Slashdot Mirror
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.
I'm sure this is Bush's fault, somehow, according to the left. I'm waiting for Peter Jennings to blame this one on Bush.
And, since the magnetic field will be weakened, there'll be a supposed worldwide 24/7 aurora. Now that's kewl.
Candy-Coated Knowledge
Beings aspergers AND pulling chicks... I enjoy the challenge!
As the Earth's magnetic field is the only thing that protects us from the solar wind...
Could they have possibly picked a more random animal for that example?
And won't someone please think of the turtles?!?!?!?!?!
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
Dr. Evil has launched several satellites to orbit the polls to harness the energy of the magnetic flop and create a death ray capable of destroying mankind.
All to extort the wealthiest nations on the planet for...one MILLION dollars.
The preceding message was based on actual events. Only the names, locations and events have been changed.
"Armed forces abroad are of little value unless there is prudent counsel at home" - Cicero
I had my homework al done, but the magnetic poles flipped and wiped my harddrive...
if you're talking about the moral compass...
What if we all donated spare refrigerator magnets, magnets from old hard disks, etc. and carefully arranged them at the north and south poles. These giant piles would hold the poles in place. Perhaps a lucky chain letter spam from Bill Gates would help get people to donate magnets to the cause.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
...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 .
...
.
.
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"
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
And just how would this be different to any other day.
Apart from compasses pointing south and and increased demand for factor 500, we shouldn't all begin to panic needlessly.
The compass was a pretty shoddy means of navigation anyway, with the movement of the poles and all. And sunbathing?! What kind of pasttime is that?!
This could affect global warming though. Combined with the greenhouse effect we could all be fried little geeks.
I wonder if it would be possible to set up a network of gigantic electromagnets and attempt to impede or even reverse the earths magnetic flip flop?
May the Maths Be with you!
Why Does The Sun Shine?
It has to be pointed out that there is a significant difference between "The field's strength has waned 10 to 15 percent." which is what the article says; and "the north pole's magnetic field at about 10-15 percent it's strength of 150 years ago" which is what Timothy says. The former means that the field strength is still 85 to 90 percent of the original value (still nearly intact), while the latter means that it is only 10-15 percent of that value (nearly gone). This distiction not insignificant. That being said, it's still neat to follow (even though I don't think that I'll be around at the end).
Doh, stupid enter key....
What I meant to say before bumping the enter key on an incomplete post was...
In the summary, it says the field is at 10-15% of where it was 150 years ago, but the article says it has WANED 10-15%, which would actually make it 85-90% of where it was 150 years ago...
From the poster's text:
"and, with the north pole's magnetic field at about 10-15 percent it's strength of 150 years ago"
From the article itself:
"The field's strength has waned 10 to 15 percent, and the deterioration has accelerated of late"
Those two quotes are not the same. The poster's lack of attention to detail has turned the articles 10 to 15 percent reduction (a relative value) into a 10 to 15 percent strength (an absolute value). The meaning is totally different, and the poster should apologize for spreading mis-information.
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.
This would be good for Australia. No longer "down under" ... finally "on top".
I had heard about this theory, but never believed it. Then I saw a Nova show on PBS called Magnetic Storm. It's very well made and very interesting. By the end of the show, I believed the poles are set to reverse and it's just a fact of nature. Nothing we can do about it except research and prepare our way of life so things don't go to Hell in a handbasket.
But why is the rum gone?
Stand clear of the doors. The doors are now closing.
I'll be living in the nothern hemisphere... going home now to turn my world map upside-down to get used to it that way... (north always up?)
Me.
Then real fun with the flipping of the magnetic field is not that it moves uniformly from one pole to another over time, but that as it breaks down, tens or hundreds of "north" and "south" poles can develop which are spread all over the planet - see this article in New Scientist. With any luck, maybe my house might end up at one of these new "North Poles" for a while, so at least I can say I've been there :-)
It's too late for me to die young
I blame it on too many people walking around wearing tin foil hats.
"After careful consultation with my administration's junk scientists, we have expanded our Axis of Evil to include the earth's axis as well. This rogue, um, thingy is responsible for the destruction of...does this thing say turtles? But...we don't care about...oh...anyway, this rogue "magnetic thingy" can only be stopped by drilling in the Alaskan oil reserves, therefore stopping all magnetism from happening. These weapons of magnetic disruption must be stopped at all costs."
