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The New York Times On Earth's Magnetic Flip-Flop
TolkiEinstein writes "The New York Times reports that, relatively speaking, compasses may soon point South. It's long been known that Earth flips magnetically every half-million years or so, and, with the north pole's magnetic field at about 10-15 percent [less than] its strength of 150 years ago, many geologists feel a flip is coming up. Computer simulations also suggest that the current state of the magnetic field is indicative of an upcoming flip. Though it would take hundreds of years to complete, the impact on life may be significant but not catastrophic, including phenomena such as power-outages, satellite malfunctions and disruptions in the rhythmic functions of some animals such as loggerhead turtles. The EU plans to launch a trio of satellites in 2009 to assume polar orbits & monitor the field." (Cross your fingers for some nice solar wind.) Update: 07/13 17:02 GMT by T : Note: the summary here originally misstated the Times' article; the field 's strength has decreased 10-15 percent, rather than to 10-15 percent.
And, since the magnetic field will be weakened, there'll be a supposed worldwide 24/7 aurora. Now that's kewl.
Candy-Coated Knowledge
As the Earth's magnetic field is the only thing that protects us from the solar wind...
...I met Gary Glatzmeier, the guy who originally discovered the reversal effect during computer simulations. He's really smart, but at the same time very nice with it -- often a rarity for scientists who hit the big time.
Tubal-Cain smokes the white owl.
The aurora borealis, or northern lights, occur due to charged particles entering the Earth's magnetic field, being guided to the magnetic poles.
If the magnetic field flips, what about the auroras? Will we have (weaker) auroras all over the place while the field changes?
File not found. Fake it(Y/N)? _
It will be hilarous if the poles flip about the time .
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the Mayan calendar ends, hopefully it will go as gracefully
as scientists have predicted
As The southern hemisphere has its winter during our summer,
I am wondering if the seasons will flip flop as well ???
I also wonder if the polar shift will effect magma flows
I wonder if the magnetic field has any effect on plate tectonics too
Hopefully not, It is suppose to be a weak force
Peace,
Ex-MislTech
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
They talked about global cancer rates rising from the years of diminished radiation protection. They also showed how during the transition period the magnetic "poles" will travel randomly around the globe, making random locations radiation hot spots.
Could they have possibly picked a more random animal for that example?
For some reason this made me curious about turtles & magnetism- a little research turned up this guy's page about turtle migration at UNC.
It includes this gem:
To determine how turtles respond to magnetic fields that exist in different parts of the ocean or to magnetic field elements (such as inclination and intensity) that they encounter while migrating, each hatchling was placed into a nylon-Lycra harness as shown below. [empaphis mine]
Image is here
While the above comment is amusing, is there some truth to it as well? Would things such as magnetic media be affected?
I know, it's naive to think that we'd still be using the same types of data storage technology in a few hundred years, but for deep archive it's certainly possible.. I mean look at historical archives and libraries - they're filled with books, and that is simply the storage media of days past, so maybe it's not absurd to think about.
I don't even know if this would affect these things, but that's why I'm asking. Anyone?
THE MAGIC WORDS ARE SQUEAMISH OSSIFRAGE
As a Physicist I can tell you that that is exactly like science works and that it has worked well for centuries.
There is a method that, when put bluntly, is like this: "If you put forward an extraordinary, off-mainstream hypothesis you've better a) come from a respectable university/research group, b) show some extraordinary, easily reproducible evidence for it too and c) get ready for some serious ad hominem bashing, ridicule and possibly loss of funds". It all comes with the territory.
I'm glad popular science mags like SA adhere to this standard.
The owls are not what they seem
I used to think not, but since an event a few years ago, I'm at least willing to entertain the possibility that some basic form of magnetic field sensitivity, may exist.
I've always had a reasonable sense of direction - and I have generally attributed it to a good spacial awareness - however, an incident that occurred while travelling made me reconsider what really contributes to this 'directional sense'.
At the time, I was in an aircraft heading from the southern hemisphere to the north, and after crossing the equator (not immediately, but within a few hours), my body was absolutely certain that we were heading south towards Mexico... whereas the aircraft was actually going north towards Canada.
