Year 2012: Will the World Really Come to an End?
Soumitro Banerjee
For the past one year or so, a
news item has repeatedly appeared in the electronic and print media: Some
soothsayers have found out that the doomsday is near. The world will be
destroyed in the year 2012. Even the date seems to be known: 21 December. A video
CD has been in circulation, showing what will happen on that fateful day; even
a “2012 survival guide” is in the market.
What made them conclude that the
end was near? How did they know that it would happen in the specific year 2012?
What the proponents of the doomsday are telling us is something strange.
Archeologists have discovered a calendar in the remains of the ancient Maya
civilization of the South America. That calendar ends on the 21st of December,
2012. Apparently the creators of that calendar did not proceed beyond that
date. Why didn’t they? Simple answer: They knew that the world would not exist
beyond that date. It is thus meaningless to keep track of dates, months and
years after that day.
But what exactly will happen on
21st December 2012, which will destroy the whole world? On this issue, however,
we see different eventualities. Some are saying that a large asteroid is now
heading towards us, and on that very date it will impact with the Earth. Some
are saying that the magnetic field of the Earth will reverse that day; what is
now the North Pole will become the South Pole, and the magnetic South Pole will
go close to the geographic North Pole. That will destroy human civilization.
Some others are saying that it is not a case of asteroid or magnetic pole: the
very rotation of the Earth will change. Our planet rotates around its own axis
as it revolves round the sun. That axis of rotation itself will change, and as
a result India, which now has a temperate climate, may suddenly find itself
situated on the North Pole. Cold regions may move closer to the equator. This
will cause a very large scale climatic change. Still others are saying there
will be a gigantic volcanic eruption; or, that there will be a
super-earthquake. But all these foretellers are unanimous in saying that
whatever happens will happen on 21st December 2012, because there is no date
after this in the ancient Maya calendar!!
However fictitious such
possibilities may seem, their repeated appearance in the media seems to be
making an impact on the lay people. It is creating a fear-psychosis among them.
The impending catastrophe is becoming a point of discussion and speculation
among school-children. Many are losing their interest in learning (what is the
point in learning if we are to die soon?). In such a situation, the Hollywood
filmmakers are seeing a great business opportunity. We know their penchant for
capitalizing on peoples’ inner sense of insecurity and fear; recall how they
made more than a hundred films on a single theme: the attack of aliens from
Mars, and earned billions of dollars. It can be expected that a few films will
soon appear in the market, capitalizing on people’s fantasy and fear of the
events of the year 2012. That will further fuel the fear psychosis.
In this situation it has become
necessary to present a scientific dissection of the arguments forwarded by the
doomsday theorists. That is the purpose of the present article.
On the Maya civilization and its calendar
A long time ago, in the Old Stone
Age, a few groups of mongoloid tribes of Asia crossed the Bering Strait and
reached Alaska. With time they spread over the whole of the two American
continents. Initially they were hunter-cum-gatherers. When they reached Mexico
and Central America, some of them invented agriculture in the fertile land they
found there. With land suitable for cultivation, they created a settled
agrarian culture, which in course of time led to urban life around the capitals
of the kingdoms. Inca, Maya, and Aztec civilizations developed in this manner
at different times, and in different parts of Central and South America.
Among them, the Maya civilization
seems to have advanced the most, as evidenced by the small pyramid-type
structures, temples, utensils, artwork, etc., that the archaeologists have
found. These evidences indicated that the Maya civilization advanced the most
in the period from the 7th to the 9th century AD. They had a written language
and had well developed traditions in art. But they were far behind the
contemporary civilizations in China (the Tang dynasty), India (the Pala
dynasty), or Europe (the Charlemagne rule). Theirs was a society dominated by
the priests. Human-sacrifice was common at the time of sowing the seeds (in the
hope of getting a better yield by pleasing the gods). They had not discovered
the extraction and use of iron; so they were still in the bronze-age. The
Indus-valley civilization and the Egyptian civilization are two thousand years
older than the Maya civilization. The Greek civilization, the Chinese and Roman
empires, the time of Buddha and Ashoka in India – these are also more than a
thousand years older than the Mayans. So it can be said that when civilizations
in the other parts of the world had advanced significantly, the Mayans remained
far behind, which they could not overcome through exchange because of the
geographic isolation.