I'm not a geologist, but don't things on this scale happen very slowly? You wouldn't go to sleep one night with your compass pointing north and suddenly have it point south when you woke up. This would happen gradually over hundreds or thousands of years. Although this is geologically overnight, the magnetic pole wouldn't move significantly during a person's, or turtle's, lifetime.
Having said that, I doubt even the turtles that rely on the field for navigation would notice. They would adapt to sense the less powerful field over time or they would loose the need to use it. Navigation is done by point of reference. And since the navigational lines of force are moving so slowly, the turtles wouldn't care. The North Pole being 200 miles from where it was for the turtle's great grandparents really doesn't matter to today's turtle. He just wants to get back to where he started from a year or so ago. The shift should be slow enough for him to do this.
The reduced magnetic field seems to be much more of a concern. But, again, we will adapt much like the turtles will. But instead of adapting our biology, we'll adapt our technology. It's not that we can't make a satellite or power grid that can handle solar wind and storms; it's just that we haven't done it. Why not? We haven't needed to. Think of the reduced magnetic field as job security.
Dr. Evil did not tolerate any presence of a Number One. Number Two on the other hand (played by Robert Wagner and Rob Lowe) was acceptable...most of the time. :)
Yeah, right.
Evana Kiniski -- it was amazing. you couldn't take your eyes off her. She had huge....tracts of land.
The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln
"I don't remember what I was going to say."
"Well it must not have been very important then."
"Oh, now I remember. I'm radioactive."
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
I got a whole bag of shhh...with your name on it. ;)
*Sigh*. Yes, we remember The Core, renowned as having the worst physics in a movie, ever.
i wonder if toilets will flush counter-clockwise ?
Sanity is the trademark of a weak mind. -- Mark Harrold
Kerry's done so many flip-flops, once he gets elected the whole damn earth is gonna do one....
Has anyone thought of his relocation???
While the article does little to posit the consequences of these competing theories, it does provide a good deal of insight as to why and when the changes occur. It does conclude, however, that "many investigators believe that the trend [magnetic pole weakening] will not continue and the field will regain its strength, as it has many times in the past."
a bigger flip flop than kerry!
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
...how long these magnetic reversals take to happen? Is carbon dating or whatnot whatever the heck they use that accurate now that they can measure that precisely? Or is this 150 years figure just a WAG? Maybe it's 15 years, or 1500 years?
I don't know, maybe there's someone here into this science.
Sawyer used this magnetic reversal idea in his Neanderthal Parallax Trilogy (a neaderthal Physicist opens a portal between worlds) http://www.sfwriter.com/
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
what's all this bs about poles?
the world is flat dammit!
it was proven by christian philosophers
thousands of years ago.
There was a big "DO NOT PUSH" sign right next to the degauss button!
Has this something to do with Longhorn release?
No biggy, it's just Saberhagen's Berserkers softening us up for the main event.
you laugh at them now, but they'll be the only ones protecting their brains when the magnetic poles stop protecting us from deadly radiation.
What I couldn't understand from the movie:
They say the bombs had to be placed in the EXACTLY correct spot, within feet (or inches).
Yet, they were in a VERY fluid substance, far more fluid than they had theorized.
So, pop-quiz hot-shot... how to you ensure several items floating in a very fluid substance don't move more than a few inches or feet within a fair amount of time.
Unless each unit had some sort of propulsion, guidance, and corrective program, they're attempt would have failed (based on what they were saying).
On a side note, there was a low-bidget version of "The Core." It had a different title, and they didn't have to go all the way down. But it was SO similar it was funny.
It starred Wil Wheaton (Star Trek: TNG). Even the scenes were similar: large diamonds they couldn't drill through, while repairing the vehicle someone was bathed in lava. They had to place several nuclear devices to "jumpstart" something. It was funny to watch after the Core. Both were just soooo bad, but at least the Core had some fx.
If North and South switch, does that mean East and West will also?
The article makes it all sound so serene. "The magnetic poles are going to change, nothing to worry about, there's no more to see here, move along."
My question is this. How will it effect geology? Will the earths geology 'move' to attempt to align itself with the 'new' magnetic field on a small scale, large scale, or what?
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
you laugh at them now, but they'll be the only ones protecting their brains when the magnetic poles stop protecting us from deadly radiation.
Maybe, but isn't there a potential problem of the atmosphere being stripped away if the magnetic field disappears for too long? At least, isn't that the theory of what happened to Mars?
