# Can the end of the world be predicted?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-end-of-the-world-be-predicted/483207
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [January 27, 2009, 9:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-end-of-the-world-be-predicted/483207 "2009-01-27T09:47:09Z")
**Posts on this page:** 14
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Zelzellie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zelzellie)
#### Post date: [January 27, 2009, 9:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-end-of-the-world-be-predicted/483207/1 "2009-01-27T09:47:09Z")
Hi Cecil
I would like to know if the end of the world can be predicted? And if so, when will it be?
Thanx
Zellie
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### Author:  [@Ed\_Zotti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ed_Zotti)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2009, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-end-of-the-world-be-predicted/483207/2 "2009-01-28T22:10:42Z")
I think Cecil will have a hard time resisting this one.
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### Author:  [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2009, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-end-of-the-world-be-predicted/483207/3 "2009-01-28T22:35:06Z")
I’ve always wanted to have a wall of countdown clocks to different ends of the world. Not wanted it enough to actually DO anything about it, but the image keeps recurring and I smile whenever it does. I can just see all of the fringe countdowns going negative in a big way. End of the Mayan calendar? We’ll breeze by that one.
An artist doing it as an installation piece should be required to power it in a way that could conceivably keep it going past . . . what? You couldn’t get it to go past the heat death of the universe. It would get burned up when the sun goes red giant. But assuming that at some point humanity ends with the earth still there, well, I think an artist sould power it past that point.
Just out of curiosity, does anyone know how far out into the solar system would it have to be placed to keep it from burning up when the sun expands?
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### Author:  [@Zelzellie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zelzellie)
#### Post date: [January 29, 2009, 6:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-end-of-the-world-be-predicted/483207/4 "2009-01-29T06:16:34Z")
> [@Ed\_Zotti](#):
>
> I think Cecil will have a hard time resisting this one.
I think so too.. And I want to know what he says about it
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### Author:  [@Sr\_Siete](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sr_Siete)
#### Post date: [January 29, 2009, 8:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-end-of-the-world-be-predicted/483207/5 "2009-01-29T08:53:13Z")
Of course it can. If you accept a margin of error of a more or less a billion years or so, very accurately.
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### Author:  [@ivan\_astikov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivan_astikov)
#### Post date: [February 12, 2009, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-end-of-the-world-be-predicted/483207/6 "2009-02-12T16:28:43Z")
It’s been a popular pasttime for a while now.
> [@](#):
>
> The Earth is degenerating these days. Bribery and corruption abound. Children no longer mind their parents, every man wants to write a book, and it is evident that the end of the world is fast approaching.
>
> - Assyrian Stone Tablet, c.2800BC
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### Author:  [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)
#### Post date: [February 13, 2009, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-end-of-the-world-be-predicted/483207/7 "2009-02-13T18:19:48Z")
> [@ivan\_astikov](#):
>
> It’s been a popular pasttime for a while now.
FWIW, that quote appears to be fake, or at least un-findable. However, from this source:
“History Begins at Sumer: [thirty-seven firsts in man’s recorded history]
By Samuel Noah Kramer
Published by Doubleday, 1959
Original from the University of Michigan”
There is an interesting bit from about 1700BC (possibly earlier) where a father is lecturing his juvenile delinquent son.
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### Author:  [@ivan\_astikov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivan_astikov)
#### Post date: [February 13, 2009, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-end-of-the-world-be-predicted/483207/8 "2009-02-13T22:13:44Z")
> [@Una\_Persson](#):
>
> FWIW, that quote appears to be fake, or at least un-findable. However, from this source:
> “History Begins at Sumer: [thirty-seven firsts in man’s recorded history]
> By Samuel Noah Kramer
> Published by Doubleday, 1959
> Original from the University of Michigan”
>
> There is an interesting bit from about 1700BC (possibly earlier) where a father is lecturing his juvenile delinquent son.
I found it [here](http://exchristian.net/exchristian/2003/11/stupid-scary-and-ignorant-quotes.php)(5 or 6 quotes down.). I apologise for not checking it for veracity. Do you think it was stupid, scary or ignorant…or a combo of the 3? 🙂
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### Author:  [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)
#### Post date: [February 14, 2009, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-end-of-the-world-be-predicted/483207/9 "2009-02-14T00:59:18Z")
You perhaps misunderstand; I was not trying to call “cite” on you, merely pointing out something else interesting I found recently along those lines.
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### Author:  [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)
#### Post date: [February 14, 2009, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-end-of-the-world-be-predicted/483207/10 "2009-02-14T02:28:06Z")
**ivan** , you’ll have to admit that was a fairly loose translation. There someone is carving that in stone and “books” in any language wouldn’t be invented for a long, long time. Maybe the person who carved that meant that everyone wanted to carve a stone.
Wonder if it had “B.C.” on it.
(Just kidding)
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### Author:  [@Man\_With\_a\_Cat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Man_With_a_Cat)
#### Post date: [February 14, 2009, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-end-of-the-world-be-predicted/483207/11 "2009-02-14T03:58:46Z")
The end of the world has come and gone, what we live in now is what’s called an echo-consciousness, where we believe that what we’re living in still exists, whereas the reality is that we all became dust on October 14, 1962.
Was it good for you?
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### Author:  [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)
#### Post date: [February 27, 2009, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-end-of-the-world-be-predicted/483207/12 "2009-02-27T13:42:22Z")
Cecil has indeed responded, as a second question in this week’s column: [Can playing the bongos make you urinate blood? - The Straight Dope](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2848/can-playing-the-bongos-make-you-piss-blood)
Congrats, **Zellie** , on achieving the fame and fortune (well, the fame) of being addressed by Cecil!
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [February 27, 2009, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-end-of-the-world-be-predicted/483207/13 "2009-02-27T17:27:48Z")
> [@](#):
>
> An artist doing it as an installation piece should be required to power it in a way that could conceivably keep it going past . . . what? You couldn’t get it to go past the heat death of the universe. It would get burned up when the sun goes red giant. But assuming that at some point humanity ends with the earth still there, well, I think an artist sould power it past that point.
You may be interested to read about the [Clock of the Long Now](http://www.longnow.org/projects/clock/). There are a lot of challenges in such a thing that you might not appreciate before thinking of them.
And why is this in the Chicago section? I know that Chicago is the center of the world and all, but it seems to me that the End would be relevant to all us folks out on the fringe, too.
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### Author:  [@BadCatholic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BadCatholic)
#### Post date: [August 24, 2009, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-end-of-the-world-be-predicted/483207/14 "2009-08-24T05:07:01Z")
Meteor doom, comet on its way:
[http://www.mikesastrophotos.com](http://www.mikesastrophotos.com)
This is the big one.