Now, I would have thought that north was north, and crossing the equator wouldn't affect me (particularly since it wouldn't affect a compass) - but something wierd was certainly happening. The feeling faded after about 6 hours or so, and 'north' became 'north' again to my brain... but I'm really interested in any thoughts people have about what the cause might have been.
Wow... I remember seeing a show in discovery about carrier pigeons using the magnetic pole to navigate... (or at least that was the theory)... How will this affect migratory birds at large?
Deltron 3030 - Virus (music video)
The poster says the article indicates the Earth's magnetic field is "about 10-15 percent it's strength of 150 years ago" while the article states "the field's strength has waned 10 to 15 percent."
This is a huge difference, and indicates utter carelessness on the part of the poster and editors. Please post a correction and own up to your mistates. Editors, please be more careful in the future.
You'd get them everywhere. You only get them at the poles because the field shields the rest of the planet. During the period of largely no magnetic field of any significant organization (the 2000-8000 year "flipping" time people have commented on), you'd get them almost every night everywhere.
Interestingly, although I can't find a link to it, I've seen estimates that the added solar radiation (NOT UV, so sunblock won't help) will cause 100,000 additional cases of cancer a year, but likely less than 5,000 additional deaths based on current cure rates. Given the increase in cancer treatment technology, the end result could be gorgeous nights and no signficant health impact on the developed world, and gorgeous nights and another health issue to raise money for, for the developing world.
I'd personally worry more about a climatic flip to an ice age than a dramatic weakening/flip of the magnetic field. Its hard to grow food for ten billion people on half the land, after all.
And how, exactly, is that helping science?
The peer-review-process is badly broken. It only promotes ordodox science and the funding of already established old man.
Currently it takes two generations to accept a paradigm shift, to accept off-mainstream theories as better approximations of Reality.
Think were we could be if science would move forward much faster...
One needs to look only a few million miles away for a spectacular example of what happens during a magnetic field flip. Our Sun has been flipping its field direction every 22 years. When its gets close to flipping its magnetic field lines sometimes break away from the main field and become localized loops in what we see are sunspots. A sunspot is a region of the surface through which a field loop passes and cools the temperature a few percent and appears less bright than the surround solar surface. Sunspots usually occur in pairs or groups of alternating polarity coresponding to the parts of the magentic field line loops either entering or exit the solar surface. Sun spots occur in patterns migrating fromt he equator to poles over the course of a flip cycle. Huge solar storms and explosions are associated with these solar magnetic disruptions.
The problem is no one has found a better alternative. If you take out all the conservative peer-review, then all kinds of kooks start getting publicity & funding. Think cargo cult stuff.
Truth has a formidable way of eventually winning: it is the truth. No matter how derided were the people who proposed plate techtonics or quantum physics, it eventually won out because it worked better than anything else. If a result is reproducible then someone will reproduce it and confirm it. It doesn't then matter what high-ranked people in various department thought of the idea.
This means that to be a successful scientist, you not only need to be creative, smart, inventive, patient and persistent, you also need to have balls of steel and a will of iron and prepare for the worst of injustice. Not only that, but when they do succeed after a hard slog, they often become the highly-ranked people who deride other people's ideas.
A proper supervisor tells their student about all this during their PhDs. You soon find out if you are fit for the job.
Once the GPS system fails it will have repercussions on everything that depends on it. Hmmm, NTP for one. Some utility companies even use it to monitor electric load on the powergrid, the mass movement of charge, etc. Most complex control systems are useless without accurate inputs. So how big was the "margin-of-error" people designed in that lowest-bidder control systems for that Nuclear Power Plants ? If you look at what happened at Chernobyl with un-self-sustained Nuclear Powerplants you have to start worrying.
If that is not enough to worry about, what will the effects be on the worlds international food supply ? I think we have all started to notice the "Weird" weather. Zetatalk (of Planet X fame) has nice pictures correlating the changes in the magnetic field with changes in temperature. I mean evolution happens over millennia can a significant part of the Earth's food supply handle a severe step-function input, and what will the transient response be like ?