Anyway, I'm off to ebay to look for a 2nd hand space suit....
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)
that somebody will blame this on humans and their technology/pollution/environmentally disruptive tendencies.
Some hollywood bigwig will make a movie about it, in which New York will be devestated by something related to the phenomena.
"Reverse Polarity: the day the Earth's magentic field flipped." in theaters this Summer.
And celebrities will flock to the cause of CAMAGH (Celebrities Assisting Migratory Animals Get Home) Oh well, at least the African swallow won't be affected. It's non-migratory.
Thanks to the internet, we can now all die alone together! -SomeWoman
Please don't repeat this to anyone else; so, you don't look like a fool. Oops, too late (as millions of /.'ers read your post)
I'm not a loggerhead turtle
Have you noticed how many foolish ideas have flourished in this supposed hotbead of intellegence this morning? According to the last poll responses, I'm guessing the average IQ is above 130 here (and well above most of your bosses).
Even if some posts are in jest, we've had folks questioning the results of a simple magnetic shift affecting the direction of the coreolis affect, (toilet flushes), tilt of the earth (seasons), loss of the atmosphere, and viability of all satellites in orbit.
Even if it happened over a couple years (which it doesn't), the only affect I've seen which is certain to happen is that the Government will be blamed for it.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
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.
After all doesn't the magnetic field protect earth from solar radiation. May be a link to global weather trends too.
Remember the movie The Core, where the earth's core was restarted? I propose The Coil, an enormous vertical iron post wrapped with many many turns of current. If the earth's magnetic field drops to zero, The Coil will be powerful enough to make a new field.
Know your pads. One time pad: good for cryptography. Two timing pad: where to take your mistress.
This happens when the comet Venus executes a rimshot from Jupiter, right? I mean, this sounds a bit VonDaniken-esque to me, where does the energy for this supposed massive change in the Earth's angular momentum come from?
One of Maxwell's Laws says that current is proportional to the rate of change of magnetic flux through a loop. If the earth's magnetic field is always changing, can we generate electricity from this effect by putting a loop of wire around the Equator? I realize that it changes rather slowly, but it is still quite a sizeable field...
"I hope that when the Earth's magnetic fields flip and new north poles are created, that one happens to be at my house. That way, I can tell my kids that we live at the North Pole, and that Santa lives upstairs and really does see you when you're sleeping and know when you're awake."
Rule #1 -- Politics always trumps technology.
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.
I for one will welcome our North Pole finally becoming... a North Pole!
The North Pole is actually a south magnetic pole. After the flip, all the naming screwups of the past will finally be corrected. After all the north pole of a compass will align itself in the direction that a positive magnetic charge will be accelerated, i.e., toward a magnetic south pole.
Let's go Hurricanes!!! 2006 Stanley Cup Champions!!!
So once the poles finish reversing, will I have to hack my GPS receiver and invert its display to make its compass point to the new "North" pole?
And will we have to switch around all the highway signs so that I-95 North heads towards Mexico and I-95 South leads to Canda?
And will we have to rename North and South Dakota, North and South Carolina, etc?
The hell with the loggerhead turtles, I've got serious questions that need to be answered! :-)
A marriage is always made up of two people who are prepared to swear that only the other one snores.
Same reason there are northern and southern hemisphere compasses except it's a needle balancing issue. In the northern hemisphere, the "north" end of the needle gets pulled down, and it gets pulled up in the southern hemisphere. There are global compasses that work by allowing you to readjust the balance or by using a gimbaled disk magnet.
I'd mistakenly read the article originally as having "waned to 10 or 15 percent," but upon closer inspection the article does read "waned 10 to 15 percent." Not sure I'd have thought to post on /. for such a small wane. In any event, my apologies for the honest mistake.
What about the European swallow?
Hero: "If that compass (mounted to the mountain) changes direction by 180 degrees, we're all going to blow up!"
Floozie: " But won't that take, like, hundreds of years."
Cue the "exciting music" Hero: "Can't you see, we only have a few hundred years to defuse the bomb!!!!! or everyone within 1 acre of this part of the mountain is doomed!!!.
www.facebook.com/DareDefendOurRights
www.fairtax.org
Ah, understatement. The article states, "Among other things, the field's collapse, scientists say, could let in bursts of radiation, causing a variety of disruptions." I suppose cancer could be considered a disruption...
