Weather Report

[djf01]

I once heard a physicist interviewed on the subject of planetary alignments. He explained that the gravitational effect of Jupiter on him, the biggest and closest (and thus most significant) of the solar system's major planets, was about that of a small dog.

I decided to check this.

When Jupiter and the Earth are at their closest, they 6.0 X 10^11m apart.
Jupiter is about 1.9 x 10^27kg.

So using Newton's gravity equation:

F = G x m1 x m2 / ( r^2 )

What mass equivalent is needed at r = 1m to have the same effect as Jupiter at 6x10^11m?

m = 1.9 x 10^27 / (6.0 x 10^11)^2 = 1.9 x 10^27 / (3.6 x 10^23) = 5 x 10^3

or, 5 metric tonnes. Now that's a bloody big dog.

But ... what it means is if the gravitational impact of Jupiter on the earth's tectonic plates is roughly the same (actually a lot less, but what the heck) as a single (very) small railroad locomotive. But as Jupiter really is a problem, then quite clearly railroad activity in California is the unmistakebly cause of all San Andreas fault earthquakes.

Just think about it. The gravitation acceleration of Jupiter (at it's closest) is:

a = G x M / r^2 = 6.7 x 10^-11 x 1.9 x 10^27 / (6.0 x 10^11)^2
= 6.7 x 10^-11 x 5 x 10^3
= 3.4 x 10^-7 m/s^2

After a month of being exposed to this fierce acceleration, we would be moving at:

s = a x t = 3.4 x 10^-7 x 2.6 x 10^6 = 0.9 m/s = 3.2 km/hr or less than 2 miles per hour

But as it effects all of us equally, we probably won't notice.

[nedfumpkin]

I feel that you people are not treating this matter seriously, I have done some research via the trusty internet and I have found the following site to be very useful
http://www.randi.org/encyclopedia/appendix3.html
Prophets proclaiming doom are nothing new, but there is no smoke without fire, so I truly believe that one day the earth and all life on it will end. On the other hand the way the stock market and the price of oil are going I think it might be wise to only invest in the short term just to play it safe.

I take the subject very seriously, and I have been studying it since the early 80s. It's just difficult to include so much information in a post.

But, yes, you are very correct, in what you have written, and I apologize for not having addressed it in my post because I always preface discussions on the topic with a disclaimer.

Every generation of mankind has thought that theirs would be the one to witness the end of the world. Ours is no different. The primary reason for this is that a few of them have been right. Most people take their information on the subject from mythology, and there is a lot of it out there, and as much is disguised as science.

When dealing with the topic of catastrophism, it really helps to define the term mythology. That term applies to any explanation for an historical event. Mythology in and of itself is neither true nor false, a myth just is. There is always a tendency for people to perceive myths as being fables or lore. In our context, there is a big difference. I'll give you an example....

The Book of Genesis contains the Judeo-Christian creation myth, as well as the Noahide deluge myth. In certain fundamentalist sects the creation myth is accepted literally as it is written. There is a museum in the US, and an other in Canada that presents the creation myth as scientific fact. There are people who truly believe that creation took place in 6 our our days.

Guess what. It is all true. But now we are getting into degrees of truth. The creation myth contained twice in the Book of Genesis is just another version of the Bing Bang myth. It has been simplified to it most simple form, but still, we find that the story is essential the same. The more we learn about evolution on the earth, and the cosmos above us, the more we discover not how much in Genesis is wrong, but how much of it is right. Block out the whole concept of days and you will find that the order of creation pretty much matches the order set out in our "scientific" theories.

But to properly understand the creation myth, we have to look at its origins, and its journey from there to where it is now. We also have to look at geological and geographic history. And suddenly we find that there is a truth as the kernel that suffered a sever battering in its journey to the here and now.

First we must remember that the Genesis myth was transmitted orally for generations and it wasn't until after the return from Babylon that it was committed to written form. For context, look at the Santa Claus myth that is less than half the life of the Book of Genesis. In a few hunfded years we have gone from a dutchman in a mitre to just learning that he is in fact Bombardiere in Taipei. :)

We here about the garden of Eden and think of it as some mystical place that existed only in the minds of the original authors, yet if we look closely enough we discover that at the tip of the Arabian peninsula is a place called Aden. A very long time ago the geography around Aden was pretty much a lush tropical paradise. Now it minor as an oasis. If we keep digging through history, we start finding that there appears to have been an exodus north, and an the Old Testament is basically the history of the migration of a specific people. The story is presented in a manner that implies that it pertains to the whole of the world, but that is nothing more than arrogance on the part of the writer. The same applies to all peoples. American history is americentric, etc.