But wherever a civilization had
engaged in agriculture, it had to solve one practical problem: At what time of
the year should seeds be sown? For this, it is necessary to specify a definite
time each for 
every crop round the
year; that is, one needs a calendar. That is why all agricultural societies had
to invent some kind of time-keeping system within the year. In order to measure
time, one needs a unit of measurement – something that happens cyclically in
the same interval. We can easily identify three such cyclical events which
could serve the purpose: 1) the rotation of the Earth around the sun, 2) the
rotation of the Earth around its own axis, and 3) The rotation of the moon
around the Earth. If these times were multiples of one another, there would be
no problem. One could simply call one the day, another month, and the third the
year. But actually this does not happen. The duration of the day times a whole
number does not give the year; the time in a year divided by the time in a
month does not give a whole number either. That is why the solar year does not
contain a whole number of moon-months, nor does it contain a whole number of
days (a year = 365.242199 days). That is why making a calendar is not a trivial
affair.
The thinkers of different
societies tried to solve the problem in different ways. The English calendar
(called the Gregorian calendar) has 365 days in a year, and the remaining part
is accounted for by adding a day once every four years (the leap-years). That
also does not complete the story; another correction becomes necessary once
every 400 years. The Indian calendar has become very complicated because it
tries to combine the solar year with the moon-month. As a result, every year
the calendar is different, religious events happen at different times in
different years, and the dates of events given by different calendar-makers
often do not match.
The Mayans also tried to solve
the problem in their own ways. In the Maya society it was the priests’ job to
fix the dates of various activities. In doing so, the priesthood had to devote
a great deal of thought to calendar-making, and proposed two different types of
calendars. In one, the year had 260 days, and in the other it had 365 days. The
first one, based on the average human gestation period, was used mainly in
religious events while the second one, based on the solar cycle, was used in
day-to-day life including cultivation.
There was an
important difference between the ways we write numbers and the way the Mayans
did. We use a decimal system, in which there are 10 basic digits (0 to 9). We
need two digits to write numbers bigger than 9, three digits for numbers bigger
than 99, etc. In contrast, the Maya used a base 20 number system, that is, it
had 20 digits. So the numbers were written in steps of 20.
The calendar with 260 days in a
year was called Tzolkin, and its division was 13 times 20. It is composed of 20
day-signs, each of which has 13 variations, and was used to determine character
traits and time harmonics, in a similar way to Western astrology. One would
count days 1 to 13, and then the second cycle would start. When 20 such cycles
are completed, a new Tzolkin starts.
The other one, nowadays called
the “long count calendar,” had 365 days. One problem can immediately be
noticed: the number 365 is not divisible by 20. That is why their cycle was
actually of 360 days (18 times 20), after which the remaining 5 days were added.
A 360-day cycle was called a “Tun”, and the 20-day months were called “Uinals”.
Each day of a Uinal was marked by a separate digit, since they had 20 digits.
Larger times were measured by multiples of those Tuns. 20 Tuns (7200 days) made
a “Katun”, 20 Katuns (144000 days) made a “Baktun”, and 13 Baktuns added up to
a “Great cycle” of 1872000 days. Thus this great cycle has 5200 Tuns. Now if we
consider the additional 5 days in a year, there are 5126 years in a great
cycle.
Today’s doomsday
theorists are pointing at this 5126-year cycle. The Great Cycle of the Maya
long count calendar started on 11 August 3114 BC. From that day, the 5126- year
Great cycle is to end on 21 December 2012 (when the Mayan date will be
13.0.0.0.0). Hence the simple conclusion: The world must end on that day!!
