Prepare for a Tsunami of Stupidity

["Mad" Miles]

Bad News for the True Believers in 2012.

Oh well...

"Mad" Miles

[ICPP]

Sometimes it seems to have arrived early in Sonoma County ;-)

Prepare for a Tsunami of Stupidity

[lynn]

Ah yes, a neighbor I ran into the other day asked me if I had heard about that '2012' thingy...Oh my gawd - the New Agey version of the Biblical/religious fundy Armageddon/Apocalypse culties...

The end of the world could happen any time...And if it does happen, I imagine it would happen as most horrible tragedies do...Completely un-announced...

[handy]

Of all the nutcase scenarios, I like this one best. Enjoy.

THE ARMPIT OF OUR UNIVERSE


THE ARMPIT OF OUR UNIVERSE

The Maya obsessively observed the heavens and processed data through proficient mathematics. Their Long Count calendar is accurate to one day in 374,000 years. The Great Cycle is 13 baktuns (144,000-day periods). Reality started on 4 Ahau 8 Cumku 3114 BC. Gregorian years hold 365.2425 days (5 hours, 49 minutes, 12 seconds residual; with no year Zero). The tank goes dry on 21 December 2012. Five centuries after cultural extirpation by Spanish conquistadors and Catholic priests, Maya astronomy tables are good within 33 seconds for modern eclipses. Did they know something?

Muslims were notable ancient astronomers. They saw in Winter skies a luminous orange star of varying brightness in constellation Orion - Betelgeuse (Greek for "armpit"). Marking The Hunter's right shoulder, the six-year variable M2 star drifts 640 light-years distant. Alpha-Orionis holds 20 solar masses with 135,000 times Sol's luminosity and a diameter 87% of Jupiter's orbit. It nears Type II supernova death. Perhaps 18 solar masses of its matter will erupt at 10% lightspeed, pursuing a sustained roar of 511, 847 and 1240 KeV gamma rays (the visible 10% of radiation when they interact with matter) outshining the rest of the Milky Way. Five minutes before Gabriel hoists his trumpet, a wall of neutrinos (the invisible 90% of the radiation) arrives to foment mischief. Betelgeuse is severely ailing as viewed in our timeline. The Maya might suggest it popped at the turn of the 12th Century. Are modern doomsayers' revelations confounded by Relativity?

Only heat provides pressure thwarting a star's gravitational collapse. Betelgeuse's core long ago consumed its hydrogen. As heavier elements fuse to obtain smaller energy yields, core temperature rises to hundreds of millions of degrees kelvin and a massive star inflates into a red giant. Betelgeuse's Official 5.7 year luminosity pulsation burps and farts. When stars' core composition touches iron, nickel and cobalt, three things happen.

First, these are among the most tightly bound nuclei. No energy is to be had by further fusion. Second, the insane temperature exacerbated by compression (diesel engine of the Gods) causes photo-disintegration. Gamma photons spallate nuclei, violently absorbing energy. Third, the core collapses. Protons and electrons squeeze together into neutrons, exuding a neutrino for each union, as the core implodes at near lightspeed to either bounce shock at a neutron star (1.4 solar masses entry fee) or pop the access hatch to infinity as a black hole. The visible star goes wild about five minutes later as news reaches the surface.

A neutrino risks 50% chance of absorption by traversing a light- year of lead. 323 billion solar neutrinos pierce our every square inch each second. The Homestake gold mine in South Dakota hosted 400,000 liters of perchloroethylene whose chlorine-37 atoms (24.23%, with chlorine-35) absorbed high energy neutrinos 4600 feet underground to create one atom of radioactive argon-37 (half-life of 35 days, 565 KeV gamma emitter by electron capture) every second day or so. Tanks were purged and counted monthly to assay solar neutrino yield. The neutrino blast from supernova 1987a, 100,000 light-years away in the Lesser Magellanic cloud, sent the real time Japanese Kamioka Cerenkov neutrino detector into spasms. Betelgeuse is 156 times closer, and will be more intense by the inverse square of the distance ratio - 24,000 times!

Chlorine-37 in the oceans' salt, our blood, and the whole planet will become radioactive before our skies brighten. No hiding place! The radiation will do our genes no good. Heat from radioactive decay will stimulate volcanism and tectonics on a biblical scale. Meanwhile, our atmosphere will be blown away.

A solar mass of cobalt-56 is within the maelstrom, half-life of 77.3 days (exactly fitting supernova light decay curves) emitting 847 and 1240 KeV gamma rays plus 1460 KeV positrons (antimatter). A positron annuls an electron, emitting two gamma photons of 511 KeV annihilation radiation (or doesn't, and arrives here to do it). Co-56 decay powers the persistent supernova fireball outshining an entire galaxy. Note 1 KeV = 1000 electron volts. The ionization energies of molecular nitrogen and oxygen are 15.58 and 12.07 eV respectively. Our 50 mile depth of air will superheat and fluorescently whisk into space. A sustained electromagnetic pulse will wither anything and everything electrical or electronic. The gamma blast will be exciting for a few Co-56 half-lives. Call it a year.

The matter wave from Betelgeuse's demise engulfs our solar system a few thousand years later, playing havoc with the sun's magnetic field and plying other antics as it explodes past at absurd speeds. Elements heavier than iron form within the supernova shockwave before the outside universe gets its wakeup call. We will accrete iridium and other rarities as compensation.

Were we to warp a superluminal probe a few light-years toward right ascension 05hrs 55min 10.3sec and declination 07° 24' 25", would it detect a big, bright orange star yet beaming or the insanely energetic debris of a deity's monstrous flashbulb? Yahweh has a desperate fetish about blood, salt, and fire. Take Christmas 2012 early, and have a nice day.


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