One of those recent Mars stories suggested that the Matian atmosphere was blown away over time by solar flares/radiation because Mars doesn't have a magnetic field to concentrate that activity to the poles. If we go fieldless for some time during the flip we best hope for a minimum of solar flares. OTOH, this has happened many times before so it might be very cool 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...
Won't somebody please think of the compasses?!
Somewhere, someone will blame the US for this.
--- Ban humanity.
IIRC, I believe that bees also use the magnetic poles as a navagation device.
If it won't boot, Fsck it!
"Deep Core," which was actually released three years earlier, and although it's a lot cheaper, the plot and setting are marginally more believable. The only explanation for "The Core" is that someone saw that and decided that it would have worked if only it had been higher budget and more spectacular. They were wrong.
Doesn't a form of the evolutionary theory form from this magnetic pole change?
I remember a college professor just hinting on this, and I remember my dad explaining the phenomenon(sp?) to me. I think it is pretty much agreed that more radiation will be able to get to the earth's surface. The theory states that every "major" leap in evolutionary history has occurred during this magnetic pole change. So what I am assuming that makes us all descendents of radiated mutants.
I for one welcome our mutant overlords.
YOU'RE WINNER !
Another lame blog
Is the magnetic field flopping not caused by the wide-spread of gas-guzzling SUVs, Oil Wars, presidency stealing, and censorship? What? No? Not even by the Israeli land-stealing? Oh, well...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Earth's magnetic field may be about to "flip". (Physicists would use this word.) But it's not going to "flip flop".
Yours for semantic purity.
Fiat Lux.
No one insults the turtles!
So this is what is causing the hole in the ozone. Its not global warming, it is magnetic field reversal. Must be that driving those big metal SUVs are causing the reversal of the magnetic field.
Everyone know that SUVs are responsible for all of earth's maladies.
Magnetic intensity measurements of pottery and hearths of the past several thousand years find the a factor-of-three fluctuation in earth's field strength (half current to twice current) is rather normal in the scheme of things. Computer simulations such as the Los Alamos guy mentioned int he article find the same thing. A good metaphor is the magnetic field is like the flickering of a candle flame. The computer simulations found the liquid outer core of the earth is unstable compared the solid inner core. The field will then waver all the time until it flips.
Therefore it is difficult to distinguish a fluctuation from an impending flip until the dipole actually disintigrates into a multi-polar arrangment.
What will this do to CRT monitors? Last i heard they create special modes for each side of the equator, due to magnetic differences.. If i have a north poll right next to me, whats that going to do to my monitors?
I've left to find myself. If you happen to see me, please, keep me there until I return.
I know the New York Times is a blatantly left-slanted, Democrat-loving publication, but referring to John Kerry as "magnetic" is just too much.
Oh well, at least they did have the decency to call him what he really is: a flip-flop.
Moderators: Laugh. It's called political humor.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
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.
including phenomena such as power-outages, satellite malfunctions
Why would these have to happen if the switch is going to be so gradual over hundereds of years? Wouldn't we just gradually compensate?
"he drew his sword Ringil that glittered like ice... and he wounded Morgoth with seven wounds..."
You go, NYT.
Ah, bitter dregs.
This currently causes seasonal RF propagation problems in the South Atlantic due to strange effects on the ionosphere. I was told it was caused by a defect in the Van Allen Belts, and was a known problem since the 1960s. I'm not sure if they knew why there was a defect in the Van Allen Belts. One explanation said that the Earth's magnetic core was off-center from the Earth's center of mass. If it is being caused by the early stages of a pole flip, we can probably look forward to many interesting RF propagation problems as the field fragments and reorganizes.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
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
The magnetic field is a 'random process'. There is no real good statistical predictor of when the next reversal will happen.
For GPS. At least when Magnetic North is Houston, TX we will still know which way is up. Then again, cartographers will have a field day updating the magnetic declination every odd year.
What those who want activist courts fear is rule by the people.
Whose life, humankind? What about animals that rely on the earths magnetic field to migrate, or to find thier way back to centuries old mating grounds? What about elephants that travel hundreds of miles to water holes they seem to instinctively know is there? What about whales that travel from South America to Alaska to feed and raise young? I think the impact on animal life will be more severe than the impact on us.
Should a shift like this occur we could lose more species to the extinction.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
But it did not happen all the times the magnetic field already flipped on earth
Are they? Or have they mutated into the spawn of the Deep Ones, serving beneath the ocean waves, until 2012, when the flip of the poles will weaken the Elder God seals... releasing Yog-Sothoth and Cthulhu from their interdemensional prisons?
