an allignment of the planets or of a magnetic pole shift. In fact, correct me if I am wrong, but the mayans never actually said the world was going to end per se... did they?

[Soul Surfer]

I agree totally that there is no reason to believe that the mayan cycles indicated anything significant other than the start of another cycle.  It is quite amazing that these ancients with their meticulous observation of the heavens could detect and work out these very long period cycles.  The ancient greeks knew quite accurately the size of the spherical earth how to predict eclipses and even the 25,000 year precession cycle of the equinoxes.

[QuantumClue]

I believe the mayans where talking about a paradigm shift coupled to their beliefs in an astrological interpretation of the human existence. When the world ends a new way of thinking occurs, which would be an understandable approach considering the mystic formulation that the world changes under the astrological alignment.

Each civilization, including the mayans, egyptians and even the aztecs had an unprecended form of knowlegde which has either been lost or it has taken a paradigm shift in the world. Such examples of the egyptians take (an extensive) knowledge of mathematics and algebra, huge monoliths, status, expertize of all shapes and sizes. The astecs had an extensive knowledge of astronomy and a type of intelligence in the mystic art of astrology. The mayans where very similar, if not more similar to the egyptains, with their monolithic buildings and extensive knowledge of a calculating system.

Maybe the mayans where right about something, if this is indeed true. Perhaps an old world is going to pass use, but if a description of flame and brimstone will be used, its surely nothing but a mataphor and not a physical reality.

[Titanscape (OP)]

Thanks, and I made a new thread.
http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=36412.new#new

By chance, my last post before this thread, I think was in the typing about the mind persisting through near death experiences, my 666th, and the first in this thread 667th.

[CliffordK]

So, the Mayans are like the computer programmers who chose to represent years with 2 digits...  which caused many predictions of the end of the world a decade ago.

Does the Gregorian Calendar end on December 31, 9999?