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Quote (ZidaneTribal)

Don't want to believe that it's the end and just some random sciencest way of wanting to sell a book and make cash.

While I agree that most of those books are for making cash, at least the ones about 2012 are, but the books about the Big Bang are not made by random scientists. They are made through years of study and experimentation, and through the consensus of the scientific community.

Quote (ZidaneTribal)

Like people of science predict Yellowstone one of the most dangerous of Volcanoes to explode sometime in early/ middle of 2012. They say that the explosion to cause poisons and harmful smoke to cover to most places of the world..

But, if they can predict that (which they did through studying its eruption patterns which happen every ten thousand years), then could they not figure out what could possibly end the world? Once again, not trying to trounce your beliefs, but how can you give scientist the benefit of the doubt in that study but not in others? Scientists can and will be wrong, but isn't that how scientific experimentation works?

Quote (ZidaneTribal)

And the cannon that they want to use to prove that the Big Bang created the world. If they right we could be safe but if they are wrong who knows what damage to the universe it could cause ..

????? I haven't heard of that. I know they have compiled some photographic data of the Universe in order to prove the Big Bang, but that is interesting. Well, I don't think they are trying to find out how the world came to be, but how the Universe came to be. But I don't think you should worry. I believe that the experiment will be controlled, and it won't swallow up the planet or anything. I don't think they are actually trying to create another Big Bang.

Going back to my point, I don't like to discount the work of scientists, but in a way I agree with you. We either will not know, or not be able to change it. So we should focus on here and now, the time in which we live in, to better ourselves and our world. And if you can't do that, just live your life and have fun while you can. Because 2012's three years off, and it might not happen, so should you worry about that now?

I'd much rather about the long-term affects of carbon emissions. Do you know that even if we switch to a clean renewable energy tomorrow, the affects will continue for 20 more years? Plus, economically, we are wasting money on a nonrenewable fuel that will continue to reach staggering prices. Maybe we should worry about those things.

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Praise Be To Helix!

Wow, Yellowstone volcanism and the "big crunch?" Yay for pseudoscientific scaremongering!

The Yellowstone volcano is a frickin' monster, it's true. As a general rule, the longer the wait period between eruptions of an active volcano, the more powerful the eruption. Yellowstone's eruption period, based on North American igneous rock record, is somewhere in between 65,000 and 100,000 years. Right now we're *barely* in that window, I believe between 65 and 66 thousand years since the last Yellowstone eruption.

Wannabes like to say "hey, it could happen tomorrow, it could happen ten thousand years from now, but it could happen in 2012...." but that's a fat load of crap. The fact remains that chances are exponentially small that this eruption will happen in the next thousand years, especially since the 65,000 eruption seemed to be an outlier on the geologic record at my geology and geomorphology courses.

And the big crunch. The idea behind it is that the expansion of spacetime caused by the big bang could potentially lose momentum and come back and revert to the pre-bang superdense singularity it once was. Theoretically, this is possible if there is enough mass in the universe to slow down the acceleration of expansion in the other direction.

However, using the best estimates we have of the universe's critical density with the Hubble equation, this is not true. There is barely 20% of the required mass to do so, coming straight from my published-in-2007 astronomy textbook. So the universe will probably end in ice and not in fire, and that probably won't happen until well beyond the lifetime of our sun. And even if there was enough mass, then it would have to accelerate back at the same rate it expanded outward, since there is no other opposing force to interfere with its contraction. That means that even if the contraction began tomorrow, we wouldn't experience its effects for hundreds of millions of years at the very minimum.

So yeah. I still believe that there is no significance to the year 2012 and a supposed end of the world. 2012 is a number that happened to fit into the Mayan baktun cycle. This is the same Mayan civilization that fell around 1000 AD.

This post has been edited by laszlow on 13th July 2009 22:21

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Quote (laszlow @ 13th July 2009 16:12)

And the big crunch. The idea behind it is that the expansion of spacetime caused by the big bang could potentially lose momentum and come back and revert to the pre-bang superdense singularity it once was. Theoretically, this is possible if there is enough mass in the universe to slow down the acceleration of expansion in the other direction.

I've actually heard that the rate of expansion is increasing, so the Universe is continuing to accelerate. But the whole idea of science is to not decline any theories until they are disproven, so I can understand both the Big Bang and the Big Crunch, and if better theories come along I will change my mind.

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Praise Be To Helix!

That canon that would help prove the big bang?Thats a Large Hadron Collider that wil RECREATE the condintions seconds after the Big Bang and will put the final nail in the coffin of the Higgs boson the "god particle" that would give mass to Protons and Neutrons.The Large Hadron Collider would also attempt to ascertain whether Dark Matter exists which would explain the movement of Galaxies.

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Since I advertise CoN there I think it's only fair that I advertise The Wiki here.

There is only one person who decides when the end of the world will be,and thats god himself.He created it,he'll decide when it ends.I don't see why everyone is arguing about this.Why would u even bring something like this up.Its ridculous

This post has been edited by Sam on 30th July 2009 23:00

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Can't we get a better mission than this.I HATE CATS!!!!

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Quote (Sam @ 30th July 2009 22:43)

There is only one person who decides when the end of the world will be,and thats god himself.He created it,he'll decide when it ends.I don't see why everyone is arguing about this.Why would u even bring something like this up.Its ridculous

Because not everyone has the same opinions of a desert tribe 3,000 years ago about the beginning and ultimate fate of the universe.

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If god is all-forgiving then why do we have to kill people in his name?

While I still think this discussion is a bit silly (though not for the reason's Sam's throwing out there), I just wanted to mention that on my way to my softball game last night, I heard this being covered on NPR. Apparently, the specific date that is most theorized is 21 December 2012. That's the Winter Solstice. It also happens to be the date that I'll have my tenth wedding anniversary.

I mentioned this to my wife and she simply said "Yep. That sounds just. about. right."

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Quote (Messier17 @ 30th July 2009 18:11)

Quote (Sam @ 30th July 2009 22:43)

There is only one person who decides when the end of the world will be,and thats god himself.He created it,he'll decide when it ends.I don't see why everyone is arguing about this.Why would u even bring something like this up.Its ridculous 

Because not everyone has the same opinions of a desert tribe 3,000 years ago about the beginning and ultimate fate of the universe.

Your right about that.But you have to admit that its scary when u think about it.I try not to think about it,although I know it will happen sooner or later.Sorry for the inconvinience ive caused anyone

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Can't we get a better mission than this.I HATE CATS!!!!

Quote from Naruto

Quote (Rangers51 @ 30th July 2009 21:29)

While I still think this discussion is a bit silly (though not for the reason's Sam's throwing out there), I just wanted to mention that on my way to my softball game last night, I heard this being covered on NPR. Apparently, the specific date that is most theorized is 21 December 2012. That's the Winter Solstice. It also happens to be the date that I'll have my tenth wedding anniversary.

I mentioned this to my wife and she simply said "Yep. That sounds just. about. right."

Yeah I've heard that before. That'll be my 23rd birthday that day too.

Man, we'll go out with a party!

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Praise Be To Helix!

I don't know what you guys are talking about.

...

This is funny.

Later.

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