# The Straight Dope on the Mayan Calendar **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 19, 2008, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-straight-dope-on-the-mayan-calendar/477951 "2008-12-19T18:31:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![TwistofFate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/cdc98d/32.png) [@TwistofFate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TwistofFate)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2009, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-straight-dope-on-the-mayan-calendar/477951/141 "2009-01-05T14:14:47Z")
I tried superluminocity once but found better results with a standard 60w lightbulb in the lighting fixtures in my front room. I retained more of my hair and the child next door wasn’t woken up at night. How does that compare with your findings, Baudrunner? ---
**Author:** ![pancakes3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ba9def/32.png) [@pancakes3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pancakes3)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2009, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-straight-dope-on-the-mayan-calendar/477951/142 "2009-01-05T14:23:46Z")
Baud, I read the site. I also read the cites. Here’s what I think. It cites 3 scientists extensively - birkeland, bruce, and manuel. Birkeland was a scientist from the early 1800’s who made his claims based on research done that planetary B-fields (magnetic fields) are results of shifting E-fields. This led to the logic that our own planetary magnetic field was generated from the incongruities in a solid iron core moving within a liquid iron covering, which is then covered by the mantle, crust, atmosphere, etc. Birkeland would further postulate that the sun’s B-field is also generated by a spinning iron core - one that rotates every 23.7 days. Bruce was a scientist who further researched that B-fields can be generated by the movements within a cloud of charged particles, and is responsible for much of the solar activity in the solar system, at least atmospherically. This would explain why the surface of the sun is actually hotter than the core. Oliver Manuel is a professor at U-Missouri Rolla who along with his research associate are the sole scientific advocates of an iron core. He is also the same cite but in the form of a cnn article later as "a small group of maverick scientists). The main theory of Manuel’s iron core model reasons that the sun and our solar system are survivors of an ancient supernova. The exploded star left a core of iron and expelled most of everything else into orbit around it. The reasoning behind this was that Manuel looked lunar samples and asteroid samples, saw that they were of heavy metals which would be found in the core of a large, aging star, and concluded that it was a possibility that our solar system had been the victim of a small supernova, and our sun was pulsing as an abnormally large and bright dwarf. Furthermore, the research done by oliver addresses the source of the sun’s energy as neutron decay, which then forms helium and hydrogen ions, which may fuse and that compounded with the B-field generation discovered by Bruce, accounts for the energy released by the Sun. So… what do i think? I haven’t done any pen and paper work on this, and am unlikely to, but a brief lookover and mental math tells me that the spontaneous decay of an iron core is highly unlikely to produce the energy that the sun does in itself even under intense pressure. I’m also unimpressed by the static imaging of iron deposits in the sun. Nobody is doubting the presence of iron in the sun. Heavy metals do exist. The question is if it composes a significant amount of the core. An image taken at such a distance would have you believe that the entire core was made of iron when they could just be dispersed sparcely throughout. What i mean by that is, if you have 10 people, and you arrange them uniformly in a circle, you’d have maybe 5 on the perimeter and a few in between, but if you stand reaaaaally far away and look at the group, you would not be able to see through the group of people and conclude it’s a mass of people, when really they’re just dispersed uniformly. That’s a basic problem with image processing, especially on the astronomical level. So overall, the idea has weak legs, a lack of scientific support. The site itself, [surfaceofthesun.com](http://surfaceofthesun.com), probably hurts its cause rather than helps it from my viewpoint. And the condescending, yet baseless insults from Baud doesn’t help the cause either. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Carrot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f0a364/32.png) [@Captain\_Carrot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Carrot)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2009, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-straight-dope-on-the-mayan-calendar/477951/143 "2009-01-05T14:49:03Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > trying to be condescending to _hoi polloi_ who have failed to notice the brilliance of their prose Finally, somebody else who omits the article there! > [@jayjay](#): > > Choose your second, sir! And I’ll be backup for him in case he wanders off for a beer or something. ---