The Epic of Gilgamesh predates the written record by centuries. The story of a flood affecting all of the earth is apparent to some degree in mythologies all over the world. There is geological records of this deluge. Referring back to my previous post, it dates to sometime around 7000bc. There is water erosion on the Sphynx.

It is the fact that there have been many instances where catastrophe has been the end of the world, either locally or globally, that we have been captivated by the whole concept. It happens, and it happens all the time in varying degrees. But the big ones, the really big ones do in fact happen, and evidence is pointing in the direction that it happens on a regular basis.

[djf01]

It is worthwhile to try and do something about things you can affect, but a total waste of valuable time and energy to worry about the end of the world.

If I can make any sense of this thread, the only conclusion I can draw is we should be lobbying our politicians to spend more of researching and mapping earth orbit crossing asteroids.

A 10 year program to map all earth crossing solar objects >1km in diameter was started (a number of years ago now). But it's believed a 500m diameter asteroid impact would be enough to kill at least a continent. A much more prudent use of NASA (and other world space agencies for that matter) funds than having two guys sit in a smelly tin can watching the world rotate beneath them IMHO.

[nedfumpkin]

It is worthwhile to try and do something about things you can affect, but a total waste of valuable time and energy to worry about the end of the world.

If I can make any sense of this thread, the only conclusion I can draw is we should be lobbying our politicians to spend more of researching and mapping earth orbit crossing asteroids.

A 10 year program to map all earth crossing solar objects >1km in diameter was started (a number of years ago now). But it's believed a 500m diameter asteroid impact would be enough to kill at least a continent. A much more prudent use of NASA (and other world space agencies for that matter) funds than having two guys sit in a smelly tin can watching the world rotate beneath them IMHO.

Actually, no. Mapping earth crossing asteroids is a waste of money except to satisfy curiousity. The statiscal probability of us getting hit with a planet killer (or mass effecting) asteroid is so miniscule as to be non-existent. It is built on the same theory as trying to map the cars passing by on a racetrack to try to figure out which one will end up in the ditch the next time it drives by. The asteroids that are being mapped are the ones in orbit, and it is only after they pass by a few times are we able to figure out that they even exist, and where they might possibly be in the future. Huge margins for error and correction. No real useful information though.

What they cannot map is a long period object, or one on a one way trip. It one of those were aimed at us we wouldn't know it until after the dust settled. So no, we shouldn't be worried about the end of the world happening on any given day, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't be vigilant to disaster of any scale because that's just plain survival. The smaller the disaster, the more common it is.


Hawk, I wanted to see your 44 false prophets, and raise you another hundred and fifty, but I can't seem to find that list. History is much more full of end times prophesy than the few listed in on that site.

The point that I was trying to make is that yes, there are hundreds of end times prophecies that have come and gone. Those were almost all based on hocus pocus, or really bad science. At the same time, there is solid scientific evidence to demonstrate that the earth has suffered global catastrophe at least 3 times in the last 12,000 years, and it appears to follow a roughly 3600-4000 year cycle. Most ancient mythologies appear to tie in, or find origin in these events.

I have posited a theory that places a world extinction event to any time within the next four hundred years. This is based on a lot of research over many years. I give my own theory as much credence as any other theory, which is a very low probability. I will not be building a bunker, and I have only as much food and water in my place to last me a day or two. If one is going to prepare for a disaster, best to prepare for the most common for your area. People in Kansas just shouldn't live in trailers. If you build a city below sea level, get a boat.

The fact is that the "Big One" will eventually happen. There is no doubt to that because the history of the earth is filled with such events. Life will always survive, even on Mars. There is no preparation that one can do for such a thing other than to learn how to live like a caveman. Not that it is going to help since when the "big one" happens, the immediate impact on the population is going to be death. The probabilities for survival of the initial event are only 50/50, then there is a 90% chance you will not survive the first year.

But its still fun to think about. :)

[djf01]

Actually, no. Mapping earth crossing asteroids is a waste of money except to satisfy curiousity. The statiscal probability of us getting hit with a planet killer (or mass effecting) asteroid is so miniscule as to be non-existent.

My understanding is:
- The probability of such an event occurring in a given year is very low.
- The probability of another such event occurring at some point in the future is certain.
- Even if these are a 1:100million year events (almost certainly more frequent than that), they are likely to kill every human on earth.
- With a population of about (obviously) 10bil, it means the expected number (statistical definition) of people to be killed each year by a planet killing asteroid is about 100. This means you are more likely to be killed by an asteroid than eaten by a shark, or killed by a polar bear, or die from spontaneous combustion.

