Part of my journey is doing the boring warmup exercises on my horn which require about 1% of my brain power, but are necessary to get my lips and gut muscles in shape for making real music. I pass the time by reading such things as Year 2012 drivel and not taking it too seriously. When I am warmed up I turn off the computer and start a real rehearsal.

Swift, a big solar flare would wipe out all our satellites, and fry our computers.
Please do not tell me it cannot happen. A minor solar flare fried the grid in Canada a
few years ago. Our sun can produce a super massive flare at anytime.
All our infrastructure is ground based, we would have 8 minuites warning. The fastest
response time to shut down the relay buffer stations is 16 minutes, they would be
overloaded and trashed, and we would have no power. We been lucky, so far.
Nokton

The 2012 prophesy is based on a misunderstanding of the significance of the Mayan long count calendar. No expert on Mayan history that I have ever read of attributes any world ending significance to 2012 based on the calendar. Maybe a good day to have a huge party if you were Mayan but nothing else.

However, the best response I would give to people who suggest that the Mayans predicted an apocalypse in 2012 is...

If you really believe that the Mayans had it right on, the best that we could do is to round up a large number of people, march them up a big pyramid and tear out their hearts to offer it to the Gods in order to stave off the disaster. I suggest we start with the people who keep going on about the 2012 disaster myth.

Brilliant! It probably is unnecessary, but I seems worthwhile to do, if only as a precaution. I mean you can't be too careful if the fate of the world is involved.

__________________
At night the stars put on a show for free (Carole King)

One Earth, One Sky - IYA 2009
All moderation in purple

OK, that's true. And any of the other things you mentioned: volcanos, earthquakes, asteroid strikes could happen. And there is absolutely no evidence to suggest they are more or less likely to happen in 2012, and there is no evidence to suggest that Nostradamus or the Mayans or my Aunt Rose predicted any of them.

__________________
At night the stars put on a show for free (Carole King)

One Earth, One Sky - IYA 2009
All moderation in purple

My thoughts exactly.

__________________
I want to go back to the moon.
I don't care which rocket you use, whichever one you pick, I'll like it, I swear.
"If you think the LHC will create black holes, you might as well believe Hobbits are at the bottom of your garden."- Dr. Mike Inglis
Rovers forever! - ToSeek

<<Yeah, the 2012 theories will be proven wrong, but then people will just start making up doomsday theories with a new date. >>

No, you can never have too many doomsdays...

[sigh]

__________________
"Call me old-fashioned, but I think fire is magic. And it scares me a lot."

--The State

Your Aunt Rose, respect. To deny a possibility is to deny it's existance.
I never suggested any predictions from the Mayan calender, nor Nostrademus.
Just aware of the time line between the two.
Nokton

Just what does "aware of the time line" mean?

__________________
"The facts gentlemen, and nothing but the facts, for careful eyes are narrowly watching." Isaac Asimov

Well, they're hundreds of years apart and have nothing to do with one another, so there's that. Oh, and people who are ignorant believe that Nostradamus talked about the same year in which the Mayan calendar rolls over, so there's that, too.

__________________
Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

Well, not all of it. The Canadian power grid was certainly not 'fried' by a solar flare. Power surges caused relays to trip and bring the grid down, but it's not like the transmission lines were reduced to slag.

Specifically Quebec.

According to Wiki.

So, as a matter of full disclosure, I don't believe any of this 2012 nonsense. But I am posting this only because I happened to get this e-mailed to me at my place of work (I am a journalist). I'm going to take my journalist hat off for a moment and I won't print the name or the Web site because I don't want to lend any credence to it, but the e-mail came from someone who claims to be a physicist. For all I know, he's on this site. I just want to know what you all think of this information:

Thoughts?

Its more nonsense.