**Author:** ![baudrunner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e56c9b/32.png) [@baudrunner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/baudrunner)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2009, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-straight-dope-on-the-mayan-calendar/477951/144 "2009-01-08T16:57:01Z")
> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > Well, there’s not much possibility for debate if all you’re gonna do is just to tell me to read the link, is there? > > Anyway, searching the site for ‘neutrinos’ revealed exactly three hits, all in at best weakly related papers that espouse theories completely different from that of the website’s creator, so in the face of the failure of that approach, and with your apparent inability to answer even the most obvious and basic questions, I guess I’ll just go ahead and feel justified in sticking to my feeble-minded scepticism. Alright. You’d rather refute than research, so I decided to cut and paste a contribution I made to the Helium site some time ago on just this subject (the sun), so that you can catch up to the state of current knowledge. At least read this. > [@](#): > > Over the last few years the vast amount of data that is being gathered by satellites which are designed to study the sun has forced the scientific community to rethink the standard model on which the sun’s nature and composition are based. It appears that the old notion that the sun is a giant ball of gas whose surface is alive with swirls of magnetic flux is basically wrong. > > For one thing, sun-spot behavior does not follow the standard model. It was believed that the darker areas of a sunspot were only so because they had a cooler temperature, but analysis of ocean temperatures which actually increase during high sunspot activity seems to contradict this. Furthermore, more refined measurements of the temperatures in, around and above sunspots confirm that they exceed the temperatures found at similar altitudes in non-active regions. > > Images originating from the Stanford-Lockheed Institute for Space Research’s TRACE (Transition Region and Coronal Explorer) satellite has resulted in conflicting interpretations out of Lockheed and NASA. They do not agree on the meaning of the content of those images. > > Results from the SOT Optical telescope, Extreme-ultraviolet Imaging Spectrometer (EIS), and the X-Ray Telescope (XRT), all aboard the Hinode (formerly Solar-B) satellite appear to prove that plasma events on the sun are not purely magnetic events and in fact are electrically driven events. Images and measurements taken of coronal loops show that they are sourced by electric current, not magnetic current. > > The RHESSI (Reuven Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager) satellite has detected massive gamma discharges from the sun’s solar flares. When pointed toward the earth, the satellite detects gamma discharges occurring during electrical storm activity in our atmosphere. > > The Yohkoh (Japanese for ‘sunbeam’) satellite, a project of the Institute for Space and Astronautical Sciences in Japan produces images which exactly mirror those produced by Dr. Kristian Birkeland in his laboratory in the early 1900’s during his experiments with an electromagnetic cathode sphere. > > Readings across the spectrum from those satellites and others suggest that the sun’s surface consists of a massive iron mantle surrounded by a sea of plasma. The actual temperatures at the iron surface of the sun fall between 1500 and 2000 Kelvin – hot, but not necessarily hot enough to melt iron. In fact, iron has maintained a solid state at temperatures above 5100 Kelvin in laboratory conditions here on earth. > > The atmosphere of the sun from upper photosphere to the surface is about 4800 km deep. The outer photosphere consists of a neon plasma layer about 400-500 km in depth at about 5700 Kelvin. Under that is a silicon plasma layer about 3000 km in depth at from 2500 Kelvin at the bottom to about 4500 Kelvin at the top. Under that is a very dense calcium plasma layer, much cooler, ranging from 1500 to 2500 Kelvin. > > The atmosphere is hottest at the outer layers of the neon photosphere and coolest at the surface. The iron mantle is not consistent and varies in density, much like the iron found in the earth’s crust, which can take subtly different forms depending on density, like hematite, goethite, magnetite, siderite, and limonite. > > There even appear fissures in the sun’s mantle, which are regions of extreme violent electrical activity. A TRACE observatory image of a region on the sun’s surface reveals a crater which maintains its structure over time around a lot of liquid-like plasma activity. > > We can only assume that the old model holds true for the center of the sun, where no doubt violent nuclear reactions are taking place with the fusion of hydrogen nuclei into helium nuclei. ---
**Author:** ![baudrunner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e56c9b/32.png) [@baudrunner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/baudrunner)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2009, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-straight-dope-on-the-mayan-calendar/477951/145 "2009-01-08T17:07:59Z")
> [@pancakes3](#): > > Baud, I read the site. I also read the cites. Here’s what I think. > > It cites 3 scientists extensively - birkeland, bruce, and manuel. > > Birkeland was a scientist from the early 1800’s who made his claims based on research done that planetary B-fields (magnetic fields) are results of shifting E-fields. This led to the logic that our own planetary magnetic field was generated from the incongruities in a solid iron core moving within a liquid iron covering, which is then covered by the mantle, crust, atmosphere, etc. Birkeland would further postulate that the sun’s B-field is also generated by a spinning iron core - one that rotates every 23.7 days. > > Bruce was a scientist who further researched that B-fields can be generated