Magnetic Poles May Be About To Flip 721
AGD writes "According to the Guardian, Earth's magnetic field - the force that protects us from deadly radiation bursts from outer space - is weakening dramatically. . The article goes on to say 'Earth's magnetic field has disappeared many times before -- as a prelude to our magnetic poles flipping over, when north becomes south and vice versa.'"
I remember seeing this on sightings years ago... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I remember seeing this on sightings years ago.. (Score:3, Insightful)
'Could be in the next 1000 years', according to the article...
A little less concerning :-)
Missed the quote (Score:4, Funny)
Everything you know is wrong (Score:4, Funny)
The shift in the magnetic fields is being artifically sped up by a secret operation by the united states government. They are forcing the shift through an artificial process being carried out in the Aleutian Islands off the coast of Alaska. I do not know the technical details, but they are using some type of equipment to send waves into the core of the earth.
This is not some joke or troll post. Clearly you don't believe me, partially because I am posting as AC and for the fact that it sounds totally outrageous, and I clearly will be modded down. But I am posting this anyway so that history will show that someone did know about this while it was happenning.
Re:Wouldn't surprise me to find this is so (Score:3, Interesting)
There is no real benefit to which way the poles point, the only thing it would do would mean that everyone had to buy or reconfigure their compasses...hmm maybe I've stumbled on to something. Who'd have suspected the quiet compass industry of something so evil
Second comment:
With regards to the frequency of the Earth, the Earth as a whole will have no resonant frequency because it is made up of different sections all of inconsistant phyiscal materials. For a whole object to have a single resonant frequency it must be the same material throughout. You could possibly get a resonant frequency that would shatter parts of the Earth's crust but the impact would be limited through the existance of unconformities, folding and the huge varieties of rocks that make up the crust.
So the comment you should have made is that every substance has a specific resonant frequency.
nope (Score:5, Insightful)
The change will be gradual, with about a thousand years of no field. But I wont worry about it. There is no precedent of extinction due to pole reversal.
If primitive beings could survive so can we. There must be some mechanism by which the earth wards of the effects. Maybe some thing in ionosphere. It kind of difficult to beleive that something which couldnt make anything extinct 250000 years ago will do it now on a species which spends most of its life under radiation shields(read buildings)
Re:nope (Score:4, Insightful)
you mean "we, the people living in industrial countries"?
Re:nope (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm as worried about this as I am about the sun exploding. It's not likely to happen in my life, so I'll leave the problem to the /. crowd of the future to solve.
Re:nope (Score:3, Interesting)
That makes extinction more likely, not less. A modern society cannot revert to a pre-industrial state without 90% or more of its population dying in the process... subsistence farming simply can't support a population that grew on mechanized industrial farming. Not only that but most of the people won't have farming skills or tools, and there will be a sizeable minority who decide to just take by force rather than farm, which has a net result of reducing the chances of survival for everyone. Modern medicine and hygiene also means that our immune systems will have lost some of its capability.
If there is a cataclysm, any human survivors will probably be the natives of the Brazilian rainforests, if there are any left by then. How ironic that they can't survive the encroachment of modern civilization but could survive something that a modern civilization couldn't.
Re:Double Nope (Score:5, Insightful)
I wouldn't worry.
Earth's magnetic fields do not absorb ionized radiation. They deflect it, to the magnetic poles. I.E. Same amount of energy hitting the planet all the time. In today's world, most of the ionized particles are deflected and concentrated to the polar regions. Net effect of a polar shift, atmosphere stays the same size. If anything earth's magnetic fields act like a giant vacuum cleaner, sucking up charged particles from 5 to 10 times the earths diameter. If the field goes away, no more vacuum cleaner effect, which results in LESS ionized particles hitting earth. (Global cooling, perhaps???)
We've had radar stations and plenty of other sensitive electronics in the polar regions for a long time. Even at concentrated radiation levels, most of it still doesn't get through our atmosphere (14.7PSI). 14.7 PSI is roughly equivilent to a 32 foot/~10 meter column of water. Plenty of shielding.