All I'm saying is this is a real risk, and even though it is very small, the adverse outcome is very very severe. And it *is* something we can do something about.

[nedfumpkin]

People should prepare for the disasters that are most likely to affect them. Your chances of survival in any disaster are the greatest. If a near earth object (neo) is going to impact the earth, the effect that it will have is generally to cause the most likely disaster for a region. Floodplains can expect floods, coasts can expect tidal waves and hurricanes. That is, if it doesn't do total destruction.

The likelihood that the earth will experience a near extinction event at some point in the future is so close to 100%, that it can be accepted as a certainty. We just don't know when it will happen. If we take my previous figure of once every 4000 years, then in that time hundreds of billions of people will have lived and died without experiencing it. So the statistical probability of it happening in any given individuals lifetime is very remote so as to be almost non-existent. The closer to the 4000 year mark you get, the higher the probability, but it is still small.

This is based on a mass extinction event where the cause can be from any source. If we then look at only one possible source, such as a neo, then the probability has so many zeros after the decimal that your head would spin.

Having said that, the chances of it happening are 50/50. Either it happens or it doesn't, and this is just luck and chance and it is at the individual level.

But we're going from one extreme to the other here. Disasters are generally regional so you can always bring resources from outside disaster zone to aid recovery. In most cases, unless you are directly and physically harmed by the cause of the disaster you are more in a situation of temporary inconvenience. Sure you lost all your crap, but for survivors it is more a case of rebuilding by replacing. Here you are limited only by politics and to a much lesser degree logistics. Wounds are healed and recovery is quick in geological time. Had the Tunguska meteor exploded a few second later, it would have been over St. Petersburg, and most likely would have flattened the city. It would have been rebuilt by today just as cities that were bombed flat in WW2 have been now.

When there is a mass extinction event, there are no resources that can be brought in to help. What you have is what you will ever have for the rest of your life. The 800 bottles of water you have stored, if still available will not ever be replaced. Keep in mind that most things today are designed to break in a very short life span so that you go out and buy another. In such a case, once everything is used up, you will have to figure out how to survive on nothing.

An initial impact event would result in an immediate death casualty rate within the first 48 hours of about 50% of the global population. Scores more would have various injury, and over the first week, death rates would have increased to about 60-65%. By the end of the first year, 90% of the earth's population will have died from accident, starvation, disease, or stupidity. 10% will survive, and from them the human race will repopulate.

One of the most important things that people will have to be concerned about in such an event is the sun. An impact from a neo, comet, or anything else that is able to affect the entire earth will have a significant impact on the geo-magnetic field. There will be giant holes and cracks in it. The dust that is created will give a false sense of security and anyone venturing out during the day will be subjected to a lost of radiation. Many will go blind or get tumors and die. This will also be the demise of electronics.

A whole earth affecting impact basically resets us to the stone age on the cusp of the bronze/iron age. If you can make it there, you chances of survival are much greater. So if someone wanted to prepare for a mass extinction disaster, knowing egress routes is great, but knowing how to smoke meat to keep it preserved and how to tan hides will be so much more greater.

(geez...and my boss is the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness....but I call him the minister of wet suits and water fun.)

[Gandar]

OK I have read through these posts a couple of times and I think I now have the gist of it.
Its raining in Phoenix, its raining in Seattle,In Pennsylvania its damp, up in The Soo it was wet as well, whilst Hawk reported rain finally in Georgia. Now I was in BC and Alaska last week and guess what, it was raining in those places too, talk about dumb preconceptions, I was expecting snow in Alaska how naive. Then we find that this is all possibly linked to the alignment of the planets coming up in 2012, nedfumpkin begs to differ and puts forward a very plausible case for long period objects, he also seems very knowledgeable about it but by his own admission he works for the government so I think that he will likely be applying for a doctoral grant to pursue this line of research, and to be honest it seems like a better subject than some I have heard. dfi01 seems to think that the problems we are experiencing seem to be caused by railroads in California. Now that makes me really stop and think, because whilst I was in Alaska I went on the White Pass and Yukon RR they also seemed to have railroads in all these other places too, In fact every place that seems to be having a problem with weather seems to have rail tracks.
The answer to the survival of the human race is obvious. If you intend to board a train take an umbrella.

[AZ Rail Rat]

I'll have to come back and catch up on this thread when I have more time. Will be VERY difficult not to throw in my somewhere.

Until then . . . Hey Hawk . . . YOU had a warmer Memorial Weekend than we did. It was mostly in the high 70s!