Get a life, not a lifestyle. - Hikem Bey
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
Slashdot says:
"and, with the north pole's magnetic field at about 10-15 percent it's strength of 150 years ago"
The fine article says:
"The field's strength has waned 10 to 15 percent"
Forget correct spelling and grammer at least try to get the facts straight.
I dont know how exactly, but I'm sure the coming switch of poles is Bush's fault. It'll probably be in Michael Moore's next movie.
For the literal minded amung us, I'm kidding. I'm still not voting for the moron though.
Simple googling... shows it is
Mainly it occurs on high end monitors. And they have sophisticated means built in to combat it.
-
Humans may be affected by the changed magnetic poles as well. After a half-million years, men will again be able to find their ways to other places, no longer needing to rely on their spouses to ask directions.
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.
The story submitter has flipped the ratio of the decay of the magnetic field.
The Slashdot blurb:
" the north pole's magnetic field at about 10-15 percent it's strength of 150 years ago"
The actual NYT report:
"The field's strength has waned 10 to 15 percent"
So we're at 85-90% strength now, not 10-15% strength. The 150 year trend would, if linear, take another 750-1350y, not just 17-42y, to go to zero.
--
make install -not war
IIRC a stationary electrical field doesn't generate a magnetic field. Therefore, I propose that negative people should be sent into low earth orbit.
-jim
Suunto M2 compass. See the nice map of the 5 compass zones. Even comes with an optional "global" needle. The one I have is an older model, the MC-1G.
slide
orbits
Schmidt_02
"I'm not impatient. I just hate waiting." - My Dad
I'm looking forward to toilet bowls around the world sucking water straight down in a swish, rather than the cryptic clockwise/counterclockwise fashion in effect today.
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
But perhaps science would progress more quickly if unexpected theories were easier to investigate.
If you want to be possessive, it's just I-T-S.
But if you want to use a contraction, it's I-T-APOSTROPHE-S.
</song>
Please don't make me stoop to correcting grammar and punctuation.
---
ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
$direction =~ s/N/S/g;
(B) + (D) + (B) + (D) = (K) + (&)
It certainly is a factor with CRTs. Having taken a monitor from the UK to Australia I've seen it with my own eyes. If I remember correctly it was as if the top right of the screen image had been tugged and drawn the picture as if it were a viscous fluid. It was annoying rather than catastrophic though
However, most modern monitors have enough tweaking buttons that you could probably correct for it easy enough. Older (or maybe cheaper) monitors which aren't as manipulatable will likely give you problems
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
Possibly the editors will have fixed it, but as Timothy wrote this and he seems not to give a fuck I'd be amazed.
Although the field is decaying much more slowly than described in the Slashdot story blurb, it is significant.
"the responsibility probably lies with changes in the turbulent flows of molten iron"
The really big change is the new flow pattern of the molten rock under the crust, accounting for the vast majority of the mass of the planet, 5155Km thick of the total Earth radius of 6370Km, or over 80%, flowing up against the under surface of the crust, which is only 35Km thick at the continents (0.5%) and 5Km under the oceans (0.08%). The friction and pressure of the thick magma against the channels its worn and melted into the crust's underside keeps the skin positioned relative to the rotation of that flowing (98% of the total mass. The waning, and possible reversal of the magnetic field reflects significant changes in the flows of the molten mass, which might drag the tiny crust (plus oceans and atmosphere, 0.5% of total mass) into a very different rotated position, with the continents/oceans spun around significantly, relative to the constant equator. And as the earth is about 14Km wider at the equator than tall at the poles, the 5-35Km thin, brittle crust will get bent across the bulge as it flows around. Earthquakes, volcanoes, tidal waves. The turtles that the articles frets about so much, with their shells, amphibious/omnivorous nature, and lack of numbing reassurance through ignoring the New York Times for millennia, might survive. While NYT reporters face much worse chances for survival, lacking fitness to an environment that's actually newsworthy.
--
make install -not war
All good scientists at any stage deride ideas that believe are wrong. It's only when they become highly ranked that people start to listen...
It's pretty easy to survive the high levels of radiation on a burbank sound stage.
just because I don't care doesn't mean I don't understand!
Would my tin foil hat work?
> But it did not happen all the times the magnetic field already flipped on earth ... why should it happen next time?
Because we have been taught by the media to be paranoid & scream wildly about everything that could possibly happen.