Yet, a little bit of rational
thought will tell you that, when a millennium ends the world does not come to
an end, another millennium starts. In the same way when a great cycle ends,
another great cycle starts. In fact, the Maya had names for time units larger
than the great cycle: 20 Baktuns made a Piktun, 20 Piktuns made a Kalabtun, 20
Kalabtuns made a Kinchiltun, so on and so forth. When the Mayans had given
these names for larger time units, they surely did not imagine that the world
would come to an end after the end of the great cycle. This is just a fruit of
imagination of the fearmongers.
Moreover, some people always try
to tell us that the ancient civilizations were more advanced than ours. They
knew what is known today, and in addition they knew many things that are yet to
be discovered by the modern societies. Based on this belief, the articles
published repeatedly in newspapers are telling us that when the Mayans said
that a great cycle will end on 21 December 2012, they must have known that the
world will come to an end on that day. Given that they were such an advanced
civilization, their beliefs must be true.
But actually, like biological
evolution, the evolution of human society is unidirectional. In the history of
human society, man has learnt about nature bit by bit, through struggle with
nature. A generation has inherited what the preceding generation had
discovered, asked new questions on the basis of what is known up to that time,
and tried to learn new things. Whatever a generation could learn became a part
of the collective knowledge on the basis of which the next generation tried to
advance further. The formation of knowledge is a continuous process in which
the experience of the present generation adds to the collective experience of
all the past generations, and the society advances by the incremental addition
of knowledge. That is why it is unidirectional. This means that, though it is
possible for a culturally isolated community today to remain more backward than
some of the societies of the past, it is not possible for a civilization far
back in time to have been more advanced than the advanced societies of today.
That is why, one should not blindly believe in the romantic imagery of the
Egyptian civilization, the Mayan civilization, or the Vedic age in India, and
count on hard archaeological evidence to decide exactly how far those societies
had advanced.
What can happen
that day?
The doomsday theorists did not
just say that the world would end in the year 2012; they also had to present
some apparently believable ways in which the world would be destroyed. Let us
now turn our attention to those “possible doomsday events.”
The theory of
asteroid collision
We are learning from the doomsday
theorists that a large asteroid is now heading directly towards the Earth, and
it will collide exactly on the 21st of December 2012. How did we know that?
Somebody must have seen that asteroid with a telescope? Who has seen? Where
exactly in the sky is it visible? Who has calculated its trajectory and has
concluded that it is indeed in a collision course with the Earth? That it will
collide exactly that day?
If you probe these questions, you
will get no answer.
In fact, for a long time
scientists have been keeping an eye on the nearby asteroids, taking note
whenever a new asteroid is reported by any astronomer, and keeping track of
their motion. There is a body of astronomers doing this work. There is a
website that maintains the data for all those asteroids. Amateur astronomers
from all over the world obtain the information of asteroids from that site,
keep eye on them, and regularly update the information. That is how we now have
very concrete information about the asteroids that could possibly threaten the
Earth. The “Near Earth Object Program” of NASA keeps track of their
trajectories. None of the professional or amateur astronomers engaged in this
work are saying that they have observed an asteroid that will hit the Earth on
21 December 2012. They are not saying this, because without a proper
observation it is ludicrous to say so.
It is not difficult to understand
the reason. It is not that an asteroid is coming straight at us, and moving in
a straight line path, one day it will hit us. The Earth is not static; it is
moving round the sun. The asteroid also cannot move in a straight line path;
its orbit is determined by the gravitational attraction of the sun, Jupiter,
and any other planet that happens to be close to it at a point of time. In
order to determine the orbit, the scientists write differential equations
following Newton’s laws, measure the present position and momentum of the
asteroid, and solve the differential equations starting from that initial
condition. Because of the attraction of multiple bodies which are themselves
constantly in motion, the trajectory of an asteroid is generally very
complicated. Slight error in estimating the initial condition amplifies fast,
and renders the prediction inaccurate. Scientists know that, with the current
accuracy in measuring the position and momentum of a distant object, the prediction
beyond a time-frame of about six months is quite meaningless. That is why they
do not make themselves ridiculous by predicting where the asteroid will be
three years later.
