I’m not one to put a lot of faith in Doomsday theories, but I like to keep up with cultural trends, etc…especially ones that conceivably involve the end of my world, and everyone else’s. You’d hate to be completely surprised by something like that.
The “hot” Doomsday theory the past few years is that the world ends in the year 2012 - on either Dec. 21 or 23, depending on which edition of the Ancient Mayan stone wall-calendar you happen to have. There’s even a big Hollywood movie coming out next year called “2012” - by the same creative team that brought you “Independence Day” and “The Day after Tomorrow,” so you know it’s going to be scientifically accurate.
I tend to discount this particular Doomsday theory, for a couple of reasons: 1) what expertise can we really attribute to the Mayans in the field of end-of-the-world prediction? Their “world” ended centuries ago! If they had been able to predict that one, they surely could’ve taken actions to avoid it; and 2) I think people today are “reading too much into” the fact that the Ancient Mayan calendar “ends” on Dec. 21 (or 23), 2012. There are plenty of alternate explanations: the stone-carver could’ve just plain run out of space…or decided to take a break, but then got unexpectedly killed in a game of Ancient Mayan Death Ball (look it up!)…or, perhaps they were just waiting to see how that calendar “did” before they committed to starting on the next one. You never know.
So, I’m not too worried about 2012; besides, looking on the bright side: it’s still a couple years away — I could die of something entirely unrelated in that time!
But, there’s another Doomsday theory that’s a little more troubling, if only because it predicts the end of our world (plus maybe the solar system, the galaxy, or even the entire Universe!) — on September 10…which is next week! For those of you who haven’t heard (and boy, you’re lucky you stumbled onto this site now…before it’s too late!) here’s how this theory goes: See, there’s this thing in Europe called the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) that’s, like, the most powerful particle accelerator ever built, a massive 17-mile circular tunnel of powerful superconducting magnets designed to propel sub-atomic particles to almost the Speed of Light and then - BAM! - smash them together. Oh, and BTW: it’s supposed to (maybe) produce levels of energy and temperature not seen since microseconds after The Big Bang that created the Universe some 14 billion years ago. And this LHC is scheduled to be turned on for the first time…next Wednesday.
Some people foresee a problem with that. A group of anti-LHC scientists says, “Whoa! Hold on a sec, dudes! Are you sure that these Big Bang-type energies and temperatures aren’t going to create Big Bang-type conditions like, say, all matter collapsing into itself, or millions of microscopic black holes gobbling up the Earth, stuff like that?” And then the pro-LHC scientists — who are just ITCHING to finally get to “fire up the mother,” what with the zoning delays and all — basically shrug in response and say, “Probably not.”
I’m being facetious; actually, they wrote this big, long research paper with lots of numbers and equations and complex scientific terminology…which all boils down to “Probably not.”
But I wouldn’t worry about this one. The whole thing is in court right now…and even if worst comes to worst, it’s like the doctor always says: You won’t feel a thing!
Tags: Still more misc. by Mike_Snider
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