The next transit of Vensus actually starts 5 June 22:09 UTC (not 4 June). The idea that this will cause any sort of measureble increase in stress on the Earth's crust is absurb. The last one was 8 June 2004, and if I'm not mistaken, the Earth wasn't destroyed. And I don't know what they think is going to happen in 2010, it certainly won't be a surprise Venus transit, since even wikipedia manages to list all of them out to 2498.

__________________
At night the stars put on a show for free (Carole King)

One Earth, One Sky - IYA 2009
All moderation in purple

Not only that, it's also absurd. And somewhat ridiculous.

It's hard to really appreciate the distances over which gravity is acting in these cases, but they are such huge distances that it seems crazy to expect it to do anything significant.

I know the idea is that three different things are acting on Earth at the same time, but to create any sort of disturbance - well, how much measurable tidal effect does Venus ever have, even, say, at the date Swift mentioned above of the last Venus transit? If it isn't causing tidal waves then is it likely to play havoc with the Earth's crust?

__________________
The left hand knows full well what the right hand is doing, but quietly ignores it.

Well, I'm not an astronomer or physicist ... I'm not even an aficionado or buff, but I think I understand enough to know that while gravity of planets does an an effect on other planets, the distances here are barely fathomable, and so I can't see the effect causing Yellowstone to explode in a fury of volcanic activity (yet another end-of-the-world scenario I've read about).

I have a major hate on for the History Channel. What is historical about and apocalypse is beyond me.

This seems to be another take on the old "planetary alignment" theme. Here are a couple of the BA's pages on earlier alignment claims:

http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/misc/venus_flood.html

http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/misc/planets.html

Quoting from the first page linked above:

__________________
I say there is an invisible elf in my backyard. How do you prove that I am wrong?

Disclaimer: Avatar is not an official NASA image and does not imply any specific interplanetary or interstellar capability.

The Leif Ericson Cruiser

I'm glad you trademarked that, Fazor, as the previous methods of birth control haven't worked very well.

I wish you success!

Not mine. It's wearing it's tin foil hat, like a good little laptop.

That was Canada. What did it do to the US grid?

By the way, the grid is very large, and as such is much more susceptible to LF EMPs than people realize (think secondary windings on a transformer...)

Yes, it can.

Actully, 15 minutes. But to do what?

Google: "No results found for "relay buffer station"" and "No results found for "buffer relay station"."

And: "A simple scheme of sunspot classification due to McIntosh is commonly used as a starting point for flare prediction. Predictions are usually stated in terms of probabilities for occurrence of flares above M or X GOES class with 24 or 48 hours." - Wikipedia

You're correct in that once detected, we've only about 8 minutes. However, high-energy flares can be predicted at least a day in advance based on sunspot acitivity.

Nokton, after the generating station, the voltage is stepped up by transformers to 765, 500, 345, 230, and 138kV. Nearing the customers, it's stepped down to various voltages, depending on customer requirements, ranging from 120V to 69kV.

Now, there are relay stations... Not exactly set up for power distribution, though.

__________________
If I set the budget, we'd have Ares and more. Unfortunately, I don't set the budget, and Ares is just too expensive and too far out for us to accomplish our goals within the budget we were given.

If we halt the ISS, all versions of Ares, and transport Orion and Altair aboard DIRECTv3's Jupiter family of Shuttle-Derived Launch Vehicles, we just might make it back to the Moon by 2020.