Scientists know that
there are three asteroids which can come close to the Earth at some point of
time. But for each one it is impossible to say whether it will really hit the
Earth or will pass by some three hundred thousand miles from the Earth. The closest
approach is expected from the asteroid named Apophis, in the year 2029.
Even if we assume that a few
years later an asteroid is found to be heading for a direct collision, it is
possible to send a rocket to intercept it, and to change its course by causing
an explosion nearby. The technology to do that is already in man’s hand. Way
back in 1988 a satellite was sent to take close-up photographs of an asteroid.
Now the technology is far more advanced than it was in 1988, and diverting an
asteroid does not seem to be a big deal.
The theory of
magnetic field reversal
We know that the Earth is a large
magnet, whose North Pole lies close to the geographic North Pole and the South
Pole lies close to the geographic South Pole. It is not that the magnetic axis
is the same as the rotational axis, but they are close.
Was it always like this? No.
Geologists have found that in the past the magnetic poles have reversed many
times. At some point of time the South Pole existed where we now find the North
Pole. Even earlier it was the North Pole again. How often do these pole
reversals occur? Probing into this question, scientists have found that there
is no order in these reversals. The time interval between two reversals changes
randomly. There have been epochs when the changes occurred in 5000 years; there
have also been epochs when no reversal happened in 50 million years.
There are two stable positions of
the magnetic poles with respect to the axis of the Earth’s rotation. It is
similar to a situation where a ball is released into a double-well as shown in
Fig.6. It would have two possible stable positions. If it has some amount of
energy, it would oscillate around one of the stable positions. If the energy is
increased, it might jump from one well to another, and then would oscillate
around the other stable position.
The Earth’s magnetic
field behaves in a similar manner. At present the magnetic north pole is
undergoing small oscillations around the geographic North Pole. In the past
also such a situation existed for millions of years. Then, the oscillations
would begin to increase in amplitude, and at some point of time the North Pole
crossed the equator and moved to the southern hemisphere. It then settled in
its new position close to the geographic South Pole, and continued to oscillate
around it for a long time. Then again, the time for another reversal would
come.
Cannot such an event happen
again? Yes, it can. The only problem is that it is impossible to predict such
an occurrence. Especially, it is complete nonsense to say that a pole reversal
will happen three years later, exactly on the 21st of December.
Moreover, it is not a fact that a
geomagnetic pole reversal is accompanied by mass extinction. Some specific
species may have problems. For example, the migrating birds navigate using the
magnetic lines of force. Such birds may lose way when the magnetic field
undergoes change. But nothing of such a magnitude can happen that may drive the
human race to extinction. Some newspaper reports and internet websites are
saying that during the pole reversal the Earth’s magnetism will disappear, and
so cosmic rays will fall on the Earth’s surface. A little thought will convince
you how baseless these propositions are. Ultraviolet rays and other
electromagnetic waves are in no way affected by magnetic field. Ultraviolet
rays are blocked by the ozone layer – not magnetic field. Magnetic field can
affect the trajectories of only the charged particles. Such particles in the
cosmic rays move along the magnetic field lines and enter the Earth’s
atmosphere close to the magnetic north pole. That causes a brilliant display in
the night sky, called aurora borealis. But nobody has ever heard that the
Eskimos or the polar bears died because charged particles had entered the
atmosphere. The last pole reversal (the Brunhes-Matuyama reversal) is reported
to have occurred around 7,80,000 years ago. This is a time when the immediate
predecessor of man, the Homo Erectus, roamed on the Earth. They seem to have
lived happily through the pole reversal. This essentially points to the fact
that nothing catastrophic can happen during a pole reversal.
