2012: end of the world or just another year?

[Joe Washington]

Did you think the world's going to end in 2012 or do you think the Mayans were wrong about that or describing something else and that 2012 will be just another year?

[Warped9]

Just another year. And when it comes and goes without event then the doomsayers will revise their interpretations and prophecies and obsess over yet another date.

[ManOnTheWave]

Even to the Mayans, the end of the calender was the end of an age, not the world. I don't kill myself on New Years Eve, I buy a new calender a few weeks before and then go to a party.

[Greg Cox]

Doomsday prophecies are a dime-a-dozen. Don't worry about it.

It's all a bunch of superstitious nonsense.

[RoJoHen]

I did see on the Discovery Channel that the sun/Earth/something else will be "aligned" in a weird way in December of 2012 that could cause some crazy things to happen with the Earth's magnetic field. They said it's something that only happens every something-hundred-thousand years, and it could really fuck things up.

Personally, I have no idea. I'm going to disappointed if NOTHING happens after thousands of years of hype.

[Aragorn]

2012 will be worse than Y2K.

Is this related to the movie or something? Cause how is this a SF/F topic??? Shouldn't this be in Misc???

[Saul]

Someone told me it will have something to do with those solar flares being stronger than usual, like that movie with nic cage that was utterly pointless.

What's important is I can see the next Batman sequel in 2012.

[Joe Washington]

The end of the world is a science fiction topic in some ways.

[Warped9]

Aragorn wrote:

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2012 will be worse than Y2K.

That's not saying much since Y2K was way overblown nonsense that allowed a lot of folks to get scammed.

[Christopher]

RoJoHen wrote:

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I did see on the Discovery Channel that the sun/Earth/something else will be "aligned" in a weird way in December of 2012 that could cause some crazy things to happen with the Earth's magnetic field. They said it's something that only happens every something-hundred-thousand years, and it could really fuck things up.

All that proves is that you should never trust "science" information from a channel that depends on advertising revenues to stay in business. If spouting paranoid fantasies and misinformation gets better ratings than telling the simple, unexciting truth, then they'll lie through their teeth, which is what they're doing here. It's complete and utter BS, taking a few valid ideas and distorting and blending them past all recognition.

What you're describing here sounds like a conflating of several separate, equally false assertions about 2012. One is that there will be a rare alignment between the Sun and the galactic center when the Sun crosses the galactic equator on December 21, 2012. In fact, that alignment already happened in 1998 even by the arbitrary definition of the galactic equator used by the theorists. Another is that there will be a syzygy, an alignment of planets within the Solar System, on that date; that is simply untrue. I just checked it myself in Celestia; on that date, the planets will be scattered all over the system, with no multi-body alignments of any kind, unless you count the Sun, Earth, and Ceres.

The other assertion is that the solar maximum in 2012 will produce a vast solar flare that will trigger a geomagnetic reversal, the "flipping" of the planet's magnetic poles. This is wrong on several levels. One, the solar maximum will peak in 2013 and is expected to be fairly weak. Two, a geomagnetic reversal is a process that takes thousands of years. Three, there's no reason to believe such reversals are in any way influenced by solar flares; they're the result of changes deep in the core of the Earth.

It's sad that the Discovery Channel has sunk to the level of spouting lies like this. That's the diametric opposite of being an educational channel.

[iguana_tonante]

Joe Washington wrote:

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Did you think the world's going to end in 2012 or do you think the Mayans were wrong about that or describing something else and that 2012 will be just another year?

Wait, are you serious?

RoJoHen wrote:

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I did see on the Discovery Channel that the sun/Earth/something else will be "aligned" in a weird way in December of 2012 that could cause some crazy things to happen with the Earth's magnetic field. They said it's something that only happens every something-hundred-thousand years, and it could really fuck things up.

Personally, I have no idea. I'm going to disappointed if NOTHING happens after thousands of years of hype.

Wait, you too?

Warped9 wrote:

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That's not saying much since Y2K was way overblown nonsense that allowed a lot of folks to get scammed.

Err. I think that was Aragorn's point.

[Christopher]

Here's a nice page debunking various 2012 myths, mainly ones about some imaginary death planet called Nibiru:

http://astrobiology.nasa.gov/ask-an-...ns-and-answers

[Klaus]

If Mayan cosmology had been correct, the Sun would have gone out once they weren't able to feed it blood any more. Case closed.

[RandyS]

Jetfire wrote:

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Is this related to the movie or something? Cause how is this a SF/F topic??? Shouldn't this be in Misc???

No, because the whole idea is fiction. It belongs right where it is.