Other people have already said it at length, but it can be put succinctly.
When it comes to science, we'd rather have false negatives than false positives.
You know, it was the first Bush administration that caused this by failing to insert large, autonomous dynamos into the earth's crust. This would have stabilized the magnetic shift by generating huge electromagnetic fields.
Likewise, by killing the Texan supercollider the government stopped all research into magnetic field movements. This research would not only have helped in our understanding of magnetic fields, but would also have helped in the current War on Terror by providing valuable information on how subatomic particles can affect semi-psychotic behaviors.
And by ignoring the Kyoto protocols, the US has selfishly allowed its atmosphere to heat up, no doubt affecting the internal stability of the Earth's iron core, making the situation worse.
Plus, clear-cut logging no doubt has caused rotational differentials across the US and the world (due to less air resistence), placing undue stress on the earth's core.
Lastly, by killing millions, if not billions, of creatures, modern civilization has hastened the onset of this problem by robbing the world of counterbalancing "life" or "female" energy, energy that would have counteracted the obviously "male" and "destructive" magnetic shift.
What physical evidence? How does it compare with carbon-dating and other methods of radioactive-decay-based time measurement?
"America has done some terrible things. But I know that Americans don't cheer when innocents die." -Dave Barry
Damn.
:P
Instead of being in the "Far North", this means that I'll soon be in the "Deep South". Better brush up on my banjo playing and inbreeding skillz
N.
"Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence." - Charles de Gaulle
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
Loss of sex drive.
Physical evidence proves it is not.
Please provide this evidence. There are thousands of geologists who would be interested.
I'm an electrical engineer. During my studies in sub-atomic physics that a particle's velocity can be effected by magnetic fields. I believe it's possible that more of the Sun's radiation is penetrating the Earth's magnetic field due to it being weaker. If more radiation hits the Earth, shouldn't that also increase the overall temperature of the Earth and can global warming be contributed to this?
I've been bouncing this idea in my head for a while now and I can't see why this MAY not be true.
What do you all think?
Guess we should have been looking for Weapons of Magnetic Disruption...
Invalid Checksum. Retrying.
Actually, technically the magnetic south pole is aleady in Canada, witout a flip!
Seriously, think about it. The north arrow on your compass points to Canada because the pole is in that direction. However, north attracts south, not north. So when the north end of a magnet points to the north, it's actually pointing to the magnetic pole with a southerly charge! Ie - the one located in the Canadian arctic.
It's actually a case of science meeting semantics. A magnet or compass's "north" pole refers to the fact that it is the north seeking pole. Ie, the pole that will point to the northward direction. Therefore to the pole with the opposite magnetic charge, located on the end of the planet with the same name as the pole which seeks it.
So to summarize, the language defines north and south on the planet's magnetic field inversley as it defines all other magnetic fields. Think of that when on the I-95 in the Dakotas (was there this weekend - not much else do do).
What, with the Earth upside down and all there should be a huge market for it!
"You get all the fun of sitting still, being quiet, writing down numbers, paying attention...science has it all."
God damn it, I am tired of Jack Holes saying that a compass points north and when they flip it will point south.
Hello, Earth to idiots...is it that hard to understand that a compass does NOT point north, but it aligns with magnetic north & SOUTH.
If you want your compass right now to point south, paint the other end, and when they flip if you still want it to point to our current north, paint it's corresponding end.
This aint rocket science for Christ sake. Anything that can distinguish "north & south" will work EXACTLY the same when the polls flip, as it will still be aligning with the magnetic polls, just like it always has and always will. Though your stupid little GPS programmed by stupid people who have stupidly programmed it to "point north" and not "align with the magnetic polls" as it does will probably not work right, but only because of the stupid programmers.
Do not ask me why, but this crap really pisses me off, go figure.
The east coast and west coast rappers will be all messed up once the flip occures and north is south. What does happen to east and west, seriously?
~~ Behold the flying cow with a rail gun! ~~
And who decides who is a kook and who not? People with vested interests in the status quo, People which have build a reputation and a living on old theories. If there is suddenly a person with a better theory, they have much to loose.
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.
I say it again, ridicule has no place in science! Only because the ego of some people is in danger, science should be hold back? Sheesh...
Your last remark is patently absurd. Without this childish protection of owns pet theories, science would move much faster. Let experiments decide, which theory to keep and which theory to shred. Experiments and Reality, not someones ego.
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.
