The Photon Belt has its own wiki page now

[Yllaria]

Cecil’s column, reprinted from 1996/7, says that, despite it being, well, nuts, faith in The Photon Belt continues. I was curious to see if there was still a following, so I googled. Yup. The interest is still out there, with drawings of the belt and YouTube videos and everything.

The belt even has it’s ownwikipedia page. I’m happy to say that the page includes “Scientific criticism” although it’s near the bottom.

I swear, if I ever suddenly became obscenely wealthy, I’d start collecting books foretelling the end of the world and group them by date, as a display of concept. Library theater. In addition to the dates of publication Cecil gave (1981, 1986, and 1991), wiki gives 1950, 1977, and 1979. Those are dates of publication, rather than predicted end dates, but I bet those jumped around, too.

[drastic_quench]

Status New Age belief

[Exapno_Mapcase]

You could do a library by date of predicted end that includes every year from 0 - 2013. If you couldn’t find something for a year, that only means it hasn’t survived, not that it never existed.

People make end of the world predictions all the time. All. the. time. The world is big and it frightens little people.

[Amateur_Barbarian]

@Exapno_Mapcase

The world is big and it frightens little people.

I just wanted to frame that.

[Chronos]

I’ve heard it speculated, tongue-in-cheek, that all these doomsday predictors are the only reason the world still exists. See, the Gospels say that we will not know the day nor the hour. So as long as someone’s predicting the End on some particular day, it can’t end on that day, because if it did, that person would be in violation of the Gospels. And so, since every day is predicted as the End by someone or another, the world can never end.

[PatriotX]

@Chronos

I’ve heard it speculated, tongue-in-cheek, that all these doomsday predictors are the only reason the world still exists. See, the Gospels say that we will not know the day nor the hour. So as long as someone’s predicting the End on some particular day, it can’t end on that day, because if it did, that person would be in violation of the Gospels. And so, since every day is predicted as the End by someone or another, the world can never end.

It’s hard to argue with success.

[Sailboat]

The Photon Belt is, however, the perfect thing to hold up the pants when you’re dressing light.

[Exapno_Mapcase]

@Chronos

I’ve heard it speculated, tongue-in-cheek, that all these doomsday predictors are the only reason the world still exists. See, the Gospels say that we will not know the day nor the hour. So as long as someone’s predicting the End on some particular day, it can’t end on that day, because if it did, that person would be in violation of the Gospels. And so, since every day is predicted as the End by someone or another, the world can never end.

QED.

@Sailboat

The Photon Belt is, however, the perfect thing to hold up the pants when you’re dressing light.

Applause.

[Yllaria]

@Chronos

I’ve heard it speculated, tongue-in-cheek, that all these doomsday predictors are the only reason the world still exists. See, the Gospels say that we will not know the day nor the hour. So as long as someone’s predicting the End on some particular day, it can’t end on that day, because if it did, that person would be in violation of the Gospels. And so, since every day is predicted as the End by someone or another, the world can never end.

I find that thought compelling.

@Sailboat

The Photon Belt is, however, the perfect thing to hold up the pants when you’re dressing light.

And that thought painful. Ouch.

[John_W.Kennedy]

We seem to be treading upon the skirts of the Unexpected-Hanging Paradox here.