Shift in the
Earth’s rotational axis
Some doomsday theorists are
saying that on that fateful day the Earth’s rotational axis will shift. It is
not that this axis never changes. Indeed it does. There is an easy way of
understanding this. If you extend the axial line into the sky, it is supposed
to meet the pole star. While all other stars are seen to move with time due to
the Earth’s rotation, only the pole star is not supposed to move. If you take a
long-exposure shot aiming your camera at the night sky (it has to be mounted on
a tripod), you will see concentric circular tracks of the motion of the stars.
The circles are centred at a point where the pole star is supposed to be; that
is why it is not supposed to move. But if you really take such a shot you will
find that the pole star is not at the centre, and it also moves in a small arc
of a circle. Was it always so? No. Scientists have found that the Earth’s
rotational axis moves in an undulating motion, much like the motion of a
rotating top. The pole star was along the axial line in the past, but now the
axis has moved slightly away from it.
Citing this motion of the Earth’s
rotational axis, some people are imagining that the Earth’s axis may move away
from its mean position by a large extent. In that case the tropic of cancer,
which now passes through northern India at about 23 degree latitude, will move
away. The places on Earth through which the new tropic of cancer will pass will
then have a climate similar to that of Northern India; and the climate of
Northern India will either become too hot or too cold. There will be large
scale changes in the climate of every place in the world. That will lead to the
catastrophe.
Some people are saying that the
axis of rotation, instead of changing with respect to the stars in the sky, may
also change with respect to the Earth itself. In that case the locations of the
geographic north and south poles, and the equatorial plane will change. One of
today’s temperate regions may become the new north pole, and the changed
equator may pass through a place that is freezing cold today. That will again
lead to a catastrophic climate change.
These two kinds of catastrophes
are not entirely impossible though, if we consider time-frames of millions of
years. But such an event cannot happen over short periods of time. The reason
is simple: the rotational inertia of the Earth. Because of the inertia, no
abrupt change can take place in its rotational motion – unless a large force is
applied from outside, which is impossible in the case of the Earth. Small
changes can take place owing to the fact that the Earth is not a solid sphere.
The inside of the Earth has soft and molten parts, whose rotation may not be
the same as that of the outer crust. There can be small changes of the
rotational motion of the planet due to the constant interplay between the
motions of various layers, but large-scale changes cannot occur out of this.
That is why it can be said with
confidence that no catastrophic disorientation of the Earth’s rotation is going
to occur on the 21st of December 2012.
Super-Earthquake
and Super-Volcanism theories
Earthquakes and eruption of
volcanoes are common events in many parts of the globe. The crust of the Earth
is made of a few “plates,” which move with respect to each other. That causes
the earthquakes and volcano eruptions, and that is why such events mainly occur
close to the plate boundaries.
Can a very
large-scale earthquake or volcano eruption occur? Yes, that is possible. But
such an event is always localized. A city, a district, or even a province may
be affected. But an earthquake or a volcanic eruption cannot affect the whole
world to the extent of driving the human race to extinction.
Moreover,
the occurrence of such a super-earthquake or a large volcanic eruption cannot
be predicted much in advance. Some geological and biological indicators do act
as precursors to such an event, and can be used in prediction, but that is
always over a short span of time. The increase in temperature of soil and
groundwater, the swelling of land, the presence of specific gases in
sub-surface water, and minor tremors often give forewarnings of an impending
large earthquake, but only over a period of a few months. That is why, in the
year 2009, or even earlier, it is impossible to predict that a super-earthquake
or a super-volcanism will occur on 21st December 2012. The Mayans foretelling
such an event is simply ridiculous.