And Ned . . . in the 1920s, those "wayward women" did not make MILLION$ for movies, TV and tabloids. We still try to put them away, but they keep escaping!

[nedfumpkin]

Just to clarify something, as much as my pay stub has official logos on it, I am not directly involved in any disaster preparations or recovering efforts. My job is more along the lines of inhaling and exhaling on a regular basis. Once in a while I have to type something. So my theories and opinions carry no official weight whatsoever, and could as well be those of the gardener who takes care of the bushes in the capital.

One thing I can say with absolute certainty is that in the event of an all affecting disaster, the government is not going to be any help at all. 9 out of 10 public servants are complete idiots when it comes to things that really matter. Half of them can barely do their jobs. It wasn't always like that, but one idiot hired another idiot, and then those idiots hired more idiots, and now all the can do is hire more idiots. Occasionally a non-idiot accidentally gets in and that poor bastard gets burned out, driven insane, or leaves in shambles.

[Hawk]

Hawk, I wanted to see your 44 false prophets,...

Now where'd that come from?

One thing I can say with absolute certainty is that in the event of an all affecting disaster, the government is not going to be any help at all. 9 out of 10 public servants are complete idiots when it comes to things that really matter. Half of them can barely do their jobs. It wasn't always like that, but one idiot hired another idiot, and then those idiots hired more idiots, and now all the can do is hire more idiots. Occasionally a non-idiot accidentally gets in and that poor bastard gets burned out, driven insane, or leaves in shambles.

You got that right. Depending on any government for anything is sure suicide.

[Gandar]

Just to clarify something, as much as my pay stub has official logos on it, I am not directly involved in any disaster preparations or recovering efforts. My job is more along the lines of inhaling and exhaling on a regular basis. Once in a while I have to type something. So my theories and opinions carry no official weight whatsoever, and could as well be those of the gardener who takes care of the bushes in the capital.

One thing I can say with absolute certainty is that in the event of an all affecting disaster, the government is not going to be any help at all. 9 out of 10 public servants are complete idiots when it comes to things that really matter. Half of them can barely do their jobs. It wasn't always like that, but one idiot hired another idiot, and then those idiots hired more idiots, and now all the can do is hire more idiots. Occasionally a non-idiot accidentally gets in and that poor bastard gets burned out, driven insane, or leaves in shambles.

From my own personal experience it seems that government employees are required to shelve thinking and their own sensibilities, and instead required to act in a manner that substitutes routine mediocraty for thought. Routine becomes the purpose, and anyone trying to bring personality or interest into their function, stands out from the crowd as a disruptive influence. If you take these people away from the job they are not idiots at all but they have to appear that way to survive and get promoted.
If we do have such a disaster they will be there through thick and thin telling us which forms to fill in and where to mail them to. Who knows after so many years of not rocking the boat you may be the guy who gets to count how many forms were filled out incorrectly so that no action could be taken. Do a good job and there could be a promotion in it for you.

[Gandar]

Post by Hawk on Tue May 27, 2008 5:34 pm

nedfumpkin wrote:Hawk, I wanted to see your 44 false prophets,...


Now where'd that come from?

Sorry Hawk that was from me
The link leads to a site describing 44 prophesies of the end of the world, it was intended as humour but if you didn't follow the link you would not have seen the point.
I must remember to put a smiley in.

Gandar wrote:I feel that you people are not treating this matter seriously, I have done some research via the trusty internet and I have found the following site to be very useful
http://www.randi.org/encyclopedia/appendix3.html
Prophets proclaiming doom are nothing new, but there is no smoke without fire, so I truly believe that one day the earth and all life on it will end. On the other hand the way the stock market and the price of oil are going I think it might be wise to only invest in the short term just to play it safe.

[Hawk]

Yea, but nedfumpkin replied to me and not you. That's where I got confused.
I guess I should follow these threads a little closer. I've been just a little otherwise preoccupied here lately, ya' know - trying to hone my - Ahmm! - marketable skills.

[nedfumpkin]

My brain fog mixed with your brain fog and soup was made. The post I was replying to had a link to 44 end of times prophecies that never came true. I wanted to see those 44 prophets and raise another 100. Poker reference....but I couldn't find the link I was looking for....until just now...

http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/rapture.html

[Grandma Ruth]

Excellent link, Ned! But what I've just realised is that, whatever else happens, 20/12/2012 is going to be (insh'Allah) just a few days away from my grandson's Bar Mitzvah, so he really must be the Messiah as we thought! Anybody wants to get on his right side now, just talk nice to his Grandma!