Also have a look at these:e t.mov. mov
http://www-ssg.sr.unh.edu/406/Review/rev6.html
http://ds9.ssl.berkeley.edu/LWS_GEMS/movies/6magn
http://ds9.ssl.berkeley.edu/LWS_GEMS/movies/6sec6
As another poster pointed out, it keeps the kooks out by being so conservative that even some legitimate breakthroughs may be squashed in the process. Unorthodox ideas will resurface time after time and if they're really up to it, they will eventually be accepted.
Yes, brilliant people will be ridiculed, careers will be wrecked and our understanding of the Nature grows painfully slowly. However, if it weren't so, in the end we wouldn't have science at all.
It only promotes ordodox science and the funding of already established old man
Orthodox science is well established, well tested and a robust foundation for new science. It should be protected at any cost. No new theory should dismantle an old theory that has stood . The new theory can only be accepted if it naturally incorporates the old theory at some limit (like Newtonian mechanics is a good approximation of relativistic mechanics at low speeds/weak gravity).
Currently it takes two generations to accept a paradigm shift, to accept off-mainstream theories as better approximations of Reality.
Indeed. What's the problem? You're going somewhere?
science would move forward much faster...
Yes. In the same way as a plane that falls apart at 30000 feet.
The owls are not what they seem
No new theory should dismantle an old theory that has stood.
I don't agree with that. Even a single reproducable counter-example is in principle enough to disprove a theory. Even in the absence of alternative theories.
The moment you can experimentally show some effect of relativity, you know that Newton is wrong. Or more accurately, that Newton is only a good approximation for situations where the speed and distance is low.
I do agree with what you're probably trying to say though; for a new theory to be anything worth, it must explain all the occurences that the old did, and then some. An experiment which the old theory could successfully predict, must still be predictable by the new theory.
I don't know whether to smile or frown at your statement. --The suppressive systems designed to keep people ill-evolved and ignorant certainly do work effectively, though primarily as population control measures rather than any sort of formula for attaining and sharing knowledge.
"If you put forward an extraordinary, off-mainstream hypothesis you've better a) come from a respectable university/research group, b) show some extraordinary, easily reproducible evidence for it too and c) get ready for some serious ad hominem bashing, ridicule and possibly loss of funds".
Ridicule should be a part of mainstream science. . ?
Hm. See. . . If enormous effort were not expended on instilling crippling thought patterns in people as they grew up, (largely through fear of rejection and being rewarded for punishing those who refuse to go along with the group, regardless of the inherent value of whatever the group happens to be doing). . , if the world was not thumb-pressed into submission through all manner of social and economic pressures, then the growth of knowledge through science would, I think, be truly astounding.
Don't get me wrong. --I certainly adhere to, "I'll Believe it when I See it".
But I also think just as often that, "I'll See it when I Believe it."
--When I finally grew a spine and stopped fearing ridicule and punishment, (which, interestingly, are entirely harmless threats the instant you realize their nature), I discovered that there are fundamental forces in the universe which are keyed on and indeed, which are made from the stuff of consciousness itself. There is nothing but energy, after all; why is it such a leap for so many to take the next few steps?
Science which is locked in the material boundaries of what has been deemed 'acceptable' is self-limiting to the point where it is nearly impossible to advance. Throw in a bushel or two of kooks and cultists, and the game is pretty much done for. --That is, when biased scientists affront the 'impossible' with nostril-flaring scepticism, they actually go a long way to preventing themselves from being able to register entire hosts of phenomenon. --As well as suppressing certain patterns of reality through the force of their own subconscious will and intent.
As such, extraordinary evidence will never be found under such conditions. This is the paradox upon which Faith is based. (A dirty word, to be certain, largely thanks to the other massive mind-control project known as Christianity.)
And that's just the way certain groups would like things to stay, and I don't see attitudes changing. It looks more and more like it will be a destructive and painful shifting of affairs after all. (More so for some than for others.)
Ah well. Interesting times and all that. . !
Cheers and good luck to you!
-FL