Pole reversals in
the sun and solar flare theory
The sun has magnetism, which has
its polarities. The dark spots that sometimes appear on the sun’s body are
indicators of the sun’s magnetic activity. There can also be local magnetic
fields due to the movement of hot ionized gas. Movement of charged particles
means flow of current, and flow of current produces magnetic field. That is why
local north poles and south poles can be created on the surface of the sun.
When that happens, hot gases leap out of the sun’s surface along the magnetic
lines of force, and fall back at the local south pole. Where the gas has
outward motion appear bright, and dark spots appear where it has inward motion.
This is what we see as sunspots.
The appearance of such sunspots
does not occur uniformly over time. It has an 11- year cycle, when the number
of sunspots increase, which indicates an increase of the number of local north-
and south-poles and hence an increase in the sun’s magnetic activity. At these
times, large solar flares leap out of the sun, which can be seen with
telescopes. Through this process, the overall north pole and south pole of the
sun reverse their positions. Then again the activity subsides, and the sun
settles in the new magnetic position for another cycle of 11 years.
When the activity of the sun
increases, sometimes gigantic solar flares come out of the sun. Storms of
charged particles emerge from the sun and move outward, passing over the
planets. These flows of charged particles create their own magnetic fields, and
the resulting “magnetic storms” affect the magnetic field of the earth.
This affects many things on the
Earth. Many artificial satellites are affected. The aurora borealis becomes
extraordinarily bright. The Earth’s magnetic field undergoes rapid changes
under the influence of the magnetic storms. We know that a change in magnetic
field can produce voltages in conductors. At present there are many such long
conductors on the Earth – which conduct electricity from one place to another.
Such long electrical transmission lines experience over-voltage, which can
damage equipment.
Citing such impacts of the
increase of solar activity, the doomsday theorists are now saying that in the
year 2012 a very large solar flare will swallow the Earth, and will cause a
large-scale catastrophe.
In fact, the last solar
pole-reversal event happened in the year 2001. Eleven years later, in the year
2012, the sun is again expected to experience increased magnetic activity. Thus
far it is correct. But then, imagination spreads its wings.
Can you remember what
catastrophic events happened in the year 2001? Or in the year 1990? I am
positive that you won’t be able to recall anything special that happened in
those years. Those of us, who work in the field of engineering, know that
certain things did happen. On 31 March 2001, a few artificial satellites
malfunctioned, shutting down internet and TV transmission for some time. A
transmission line from Seattle to Los Angeles in the USA experienced dangerous
over-voltage, and had to be disconnected. As a result many places in the USA
experienced power cuts. That year a solar flare was so large that the Earth
passed through it.
Except for the engineers handling
these equipments, nobody on this planet felt anything. Solar flares are so
tenuous that nothing happens if the Earth passes through one. On the basis of
these facts, the reader can now argue out how much “disaster” may happen when
the solar activity again increases in the year 2012.
Galactic equator
theory
If you surf the internet looking
for homepages dedicated to the 2012 doomsday, another theory will attract your
attention. It says that in that year, the sun will cross the galactic equator,
and that will cause the catastrophe.
This probably needs some
explanation. We know that the sun is an ordinary member of the billions of
stars that form the gigantic conglomeration called the “Milky Way” galaxy. The
galaxy is shaped like a disk, and has spiral arms. The sun is situated on a
spiral arm, roughly two-thirds of the radius away from the centre. The sun is
not placed on the equatorial plane of the galaxy. In fact, it and all the other
stars in the galaxy oscillate around the galactic equatorial plane. Once the
sun goes to one side of the equatorial plane, and then to the other side. It
thus undergoes a harmonic motion with the equatorial plane in the middle. The
amplitude, that is, the distance between one end of this oscillation to the
other, is about 230 light years. The sun covers this distance in about 33
million years.
So far it is correct scientific
information. But then, the proponents of the doomsday hypothesis are saying
that on that very day, the 21st of December 2012, the sun will cross the
galactic plane. How did they know that? Simple answer: the Maya calendar makers
had calculated that.