[WPandP]

I wanted to see those 44 prophets and raise another 100. Poker reference....but I couldn't find the link I was looking for....until just now...

http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/rapture.html

The myriad examples listed in that article serve, in my mind, as vibrant proof of the accuracy of the Bible itself (as compared to the humorous foolishness of humans). Whatever do I mean? Well, I'll save you all from an overbearing large post by just giving you a link to a critique I've written. That article is pretty much full of holes, and I decided to drive a truck through them. Not in terms of the false prophecy chronicled, but rather what it is that the author makes of it all.

http://wpandp.com/Articles/RaptureCritique.txt

I hope you enjoy!

[Gandar]

I wanted to see those 44 prophets and raise another 100. Poker reference....but I couldn't find the link I was looking for....until just now...

http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/rapture.html

The myriad examples listed in that article serve, in my mind, as vibrant proof of the accuracy of the Bible itself (as compared to the humorous foolishness of humans). Whatever do I mean? Well, I'll save you all from an overbearing large post by just giving you a link to a critique I've written. That article is pretty much full of holes, and I decided to drive a truck through them. Not in terms of the false prophecy chronicled, but rather what it is that the author makes of it all.

http://wpandp.com/Articles/RaptureCritique.txt

I hope you enjoy!

Oh I did enjoy your critique. There is something so sweet about a debunker being debunked in turn.

Note to self make sure to check everything 3 times before posting, people may read it !

[nedfumpkin]

The myriad examples listed in that article serve, in my mind, as vibrant proof of the accuracy of the Bible itself (as compared to the humorous foolishness of humans). Whatever do I mean? Well, I'll save you all from an overbearing large post by just giving you a link to a critique I've written. That article is pretty much full of holes, and I decided to drive a truck through them. Not in terms of the false prophecy chronicled, but rather what it is that the author makes of it all.

http://wpandp.com/Articles/RaptureCritique.txt

I hope you enjoy!

I believe that the author of the original article is in fact Michael Rivero, who is the owner of the Whatreallyhappened.com site. Had I posted the link at the time I originally wanted to include it, I would have posted a disclaimer about the bias of the author.(I have a lot on my mind of late) Rivero has more religious fervor in his atheism/paganism than a lot of born again fanatics I have seen. I think deep down he continues to worship the volcano gods of his native Hawaii. But I'll leave my opinions of him to another time and place.

End Times is a lucrative business. Whether you want to accept it or not, from selling translations of Nostradamus to imploring to give big now in return for heavenly rewards, there is money to be made from it, and the industry includes the debunkers as well. Of course, that doesn't mean that most people are true in their personal beliefs, it just happens that most are wrong, or being misled by a few charismatic speakers.

In all that I have posted on this topic, I have had as my base source Matthew 24. As I previously posted, I have been actively at this since the early 80s, however, my Christian studies go back a few more years. I only mention this so you know where I am coming from, not as any expression of any expertise. There is no claim to being right here, only an expression that I have taken the Biblical and matched it with the scientific and historical to derive my conclusions.

Since there as many different Christian belief systems as there are varieties of apples, it may assist also if I define my Christian beliefs....The Old Testament is the family history of a tribe of people that is continuing today. (Israel). The New Testament is a separate entity, and it is for the deliverance of the Christmessage, which is an interpretation and perfection of the Judaic Law. An historical being in the form of a Yeshu ben Yosef is accepted, and any issues with the historical aspects of Jesus the Christ are incidental to the Christmessage.

I consider myself to be a Gospillian. How's that for a made up word? What it means is that the essential information is contained in the four Gospels, with the Acts as appendix. All Pauline thought is commentary only and has no authority. The Book of the Revelation is nothing more than science fiction. The author, one John of Patmos, has no claim to authority. The Christmessage prevails over everything else.

My interpretation of Matthew 16:28, is that it does not refer to an end of the world scenario, but in fact it is referring to Christ's ministry as he discussed it leading up to this last paragraph. JMO.

There are all kinds of beginning and ends, figurative and literal. The Gospels speak only once in depth of an end times that involves the future physical destruction of the world. This is at Matthew 24.

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?se ... ersion=31;

Note, the link is to the International Version, however, you can select whichever translation you choose.

(more to come later)

[ostlandr]

"Occasionally a non-idiot accidentally gets in and that poor bastard gets burned out, driven insane, or leaves in shambles."

That, my friends, is why I take three pills a day.

[nedfumpkin]

Quick note...over the last few days I've had to write more than 17 pages of legalese and that has exhausted my brain. I'll get back to this topic when my brain rests.