Yeah so this is my first post on these forums, but a friend told me to come here because I would get a lot of feedback on this topic. First of all there is this:
Doomsday 2012
I read this today and it really got me worked up and worried. It's a big read, but I'm sure some of you will find it interesting at least. I'll summaraise it here as best I can;
OK, first off you have these dudes called the "Mayans" who were like Astronomers and invented a big crazy detailed calendar thousands of years ago. When you do all the mathematics, this calander expires on approx December 21 2012. There has been lots of conspiracy theories about this and lots of ideas as to why this date is significant. But then I heard about this big astronomical event that is about to happen to us...
Now first off, I dont believe in religion or prophecies or anything like that. I think, maybe, the Mayans were really really smart and awesome at predicting universal outcome through astronomy... anyway;
Our Solar System is not in a fixed position in the Milky Way Galaxy, as you may know. We move around as the galaxy moves around. On December 21st 2012 our solar system will do something it has never done before. It will pass from a position "above" the Milkyway's centre of mass - to beneath it... This is going to do all kinds of crazy unpredicted crap to us, electric power will short circuit, days and nights could get shorter/longer, water in the northern hemesphere will spin clockwise down the plughole instead of anti-clockwise etc...
Also, the Sun begins a new solar cycle in the year 2012. At the start of the Suns solar cycles (which happen every 11 years or so) there is a lot of explosive reactions from the sun, shooting billions of tonnes of super heated gasses and chemicals into space.
Normally, we are protected from these reactions from the sun by some sort of wierd magnetic field which has a big crazy name. But not when we move to our new position in the Milkyway. We're going to burn to death. And there is nothing we can do about it, guys.
Also, it may also just be coincedence, but look at a lot of our political timescales and scheduled events like dealing with global warming etc. You'd be surprised at just how often the year 2012 is mentioned. That could just be me making stuff up, but I think the world leaders know something that we don't.
Anyway, yeah. Im really freaked out and disturbed and I know Im going to have nightmares about this tonight. Discuss?
Posts
Edit: This is a pretty good model for why your first post shouldn't be a new thread
"above the center of mass" seems impossible. It's simply a distance away, there's no all-powerful gravity that decides what is up and what is down.
Also, solar cycles that we are protected from by our magnetic field that will change because of shifting our completely arbitrary position?
He talks about exactly this kind of pseudoscience crap and why it is so popular among (stupid) people.
No, not the centre of mass... I dont know what it's called exactly, if you read that article I linked to, it does a 10x better job of explaining the situation. We will no longer be protected from the superheated gases from the sun because the magntic field changes direction or something like that. (Sorry, Im not that smart when it comes to science)
Long story short, it's all crap.
This D-Day will pass just like the thousands of other "end of the world" days suggested by religions, cults, science, pseudoscience, random nuts, and Y2K.
tl;dr: DON'T PANIC.
I remember December 25 1999 vividly...everyone was so scared, and yet when the moment came, everyone just felt a little silly for worrying so much. Even if the world is in danger, there's absolutely nothing you could do about it, and worrying won't help anything.
Above all, never trust the internet for science.
http://thornsbook.com online novel
I want my presents!
tSponge: The Mayan's know everything!
As far as the calendar ending...It doesn't end. All it does is change from being 12.x.x.x.x to being 13.x.x.x.x - not that big of a difference. But, apparently, the change was regarded by the Mayans as something akin to a shift to a new age, or epoch, or whatever you want to call it. I like to think of it as the dawning of the "Age of Aquarius" - it's a real point in time when certain astronomical phenomena will change position, but anything more (like sudden world peace, or free ganja) is just stupid hippie mumbo-jumbo. Don't pay any attention to it.
This. Moving around in the galaxy presents as shifts in the observed positions of distant stars and other galaxies, not "electric power will short circuit, days and nights could get shorter/longer, water in the northern hemesphere will spin clockwise down the plughole instead of anti-clockwise etc". Assuming the OP isn't simply trolling, they should take a look around Bad Astronomy.
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, of course.
You know what I love most about the OP? The way the word Mayans is in quotes, as if he doesn't even realise they were an actual civilisation, and thinks they're obscure enough that no-one else has even heard of them. That's just a barrel of awesome right there.
Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies. Rivers and seas boiling. Forty years of darkness. Earthquakes, volcanoes... The dead rising from the grave. Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together - mass hysteria.
For some reason, people love to imagine ancient civilizations with some sort of super-advanced knowledge. Constructs such as the Pyramids and Easter Island moai used to reinforce superstitions of the Long Count, Atlantis, or "natural" medicine.
I have seen shit that'll turn you white!
NINJA EDIT: Won't the Aztec calendar (which is held in high regard just like the Mayan one) end a year before the Mayan one?
NINJA EDIT 2: Holy shit! Trying to look this crap up leads to the most tin foil hat conspiracy sites I've ever seen! UFOs, Atlantis, and the calendar together for the first time, for the last time!
Well, that's nice of them to think ahead so we don't waste electricity.
Also, I think we're missing the real mystery folks. Screw this stupid-ass calendar, we need to see if wearing a tin foil hat for extended amounts of time blows out the rods and cones in your eyes.
Why else are all these conspiracy sites so goddamned ugly? Seriously, Japanese kids will get epileptic seizures from going to these sites.
EDIT: AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAAHAHAHA
This is a bit from a "serious" site using "science" to prove the end of the world as fortold by the calendar. Atlantis and UFOs are in that story somewhere too.
Note to the OP: This is the kind of crap you get involved in when you seriously start to believe the stories on the cover of the magazines at the grocery store checkout lines.
I don't think the words "fun" and "modular arithmetic" belong anywhere near each other.
Yeah, duh.
Read my earlier post. The Host had to transform some schmuck with a quick shot of "quantum evolution to mind level 10"
Geez, don't you read The Sun?
― Marcus Aurelius
Path of Exile: themightypuck
Right, sorry. I didn't mean to ruin the interwebs for you. Wonder what one of those guys is worth in free agency.
Actually, I'd heard that the Mayan calendar was based on the transit of Venus, which has a very regular and predictable cycle which repeats every 243 years.
I saw the last transit in 2004.
It was probably one of the most beautiful, humbling and awe-inspiring sights of my life watching the sun rise that morning.
As for any Apocalypse mumbo-jumbo bloo abloo abloo.
I always liked to imagine that:
End of the World = Beginning of the Universe
There's supposed to be this Golden Age that lasts until the End of Time, right?
Maybe I'm thinking of SE++.
They probably just figured "This shit is huge and heavy.. Why bother making this twice as huge if we can just loop it around. It's not like we are gonna think the world ends on that date..."
I never asked for this!
Leaving old worlds behind is a fairly common theme in Native American mythology.
They really like to emerge from things, especially.
What does the transit of Venus entail? Like lights in the night sky, or more subtle stuff?
Unfortunately, 'the World' is usually destroyed in the mythologies.
The Hopi Indians, who say their ancestors came over on a land bridge between Siberia and Alaska, have a mythology that goes back through four destruction cycles.
I think Hindu mythology records like 7 or something, with a bunch more to go.