by the movements within a cloud of charged particles, and is responsible for much of the solar activity in the solar system, at least atmospherically. This would explain why the surface of the sun is actually hotter than the core. > > Oliver Manuel is a professor at U-Missouri Rolla who along with his research associate are the sole scientific advocates of an iron core. He is also the same cite but in the form of a cnn article later as "a small group of maverick scientists). > > The main theory of Manuel’s iron core model reasons that the sun and our solar system are survivors of an ancient supernova. The exploded star left a core of iron and expelled most of everything else into orbit around it. The reasoning behind this was that Manuel looked lunar samples and asteroid samples, saw that they were of heavy metals which would be found in the core of a large, aging star, and concluded that it was a possibility that our solar system had been the victim of a small supernova, and our sun was pulsing as an abnormally large and bright dwarf. > > Furthermore, the research done by oliver addresses the source of the sun’s energy as neutron decay, which then forms helium and hydrogen ions, which may fuse and that compounded with the B-field generation discovered by Bruce, accounts for the energy released by the Sun. > > So… what do i think? > > I haven’t done any pen and paper work on this, and am unlikely to, but a brief lookover and mental math tells me that the spontaneous decay of an iron core is highly unlikely to produce the energy that the sun does in itself even under intense pressure. I’m also unimpressed by the static imaging of iron deposits in the sun. Nobody is doubting the presence of iron in the sun. Heavy metals do exist. The question is if it composes a significant amount of the core. An image taken at such a distance would have you believe that the entire core was made of iron when they could just be dispersed sparcely throughout. > > What i mean by that is, if you have 10 people, and you arrange them uniformly in a circle, you’d have maybe 5 on the perimeter and a few in between, but if you stand reaaaaally far away and look at the group, you would not be able to see through the group of people and conclude it’s a mass of people, when really they’re just dispersed uniformly. That’s a basic problem with image processing, especially on the astronomical level. > > So overall, the idea has weak legs, a lack of scientific support. The site itself, [surfaceofthesun.com](http://surfaceofthesun.com), probably hurts its cause rather than helps it from my viewpoint. And the condescending, yet baseless insults from Baud doesn’t help the cause either. I am not familiar with this “iron core model” of which you speak. I think that you do not fully understand the theory presented on the site, and/or that you did not read through the pages under all the tabs on the site’s menu. Here is a quote from “The Birkeland Solar Model” description on the site… > [@](#): > > _If you notice from these running difference images from SOHO using a 195 angstrom filter, the actual surface of the sun does not rotate at different speeds near the equator than it does at the poles like the photosphere. It acts FAR more like a solid, than a gas. If Galileo had access to these kinds of satellite images and videos, he probably would have come up with quite a different concept about makeup of the sun, probably one much like Dr. Birkeland presented several hundred years later. The critical thing to notice here between these different videos is that Galileo’s entire perspective was limited by what he could could OBSERVE with very limited technology in a very narrow wavelength range. The running difference images from SOHO show a UNIFORMLY rotating and SOLID surface, whereas the images of the photosphere show that the photosphere is moving plasma, and behaves very differently from the surface of the sun itself._ Obviously, he’s talking about axial rotation, because of course the rotation speed at the equator is much greater than at the poles. The operative words he uses here are “UNIFORMLY rotating”. ---
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2009, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-straight-dope-on-the-mayan-calendar/477951/146 "2009-01-08T17:39:55Z")
> [@baudrunner](#): > > Alright. You’d rather refute than research, Nah, I’m just kind of a fan of this whole ‘evidence’ thing, you know, citing sources, giving empirical substantiation to wild claims, that sort of stuff. For instance, if there are ‘vast amounts of data’ that apparently contradict established consensus, it shouldn’t be too hard to dig up a link to some paper presenting this data and its implications. If TRACE has resulted in conflicts between NASA and Lockheed, cite that conflict! Give some links to Hinode’s results! Show me where iron has remained solid at 5100K. Or the sunspot temperature measurements. Because I’ve tried googling all this, and came up empty, and I’m sorry, but even you have to admit that your claims are a bit too big for me to just take you on your word. Of course, even if all those assertions of yours are substantiated, you’d still have to show how this then favours your model of the sun over the standard one, and find a way round several problems with it, for instance its low density, given that there’s allegedly so much iron, or its emission spectrum that doesn’t show a neon predominance, or how, as you’re now saying, the sun can be hot on the inside (from the fusion going on), then relatively cold in the mantle region (how, by the way, is the number of 1500-2000K arrived at?), and then again have a hot plasma