2012: What will happen?

[ZenGum]

So, 2012 is almost upon us, and the Mayan "Long Count" draws to a close. Solar storms are (perhaps) forecast, Icelandic volcanoes are rumbling, a dozen earthquake zones are "overdue", stray asteroids are zooming around, and no one has seen a dinosaur for ages (outside the Republican primaries, but I digress). The (alleged) anti-christ is in the white house, but revolution is sweeping the world and tyrants are toppling left, right and ... well, mostly left and right. Economies are creaking and alliances are strained.

Will 2012 mark the End of Days? What do you think?

[Aliantha]

Personally i think it's all bullshit. I don't think the world will end.

It's possible that it might be the end of life as we know it (if I can be naive for a minute) due to the fall of so many evil leaders recently.

I'm not going to do anything differently with my life though. I'll just keep plodding along, come what may.

[DucksNuts]

If Sarah Connor is right, can it please please please be the Sam Worthington type of Terminator and NOT the Arnie one!!

Its not much to ask really.

[Griff]

Things are gonna change, I can feel it.

Not really, it'll be more of the same.

[Lamplighter]

Merc will explode when Obama is re-elected.

[Sheldonrs]

Originally Posted by Lamplighter

Merc will explode when Obama is re-elected.

Incendiaryally or orgasmically?

[BigV]

Thermally or spermally?

[SamIam]

Like a big Christmas pinata filled with hot air!

It would be too easy if the world was doomed. We and/or all the other living organisms on earth are going to have to muddle through one way or another. I still think Homo sapiens will ultimately go extinct, but that will be a blessing for the world - not a disaster. And its highly unlikely to happen in 2012.

Of course, the sun might go anova which would be interesting for a micro-second or two.

[ZenGum]

In seriousness, I think things will go on pretty much as for the last decade or so, a few natural disasters, a few wars, the odd economic SNAFU, and the Mayans will have to make a new calendar.

[TheMercenary]

Come on man, a good asteroid hit might do us all some good.

[SamIam]

Maybe the magnetic poles will switch. They say its about time for them to flip north for south and visa versa. I wonder if GPS's would still work?

[ZenGum]

I doubt the poles will switch, but if they do, we're screwed. The switch takes many years to establish the new field, and without that field the earth gets the full brunt of solar magnetic storms. Kiss goodbye to anything involving microcircuits. This would include the GPS satellites and your receiver. And the factories that make them. And the power station that runs the factories that .. uh ohh.

Not likely to happen. At least, not in 2012. Unless SandyPossum keeps fooling around with those accursed soul-stones!

[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by ZenGum

Not likely to happen.

What makes you say this? Everything I've read indicates we are way, way overdue for a switch.

[SamIam]

Yeah, that's what they said on NPR today. Of course, it could just be something they picked up on the Fox newswire.

[ZenGum]

Just going from memory here, but...

1. Before each flip, there is a substantial weakening of the strength of the field. We've seen a few little dips lately, but nothing taking us anywhere near the ranges associated with a full flip.

2. I've become convinced that there is a significant problem with the way "due" is interpreted for things like this.
Recall our discussion in the Interesting Laws thread and how this touched on human heights which cluster closely around certain values, against river lengths which are distributed randomly, but seem to have more beginning with low first digits.

People with brains less awesome than Clodfobble's might like to read this http://www.dichotomistic.com/hierarchies_fractals.html for preparation, especially the bits about power laws and scale free networks.

Human heights are not scale free. Imagine getting hundreds of people to lie down head to toe in a straight line. Walk along, and see how regularly you get to a head. About every 1.6 to 1.9 metres, you'll get one. In extreme cases you might range from 0.4 up to maybe 2.3. So once you leave one head the next one is "due" in about 1.7 metres. After 1.8 we're expecting it soon, after 1.9 it should be here really soon, and so on.

Earthquakes, magnetic flips, the lengths of interglacial periods and many other things follow power laws - they range randomly over many orders of magnitude in size and/or interval. You might get ten magnetic flips in a million years, then none for the next nine million. They'd happen at an "average" of one per million years, but after, say, five million years, they'd seem terribly overdue. They're not, really. It's just that average intervals do not work well with phenomena like these.

The current interglacial is a good example. There have been (I think) about 35 interglacial periods since the current ice-age began about 3 or 4 million years ago. The *average* duration of interglacials is about 10 or 11 thousand years, but they are NOT clustered around a bell curve like human heights. Some were only a few hundred years, some were 40 thousand or more. Trying to predict the end of the current interglacial by looking at simple averages like this, well, we're "overdue" for it to end already.

Same with earthquakes. There are LOTS of fault lines that are allegedly "overdue". Same with volcanoes. This is what originally made me suspect there was something wrong with the idea of "due".


Oh and also, if the magnetic field does flip, we're screwed and the only thing we could do is stock up on tinned food and a hand powered can opener!