Add this thread to the 2012's links

Re: 2012: A list of threads and articles discussing 2012

1. 2003 no, 2012 si
2. 2012
3. End of Mayan Calendar
4. Pole shift / Planetary alignment 2012?
5. 2012 alignment question
6. about the Mayan 2012 item
7. 2012 Debunking?
8. Possible asteroid impact in 2012?
9. 2012 asteroid?
10. We don't have to worry about 2012!
11. More on 2012 from India Daily
12. 2012 Completion of conspiracy?
13. Here's what's REALLY going to happen in 2012...
14. crop circles, Planet X and 2012
15. Planet X, crop circles and 2012 cataclysma
16. According to the Mayans, what will happen on 23rd Dec. 2012?
17. More 2012 Nonsense
18. NEO 2012?
19. Dangerous NEO in 2012?
20. Christmas 2012
21. 2012 mayan calender end of world
22. Regarding the supposed polar shift/new ice age in 2012
23. New 2012 threat?
24. 2012 look at this thing on the sun
25. Russian Expert Predicts Global Cooling from 2012
26. Pole shift idea origins
27. Dec 20 2012
28. 2012 Stuff
29. No reply previous question
30. Horizon Project-New End of World Scare?
31. Date: December 21st 2012
32. Earth passing thru Galactic center in 2012 - didn't that already happen?
33. 2012: What do you think well happen (if anything)
34. So what will we see in 2012?
35. Galactic Tsunami?
36. Plane of the ecliptic of the galaxy?
37. Earth's Magnetic Field & 2012
38. 2012?
39. Any truth to this?
40. How can the sun be aligned with Galactic centre?
41. the whole 2012 poles flip nonsense
42. Planet X Official Advertisement
43. What year are we in
44. Quick question about the sun
45. Galactic Alignment
46. Books of 2012! -
47. 2007 = 2012
48. Return of Planet X By Rand
49. Don Alejandro - Mayan Elder.
50. Toutatis 4179: 2012?
51. Galactic Alignment in 2012 ?
52. Solar Storms
53. A real prediction!
54. NIBURU - Brown Dwarf, The DESTROYER
55. 2012 Galactic Alignment
56. Not 2012 again! But I cant help it~
57. New evidence for 2012 TEOTWAWKI!!!
58. this may be a silly question but...
59. Just to know if this is true
60. Just Wondering...
61. Planet X/Nibiru, is it real?
62. Youv heard this a million times.
63. Nibaru or Planet X
64. Mayan calendar
65. 2012 Article?
66. can i say something please on planet x
67. Nibiru
68. The growing earth.... :P
69. Our Solar System's Eclipse of the Galactic Plane on Dec 21, 2012?
70. Something scaring the hell out of me....
71. It's Only the end of the World AGAIN!!! (Woo Woo Alert)
72. 2021 Doomsday
73. is it just me or is the milky way brighter..?
74. Polar Shift in 2012?
75. I would like to ask about Nubiru stuff...
76. Bit behind the times, my appologies...
77. the "pole shift thing"
78. All the Truth about 2012
79. Confused about 2012 (yes, another one!)
80. Another paranoia mind due to 2012
81. novelty theory
82. Possibility of Pole Shift
83. 2012 Vectors
84. Nibiru Question
85. Odd things floating on google sky
86. 2012 end of the world?
87. 2012 and Solar Storms?
88. Nibiru
89. 2012 is giving me a Headache

Sounds like you're quoting from that book Apocalypse 2012. But it's a valid concern considering that it happened during soalr minimum (minor), a cycle that will end next year. Now if something like that can happen during solar minor, what happens on solar major (maximum)? Does anyone have any current data about this?

^ last i heard about the whole solar maximum it got pushed back to 2013 and won't be as bad as it was origionally intended to be so i don't think we'll have to worry about that.

as a side note, i don't know if i belong here...my brain's mentallity is nothing compared to others here.

And now Billy Meier gets on the 2012 bandwagon...
http://www.prweb.com/releases/2009UF...web2875624.htm

And, oh yes, the article goes on to say that his photos of "wedding cake" ufos are authentic too...

__________________
______________________________________________
“He who asks a question is a fool for five minutes; he who does not ask a question remains a fool forever”
Chinese proverb
"All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence - and then success is sure." - Mark Twain.

I knew it! Well, as far as I'm concerned, nothing's going to happen in 2012 that would push mankind to extinction. I'm much more concerned about the economy of the world and conspiracy theories regarding NWO rather than the already-debunked-doomsday-theory-that-seemingly-goes-on-and-on such as this 2012 thing.

Yes, free association is fairly rampant when it comes to this craze.