Re:nope (Score:3, Interesting)
A lot of people don't grow food and they survive (Score:5, Insightful)
Take a look at the early Industrial Revolution Cities in England. So overcrowded a plan was needed.
The solution : criminalisation of poverty. That way the poor could be killed or transported.
The sudden loss of computing would be totally devastating in the short term. And for mnay of us that could be as long as we live.
Re:nope (Score:3, Informative)
Re:nope (Score:5, Funny)
Wow, what a fun loving, happy go lucky guy you are!
Do you work for NASA's PR dept? ; )
Supposedly... (Score:4, Funny)
I really miss that show, though they still play re-runs. I used to sit in front of the TV with a tinfoil hat on.
the article is a hollywood advertisement! (Score:5, Interesting)
from the article:
Paramount's latest sci-fi thriller, The Core - directed by Englishman Jon Amiel, and starring Hilary Swank and Aaron Eckhart - depicts a world beset by just such a polar reversal, with radiation sweeping the planet.
wtf??
Hrmm (Score:5, Funny)
perhaps he better upgrade rudolph.
Re:Hrmm (Score:4, Insightful)
Either all this MS bashing is because of a lack of anything intelligent to say, or slashdotter's just aren't that creative or funny.
I remember this from a few months ago (Score:5, Informative)
Wildebeest (Score:5, Funny)
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Could this be the end of the GNU project?!
Re:Wildebeest (Score:5, Funny)
With apologies to Mike Myers... (Score:5, Funny)
"So you see, Mr. Bigglesworth, I didn't want to destroy the entire frickin' world, but those Linux geeks really left me no choice. Reversing the earth's magnetic polarity was the only way it could be done without violating the DoJ consent agreement."
"Let's see...Start...Programs...World Control Devices...Disasters...Microsoft...where the hell..?"
"You seem to be trying to destroy the world. Would you like some help with that?"
"Clippy! Oh thank god. Begin 'Gates-Plan-B'. So long, Mr. Stallman. I hope there's a GNU version of 'Microsoft 1000-year Radiation Shield
*maniacal laughter*
Re:Wildebeest (Score:5, Funny)
Could this be the end of the GNU project?!
No, but HURD will definately be delayed.
Michael
Will life survive again? (Score:3, Insightful)
What can humans do, besides burrowing or mutating?
Suddenly, global warming (the artificially-induced kind) doesn't seem like that big of a long-term threat.
Re:Will life survive again? (Score:4, Troll)
Except that the magnetic pole shift is likely to happen sometime in the next 1000 years or so. Global warming has the potential to wipe out humans prior to this time.
Re:Will life survive again? (Score:5, Interesting)
YEAH, yeah, yeah. Whatever. (Score:4, Funny)
"You Global Warmer Nutties. I'll stick with our energy company President and his opinions, after all, he's been good so far. Where is the evidence that the world is warming up because of mankind!?! SHOW ME!"
"AIIIIEEEEE!!!" (SUDDENLY CRUSHED UNDER TONS OF RESEARCH PAPERWORK GETTING DROPPED DIRECTLY ON TOP OF HIM)
Can the sun do it, we should too (Score:5, Informative)
Sun does a flip [nasa.gov]. You can also follow the link there to [nasa.gov]
Earths magnetic reversal
Re:Can the sun do it, we should too (Score:5, Funny)
Down under... not any more! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Down under... not any more! (Score:5, Funny)
Oh how I wait for such things.
Re:Down under... not any more! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Down under... not any more! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Down under... not any more! (Score:3, Interesting)
Some indian guy slightly north of Quito, Ecuador has what must be a lucrative business demonstrating this and a couple other things including his shrunken head collection (not sure if the heads are part of the standard tour, or were simply shown to me because I was so persistent about the water thing.. Others who had been there had not gotten it).
