Conditional Stability and Apocalypse

Frequently we hear of the upcoming apocalypse. This is a fact of history that repeats itself. If we look carefully, and in various regions of the world, we can find many end of the world predictions. Some of them came true for the particular civilization from whence the prognostication was made. For the most part, they failed to mature. Religious leaders from time to time made predictions about the end of the world and the imminent arrival of a chief god or Savior figure. Some dates that come to mind are the year 1000 AD, 1519, 1666, 1844, 1962. 2000 and 2012. For Christendom the dates of 1000 and 1666 stand out as points where they thought that the end would come, especially considering their numerical significance. 1519 stands out as a year where Aztecs saw the return of Quetzalcoatl and what might happen to them. They lived in dread in the approaching date. It so happened that Cortez invaded in that year and he was initially mistaken as the returning Quetzalcoatl coming back to exact justice. By the time they found out he was no god, it was too late and the civilization was routed.

To the Millerites, 1844 was the year when Christ was to return. This did not happen in the way the expected and the movement fell apart. The 1844 year prediction was based on a Biblical calculation that incorporated the history of the establishment of the original Jewish state, the Babylonian captivity and subsequent return to Jerusalem. Between that and 1844 was a period of 2,300 years; the so called cleansing of the sanctuary. The problem with this, was there were some errors in thinking and the changes of the calendars over the period.

In February of 1962, the Hindus gathered at the Ganges to pray as they expected the end of the world. This was based on astrological analysis. The end of the world did not occur then, but it almost did in mutual assured destruction out of the Cuban missile crisis in October of the same year. Even so, it did not happen, but we knew for certain that the cold war was on.

Then there was the whole May 5^th, 2000 forecast end that did not materialize. Books were written and documentaries made on Nostradamus that actually declared that Nostradamus had little to say beyond the year 2000. The most serious issue anywhere close to the date was the tragedy of 9-11 that did not end the world, but polarized the west and east and seriously impacted civil rights. The latest in this barrage of end of the world scenarios is now posted for Dec. 21^st or 23^rd, 2012 based on the Mayan calendar. Lately we have even been told that there was mistakes in translating between three different calendars and that the date is actually for the total lunar eclipse during the solstice on Dec. 21^St, 2010. This puts the end of the world virtually at tomorrow and no doubt, many of you will encounter this post apocalypse. Of the end of the world scenarios posted, two are based firmly on planetary alignments, that is, February 1962 and December 21^st, 2010. There is no significant alignment for 2012! Now planetary alignments in themselves are interesting and are subjects of fascination for astronomers and astrologers alike. For the Dec. 21^St, 2010 equinox lunar eclipse, this is nothing new as this happens every 19 years. The difference this time is what astrologers say by way of the alignment of the outer planets and the sun. There have been alignments many times in the past, one of them being in February 1962. Based on this there is a lot of fear mongering and the profits that can come of it.

The solar system has been around for much longer than humanity and we have evidence of five major “end of the world” scenarios in the past based on extinction events. The current extinction event has been under way for some time and is not focused either on 1962 nor 2012. If anything, its roots extend back to the inception of the industrial revolution. There have been countless planetary alignments through the extent of that time. The worst case scenarios altered the orbit of the earth in a periodic way as determined by Milonkovich. Otherwise, “end of the world” scenarios occurred when a meteoroid, asteroid or comet struck the earth. A small piece of comet Enke struck in Tungeska, Siberia on June 30^th, 1908, yet this date is absent from any apocalypse account. Absent too are 535 AD, 1306-1307, 1815 and 1883, all years where civilization was heavily impacted and the course of history changed. Then there was the recent announcement that the Younger Dryas started exactly, 11,703 years ago in a period covering a few months, when the northern hemisphere fell into another deep freeze. Prior to that, a great melt down struck around 12,600 years ago that has a number of geological markers. At least one of these ancient changes was triggered by another impact. The fact of the matter out of all of this, is that the real Armageddon will not be announced and will come “as a thief in the night” without forewarning nor expectation. The reasons for this are based soundly on the physics of planetary dynamics and the formation of solar systems like ours.

Any forming accretion disk, whether around a planet, a star or a black hole in a galactic center, is conditionally stable in whole and in its parts. Taking into consideration all the myriad influences within the cosmos and the facts of resonant and dissonance between orbiting bodies and continual change therein, stability must be conditional. Our tenure on Earth is sensitively dependant on many surrounding conditions. The same is true for any star, planet and moon.

Just to clarify the point a little, the Earth and moon are locked in a curious dance of exchanging angular momentum. The result is the gradual lengthening of days on Earth and the gradual averaged receding of the Moon away from Earth and increase in its orbital period. The same is true for the whole of the accretion disk revolving about the sun. There are so many bodies of various sizes, most of them the size of dust to sand grains, that orbital crossings and interactions between them is inevitable. Some of the larger pieces, like comet SL-9 that fatally interacted with Jupiter, have encounters that change things in the solar system. Further, these changes cause minute orbital fluctuations that alter the harmonic spectrographic structure of the overall accretion disk. The result is a cascade effect of more orbital crossings and impacts over the long term.

The whole thing is analogous to the complex development one sees in calculating fractals as the iteration is increased to the final display of fractal sets like the Mandelbrot and Julia sets. A strong case in point is the beautiful and gossamer rings of Saturn. Analysis of them shows that all the various phenomena associated with accretion, are occurring simultaneously. There is resonant clearing, There is accretion of lose material into small bodies. There is phase locking and dissonant gathering of material. All the various processes of accretion can be seen in operation around Saturn. So far, we have only a time limited set of data concerning the rings. I'm willing to bet that differences from then and today would show themselves in the rings of Saturn if they were observed now. Even during the Pioneer and Voyager missions, changes such as spokes were observed to be shifting through time. But this is a phenomena thought to be cause by Saturn's magnetic field. Another possible cause may arise due to the inclination of some of Saturn's moons, though slight for the most part. Nonetheless this slight variation may be enough. Still another consideration is clumping of material by electrostatic means, which would substantiate the magnetic theory at least as part of the overall process of evolution within the rings. The entire solar system out to the heliopause behaves in a similar way considering the asteroid belt, the kipper belt and Oort cloud.

In the final analysis, any announcement of the “end of the world” has to be based on sound observation and proofs. That end has a number of sources. Among them are super volcanoes, asteroid impact, geomagnetic reversals (such as going on right now and started over a century ago), gamma ray bursts, the penetration into the solar system by a rogue planet, comet storms, radical orbital changes and man made causes like a nuclear war and subsequent nuclear winter. So far, out of this list, only two stand out as current threats and these are the magnetic reversal and nuclear war scenarios. Neither of these are centered on 2010 or 2012.