The fact is, for an event that
happens once in 33 million years, it is impossible to say exactly in which year
it will happen. To predict the date is as ludicrous as it gets. After a lot of
observation through the modern telescopes, and after a lot of calculation, the
scientists can at most say today that the sun takes about 900 years to cross
the central part of the galaxy, and at some point of time in those 900 years,
the sun crosses the geometric equatorial plane. Since there is nothing special
in that equatorial plane – only void between stars – nothing special happens
when it crosses. That is why it is impossible to say exactly when it crossed
the plane.
Why do the “end of
the world” theories appear again and again?
This is not the first time that
theories predicting the destruction of human civilization have been in
circulation. Every religion has fables and stories about the start and the end
of human civilization. That is why, the idea that the world will come to an end
becomes a part of the consciousness of those who believe in some religion.
For example, the Christians
believe that one day the “final battle” between God and Satan will take place
at a place called “Armageddon”. That battle will finish off human civilization
– an event called the apocalypse. The Islam religion also has similar ideas
about the battle between the god and the evil, and the destruction of
civilization. Hindus believe that when sin or “adharma” increases in the
society, the god himself comes down and destroys everything. It is believed
that in the past there were ages or “yugas” called Satya, Treta, Dwapar, etc.,
which ended in such destructive interference from god. At present it is the
“kali-yuga,” and if sin, corruption, and adharma increase too much, it will
also be destroyed in a similar manner. People hear about these stories from
childhood, and thus ideas about the horrific “last day” enter their minds
unconsciously. When they hear some apparently scientific-sounding theories
predicting an impending doomsday, their minds tend to believe and not question.
There is another
important aspect. Today’s youths do not have a bright future before them. Many
students, who are looking forward to building a bright future, will not get
entry into the world of higher education. The door to higher education is very
narrow. Those who would overcome the hurdle of stiff competition will also be
deprived of the access to higher studies if their parents are poor. Today
education is a commodity, which has to be purchased from the market. Those who
are lucky enough to have parents who can afford it, may obtain a higher
education degree. But the pain of unemployment awaits most of them. When this
is the actual situation, the mind unconsciously sees an impending doomsday as a
welcome event. That single event will make everybody equal, everybody will die
together, and the hapless millions will not have to withstand the torment of
deprivation. The unconscious mind looks forward to this possibility along with
the fear of the “final day.” Instead of struggle against oppression and injustice,
they dream of an alternative picture of a catastrophic event that will destroy
the oppression and injustice, and the difference between the haves and
have-nots. They are fed with this alternative picture. They believe. Their
minds want to believe.
Among those who propagate such
nonsense in the name of science, there are people who really believe in them.
But most of them do this with an ulterior motive, with a design – to keep
people away from the struggle against injustice and oppression, to keep them
dreaming of a “final day” when their problems, along with everything else, will
come to an end.
Sources of information:
The websites that propagate the
doomsday theories of 2012:
4.
www.nasca.org.uk/asian_disaster/2012/2012.html
5. www.diagnosis2012.co.uk
The websites giving scientific
information on asteroids:
1. neo.jpl.nasa.gov (Near Earth
Object Program)
2.
cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/ephimerides/critlist/
3.
cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/mpc.html (International Astronomical Union’s Minor
Planets Centre)
Websites giving information about
the Earth’s magnetic field:
1. www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/magnetic/reversals.html
2.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/geomagnetic_reversal
For information on the Maya
calendar:
1.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya-calendar
2. www.mayacalendar.com/menu.html
3. www.michielb.nl/maya/calendar.html
For information on the sun’s
magnetic activity
1.
science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2001/ast15feb_1.htm
2.
solar.physics.montana.edu/ypop/spotlight/ magnetic/
3.
solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/the_key.shtml
4.
www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/03/ 070323132406.htm
For information on the galactic
equator:
1. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/galactic_plane
2.
www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/223656/ galactic-equator