Nostradamus. And the closest thing he had to an apocalyptic date was July, 1999, when "from the skies will come the great king of terror". He also said the world would end in 3797.

Most present day understanding about our doom concerns what will happen in the year 2112, not 2012. Global warming won't reach apocalypse level until at least a century from now. And anyway, there's no reason to assume that we won't be able to find some way to live with it by then.

What history?

Yes, that is an actual threat. But it is one we are aware of and will have at least a few days' warning of, thanks to the armada of solar satellites we have at our Legrange points, which, by the way, we put there precisely because we were afraid of this happening So no, we haven't been ignoring history in that regard.

A gamma ray burst in our galaxy is an exceptionally rare event. They may not even happen in our galaxy any more. And for them to be any threat to us, the star would have to be facing the Earth pole-on, which makes the chances of a "gamma-ray apocalypse" even more unlikely. There are no stars within a hundred light years capable of generating even a modest supernova. The closest is Betelgeuse, which is 640 light years away, and not facing us pole-on. When it goes, it'll give us a hell of a good show, but it won't hurt us.

Yellowstone has an "error range" in its eruptions of tens or even hundreds of thousands of years. There is simply no way to claim if or when it will blow, or indeed it will ever blow again. Because no human being has ever seen a Yellowstone-level eruption, there are no known signs to look for, and even if there were, there's jack we could do about it anyway. If it happens, it happens.

We're more prepared than not. Pan-Starrs is coming online, which should create a database of all Near-Earth asteroids and their orbits, and thus give us an idea of the threat levels. Comet collisions are harder to deal with, but they are incredibly rare in our part of the Solar System, and, given that comets have such long orbits, we would probably have some time to prepare before the actual hit.

What? At the start of your comment, you said,

but if it wasn't for the Mayan calendar, no one would be interested in the 2012 date. It would hold no more interest than any other leap year. No one would be expecting the world to end then. So if it's not about the Mayan calendar, why do you assume it is so important?

__________________
There is a growing tendancy to think of Man as a rational, thinking being, which is absurd.- Marvin the Martian.

It's gotten to the point where careful investigation is needed just to tell parody from reality. I think that means reality is broken.- Noclevername.

I think we should just wait. We will find out here in a couple of years or so.

I'm a very linear person. I'm also an astronomy (in addition to chemistry/physics) teacher. After doing much reading/viewing/researching on the whole 2012 "catastrophy" I come away a little flabbergasted at "catch all" characteristic of the event. It's such a mismatch of events/people/events that I can't even find a way to present the "debunking" of it as a unit to my astronomy class. We just seem to randomly debunk a section of it at a time. This annoys me very much!

RE OP:
I think about half my coworkers believe in this nonsense. I think we're in for the biggest bubble since Y2K--and worse for having zero basis in actual science.

2013, get here already, so they can move the goalposts to 20xx or whatever...

__________________
"Call me old-fashioned, but I think fire is magic. And it scares me a lot."

--The State

You might want to start with Sky and Telescope's article.

__________________
I want to go back to the moon.
I don't care which rocket you use, whichever one you pick, I'll like it, I swear.
"If you think the LHC will create black holes, you might as well believe Hobbits are at the bottom of your garden."- Dr. Mike Inglis
Rovers forever! - ToSeek

I figure there's no real need to address the 2012 thing. December 31, 2012 will come and go just as December 31, 1999, came an went. We'll all get up the next morning on New Years day and nurse hangovers, have eggs benedict for breakfast, and a day or two later head back to work.

Just as 2012 became an issue after we survived Y2K, there will be another end-of-the-world issue within days of surviving all of 2012 intact. The end of the world has been just around the corner for someone for the last 5000 years and probably before that. One may be assured that this isn't going to end with 2012 and that others will follow. Best way to deal with it is to wake up on New Years, and start another year.

Nothing convinced Y2K believers more than New Years Day 2000 and New Years Day 2001.