If some interpretations of the Mayan calendar are correct, we’ll all be gone next year.
While every other doomsday prediction has (obviously) come and gone, some people think that the Maya knew something others didn’t and that the world will indeed come to an end on Dec. 21, 2012.
Opportunists already are trying to cash in with 2012 survival kits, T-shirts reading “Doomsday 2012” and a “Complete Idiots Guide to 2012.”
A website, december212012.com, devoted to the prediction, says, “Although this date may not necessarily mark the end of the world, it is widely believed that it may indeed mark the end of the world as we know it. ”¦
One of the chief theories of the whole apocalypse thing is that we will be “crossing the plane” of the Milky Way Galaxy and therefore subject to [i][b]additional[/i][/b] immense gravitational forces from the centre of the galaxy. The first part is generally true, and the second is utter nonsense.
The first is true because — news flash for most people — we are quite probably [i]NOT[/i] part of the Milky Way Galaxy. Infra-red analysis and other studies over the last fifteen years or so suggest rather strongly that we are part of the Sagittarius Galaxy, which orbits the Milky Way at a high relative angle (meaning a more or less polar orbit) and with an orbital period of perhaps 500 million years, give or take 100 million or two.
That explains why, in contrast to what one would normally expect, the Milky Way crosses our sky at a sharp angle to the ecliptic (plane of the solar system). It’s not [i]our[/i] galaxy, and because the mass of the Milky Way is some ten thousand times greater than that of Sagittarius, the latter is being torn apart and gradually (billions of years) being absorbed by the Milky Way.
Now, for the key arithmetic related to December 2012 — given the diameter of the Milky Way (about 100,000 light years) and the orbit of Sagittarius around it, if the Milky Way were two miles in diameter [b]our [i]annual[/i] motion relative to the Milky Way plane would be roughly the equivalent of 1/300,000 of an inch in regard to a centre one mile away.[/b] Ooh! Impressive difference …
Furthermore, because Sagittarius’ orbit around the Milky Way is highly elliptical we are presently much farther from the centre of Milky Way than when our orbit takes us above or below it. Because the effect of gravity diminishes as the [i]square[/i] of distance — three times as far away means 1/9 th the gravitational force — the effect of that gravity is currently the weakest it has been in 125 million years or so.
That’s also why astrology is such an utter crock: the gravitational effect of the attending physician, each of the nurses, the mother and the father are all significantly greater than that of Jupiter, Saturn or even all the planets combined.
The Mayan Millerites can all go home now. Invite the astrologers over for supper.
[blockquote]Although this date may not necessarily mark the end of the world, it is widely believed that it may indeed mark the end of the world as we know it.[/blockquote]
No doubt, since the world as we know it is passing away every day.
The “Complete Idiots Guide to 2012,” also known as “Guide to the Next Presidential Election.”