surface. So, in short again, to take your theories seriously, I’d need you to provide 1) evidence against the present consensus model (with reputable cites), 2) an explanation how your model fits this evidence better, 3) an explanation how your model fits current evidence the standard model explains quite well, like solar density, solar formation (how should a giant iron shell coalesce from an accretion disk, for example), energy production, neutrino output, astronomical data from other sun-type stars further down/earlier in their lifecycle, and probably some other things I’m forgetting right now. Only then will you even have something approaching a contending model. And it’s not me who’s demanding that kind of rigour – the sun could be god lighting his farts for all I care, as long as it shines. But science needs such measures as a quality control, in order to slowly but surely converge on the way things actually are; if we were to relax those constraints, we might as well start explaining thunderstorm with angry gods who we must appease with virgin sacrifices again. ---
**Author:** ![puppygod](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@puppygod](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puppygod)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2009, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-straight-dope-on-the-mayan-calendar/477951/147 "2009-01-08T17:46:08Z")
I must say, that I like \*\*baudrunner \*\*theory and I’m willing to propagate it, but under one condition: I got to pilot that huge bunker-buster riding on fastest rocket evar. Think about countless pick-up line possibilities. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2009, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-straight-dope-on-the-mayan-calendar/477951/148 "2009-01-08T17:50:44Z")
Not going to post a bunch of quotes from it, but I found a [link](http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2006/arch06/060120solar1.htm) to a site that discusses this whole idea of an iron sun, the supposed neutron star remnant of a supernova question and such. Basically what I take from this and from the discussion on Bad Astronomer’s blog and message board is that most scientists think it’s a bunch of bunk ([here](http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/question.php?number=673) is a link to a cite that also contains links to the BA forums and the question asked there). Some think it’s interesting but not enough to change the accepted model of the sun, how it was formed, it’s life cycle and what it is made of. Even if the sun WERE made of iron (or had a large iron component :dubious:) that still wouldn’t say anything about the OP’s outlandish tale of anti-matter asteroids or vampiric civilizations moving through the cosmos like interstellar locusts, blah blah blah. Whether the iron sun THEORY is correct or not (looks like ‘not’) is moot from the perspective of the OP…this whole aspect of the discussion is simply an attempt to muddy the waters. I’m militantly unsurprised… -XT ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2009, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-straight-dope-on-the-mayan-calendar/477951/149 "2009-01-08T18:03:44Z")
My understanding is that according to [the TMBG Group](http://www.imeem.com/tsheidi/music/Nc6RBl0K/they_might_be_giants_the_sun_is_a_mass_of_incandescent_gas/)the sun is a mass of incandescent gas, a gigantic nuclear furnace, where hydrogen is built into helium at temperatures of millions of degrees. They do make a quite compelling argument for this position. ---
**Author:** ![mlees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2009, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-straight-dope-on-the-mayan-calendar/477951/150 "2009-01-08T18:45:44Z")
**Half** , a question about the paired particles. If the act of me observing it changes it’s state, then from my point of view, shouldn’t the particle appear to be constantly in flux? My eyes, barin, and equipment don’t operate on (insert the smallest scale of time we can think of). Do subatomic particles actually sit around for long without being affected by their environment in any way? ---
**Author:** ![pancakes3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ba9def/32.png) [@pancakes3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pancakes3)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2009, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-straight-dope-on-the-mayan-calendar/477951/151 "2009-01-08T19:02:13Z")
> [@baudrunner](#): > > I am not familiar with this “iron core model” of which you speak. I think that you do not fully understand the theory presented on the site, and/or that you did not read through the pages under all the tabs on the site’s menu. Here is a quote from “The Birkeland Solar Model” description on the site… > > Obviously, he’s talking about axial rotation, because of course the rotation speed at the equator is much greater than at the poles. The operative words he uses here are “UNIFORMLY rotating”. so what is the material of this surface and where does it reside? is it iron, and lies beneath the outer atmosphere of swirling gasses (solar wind) ? could that be construed as an iron core? ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2009, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-straight-dope-on-the-mayan-calendar/477951/152 "2009-01-08T19:03:42Z")
My understanding of the, um, theory is that the core is a neutron star (the remnant of a supernova) shielded in some way by an iron shell. -XT [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-straight-dope-on-the-mayan-calendar/477951.md?page=7)