That is not how science should work. As another poster has put it, one counterexample and a theory is ripe for the dustbin. Like the aether-theory, put to rest by Michelson-Morley. Or the theory of the sun spinning around the earth, put to rest by Kopernicus. There will naturaly be examples where old theories will survive as limiting cases, like you said. But the greatest scientific successes were paradigm shifts, where a theory was replaced by a better theory.
As an introduction to that thought I recommend "The structure of Scientific Revolutions" from Thomas S. Kuhn. The problem nowadays is the enormous resistance to paradigm shifts, much more so than in the last two centuries. That is not surprising, as now are living and working more scientists as in all the millena before together. (And the most have vested interests.) There are also more "Kooks" than ever, and some of them are up to something...
I've been on this planet for 35+ years and I haven't noticed a thing.
Carbon-dating, and indeed all other methods of radioactive-decay-based time measurement are based on the _ASSUMPTION_ of how much radioactive material was present in the object to begin with, and that no already-decayed material was introduced. No matter how precise and accurate we can measure the carbon or other elements, this type of dating will allways be based on these assumptions.
Do you have any better ideas?
Earth's pole is just gonna perform a binary switch in order to signify to aliens that it's time to invade.
simon
This would aoso affect your computer screen. Just turn it upside-down if you want to simulate. You'll be amazed...
Z
I'm in Sydney. All this standing on my head is making my neck sore.
Oh and could you turn the sun up just a tad. I hate winter.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Considering that the magnetic field causes the particles to spiral in toward the poles, if the field were to go away there would not be auroras (aurorae?) all over because only the side of the earth facing the sun would get the particles (since there'd be nothing to attract them into the atmosphere on the dark side of the earth). Of course the sun would drown out the show on the day side.
But that's only if the field vanishes or gets very weak. Chances are it will twist around, though, as the article shows. If that's the case you'll see the aurora wherever the pole (or poles--there could be several spots) happens to be at the time. Imagine if it took only a day or two for the actual flip--the lucky people on the right longitude would see it pass right over them.
It's all fun and games until somebody loses an eye. Then it's fun and games without depth perception.
What if the poles really stay in the same place & it's the earth that flips? Ahhh.... Glaciers! Heat Wave!
Perhaps the earth has succumed to our insistence in calling the north physical pole the north magnetic pole?
there is no (magnetic) spoon?
in compass manufactures! =)
Tinfoil hats -- HAH!
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
Australia with the assistance of South America (sick of being the down under countries) conspired to reverse the poles, see how you buggers like being down-under for the next few hundred thousand years.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
stop paying taxes, reduce govermnent, let them get a job, get of taxpayer dole.
Okay, well, there's that. But where's this evidence of a young earth? Hell, just based on stratification rates we know there had to be free-flowing water on the earth for at least 20ish million years (IIRC).
Now, this time, I want EVIDENCE, not "oh, well, your method might be incorrect". AFFIRMATIVE proof.
"America has done some terrible things. But I know that Americans don't cheer when innocents die." -Dave Barry
Sigh. So I'm an idiot, am I?
I don't recall saying anything about, 'orgone' energy, and I certainly don't believe that the Earth is young.
Please use the actual content of my post to illustrate what it is that you think makes me an 'idiot'. If you break it down, you can make some fascinating discoveries about your own thought processes. Good luck!
-FL
I must admit I had not seen the GP post when I wrote that, and I don't agree with it. I just wanted to point out the fact that even our most trusted methods are still quite fallible.
I will present an interesting tidbit, not so much to show evidence for a 'new earth', but more to show that we don't know as much as we think we do.
The Geologist, Dec. 1862: "In Macoupin County, IL, the bones of a man were recently found on a coal bed capped with two feet of slate rock, ninety feet below the surface of the earth.... The bones, when found, were covered with a crust or caoting of hard glossy matter, as black as the coal itself, but when scraped away left the bones white and natural."
The IL State Geological Survey dates that coal formation between 286 and 320 million years old, in the Carboniferous period.
So is geology wrong? Is evolution wrong? Both?
My take is that all science is a set of theories, constantly changing, and always imperfect. We never really know anything, we just have theories.
Most importantly, those theories should never be taken as dogma, as that only leads to suppression of good evidence, and promotion of bad theory. If the theory and the evidence don't jive, the theory needs to change, not the evidence.
As for the 'new earth' thing, I don't buy it either. It doesn't appear to be based on good evidence or good theory from what I've seen.