Assume for argument we survive Winter Solstice 2012. On the assumption that was overly easy for you to do, what is the next date you won’t sweat?
- That’s when Nostradamus’s prophecies run out.
October 28, 2017 - October 27, 2018. That’s when I’ll be 53, and a number of men I’ve known kicked the bucket at that age. Just a personal one there.
On a global scale, there’s supposedly an asteroid that’ll come very close to the Earth in 2029.
It is ending but it’s a slow process. It started right at 2012 but might take a billion or s years to complete!
That would be Apophis. It actually has a higher (albeit still very low) chance of hitting in 2036.
In Jehovah’s Witness theology, Christ’s Invisible Presence arrived 1914-1917 with WWI. Noah was given 120 years to prepare for the Deluge. It should be up 2034-2037.
I won’t be alive to see it but look for some in the JW/Bible Students groups to come up with that around 2030.
Didn’t John Titor save us from that?
I don’t believe in any of the “end of the world” conspiracy theories, but the world will end in any case, only it will be when the Sun turns into a red giant and swallows the Earth (most likely, some think the Earth may survive, not that it would be habitable). That would be around 7.5 billion years from now, although as far as life is concerned, it may be less than a billion years due to gradually increasing solar irradiance heating the Earth and increased chemical weathering of CO2 as a result (some plants can survive to as low as 10 ppm of CO2, but the heating will eventually result in a runaway greenhouse effect when the surface temperature reaches 100C).
Also, even an asteroid hit or the like wouldn’t be “the end of the world” but more like “the end of the world as we know it” since the Earth would still exist (I am sure humans would still be around as well, if in greatly reduced numbers for some time after). And lastly, when you die, the world ends from your viewpoint.
Don’t be so sure: if we’re talking your little ten-kilometer jobbies like Chicxulub, there might be enough of us walking around afterward to rebuild, but much larger rocks exist out there, and larger impacts are fully capable of turning the entire crust of the earth molten for several years. That’s not a sunscreen-and-bomb-shelters kinda scenario.
Hopefully there aren’t planet-sized hunks still wandering the solar system on long orbits (or wandering in from the outside), but one of the theories of the moon’s production was that earth was hit by a mars-sized rock early in the solar system’s formation: it threw out enough material to make the moon, and completely remelted the remaining combined body. I don’t know if that theory is still in fashion, but the physics of such a collision don’t allow for the survival of higher lifeforms, and I wouldn’t bet on the unicellular ones, either.
My brother in law informed me (with total seriousness) that Nostradamus’s prophecies were true because scientists had discovered that 3797 was also when the sun was going to go supernova and swallow the earth. He actually got insulted and upset when I laughed at the idea, and wouldn’t believe that it wasn’t true until I googled it for him. Even then, I think he had his doubts. He claims he got the information from a textbook in high school.
IIRC, the Mayan 2012 bullshit thing was revised to 2013. Another year to sell books, I suppose.
Didn’t know that. Did they skip over the year zero?
Isaac Newton predicted an apocalypse date of 2060.
That’s for the supposed “solar superstorm” theory (just one of many 2012 theories) based on a revised date of solar maximum to 2013, not that we really have to worry about it given the current solar cycle progress and predictions (the weakest in at least a century with some saying that Cycle 25 will be even weaker*). Although the threat of a direct hit is very real in terms of damage to satellites and power grids, the last solar superstorm was in 1859.
*Of course, Cycle 10 was also relatively weak and produce the 1859 solar storm, as if to make up for a lack of activity.
Or to make car payments. Fuuuuuuuuuccccckkkkk!:smack:
Q
I hear Cycle 4 isn’t too bad…
That’s it. Both my parents died at age 75, and 2034 is the year I hit that milestone, so as far as I’m concerned, that’s the year.
22December2012 I am sure somewhere, somebody is predicting it, and 23December 2012, 24December2012… I mentioned before that God hasn’t destroyed the world yet because it will be a day when nobody expects it, and every single day of the last 2000 years somebody, somewhere predicted it. Be a real shame to have the world end days before Christmas.
I get really angry with people when they start saying stuff like, “Grandma died when she was 52, her sisters died when they were fifty-two, my mama had a heart attack on her fifty-second birthday and she never woke up, yadda yadda yadda…”
Even Elvis psyched his way to the grave because his mommy died at 42, so damned if he wasn’t gonna die at 42 as well.
Why does it piss me off so much? Because my own father subscribed to that nonsense. At his last hospitalization, he told the family, “My dad died when he was 84, my brothers were both 84 when they died, and I’m 84…”
My sister and I both plan on turning eighty-FIVE, while shaking our fists at the cosmos.
My husband has been saying for several years now, he plans to wake up on 22 December 2012, greeting the world with a big, fat, “Neener! Neener!”
~VOW