Re:Down under... not any more! (Score:4, Informative)
What I believe is beside the point...a simple google search for "coriolis effect" reveals:
Quote from usatoday.com [usatoday.com]:
Any teacher who stands up in front of a class and says that Coriolis force determines which way the water flows from a sink or bathtub, should not only read Fraser's Bad Coriolis Web page, but be required to copy it on the blackboard 100 times.
Or, take this much more detailed debunking [about.com], containing the following quote:
This is so large that Coriolis forces will be insignificant compared to other fluid phenomena.
Don't take my word for it, look it up yourself...I'm just the messenger ;-)
It IS possible... (Score:3, Informative)
Is it possible to detect the Earth's rotation in a draining sink?
Yes, but it is very difficult. Because the Coriolis force is so small, one must go to extraordinary lengths to detect it. But, it has been done. You cannot use an ordinary sink for it lacks the requisite circular symmetry: its oval shape and off-center drain render any results suspect. Those who have succeeded used a smooth pan of about one meter in diameter with a very small hole in the center. A stopper (which could be removed from below so as to not introduce any spurious motion) blocked the hole while the pan was being filled with water. The water was then allowed to sit undisturbed for perhaps a week to let all of the motion die out which was introduced during filling. Then, the stopper was removed (from below). Because the hole was very small, the pan drained slowly indeed. This was necessary, because it takes hours before the tiny Coriolis force could develop sufficient deviation in the draining water for it to produce a circular flow. With these procedures, it was found that the rotation was always cyclonic.
Taken from www.ems.psu.edu/~fraser/Bad/BadCoriolis.html
Climatic disturbance (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Climatic disturbance (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Climatic disturbance (Score:5, Interesting)
And if the magnetic field of the Sun does indeed flip every 11 years as I saw in another post, that could be the cause. My astronomy teacher thinks that the polarity of the planets' magnetic fields is directly influenced by the Sun. Maybe the field on the Earth is directly affected by the flip on the Sun, such that the field gets weaker and weaker until it finally flips itself, then gets stronger to its peak, and finally repeats the process in the other direction.
Re:Umm (Score:3, Insightful)
Volcanic activity has fucked with the atmosphere of the planet more than man ever will.
Add into that shit falling from space plus other natural phenomena and it makes our little bump in the road of existence pretty meaningless.
CO2 emissions from fossil fuel more than volcanoes (Score:3, Insightful)
Wrong. [bovik.org]
OK, so we're all doomed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:OK, so we're all doomed (Score:5, Funny)
Yea, it will be the only thing powerful enough to carry all the lead shielding...
That's enough (Score:5, Funny)
Business model (Score:5, Funny)
2. Scratch out N, S, E, W
3. Replace with (in same order) S, N, W, E
4. Sell on eBay
5. Profit!!!
Re:Business model - the MS bug (Score:5, Funny)
Consultant: The MS bug (Magnetic Shift bug) is like the classic Y2K bug.
Businessman: What's that?
Consultant: It involved a near global catastrophy which occured aroung the 19th century. Only the speedy responce by excellent programmers saved civilisation.
Businessman: How does this affect me?
Consultant: You need a team of 25 programmers, at least, to write bug fixes for the software in your toaster so that it can cope with the reversal of the magentic field.
Businessman: But I thought the toaster is AI and can learn these things?
Consultant: Trust me - your toaster needs this because...
Businessman: OK, OK -sigh-, spare me the details... how much?
Consultant: -rubbing hands- Well...
Re:Business model (Score:4, Funny)
Using "n) Profit!" in a post ensures an average mod up of 3.
Re:Business model (Score:5, Funny)
<duck>
woof.
Get real! (Score:5, Interesting)
Second, we have very little knowledge about how the poles are going to switch. There seems to be two options:
1. The poles are going to disappear, then reappear on opposite sides of the planet.
2. The poles will migrate over the face of the earth until they have effectively flipped over.
However, as geophysics usually shows us, there is a third, and much more complicated option, that is more likely. Simply put, the poles will weaken, and then split up into smaller magnetic zones, which will then wander all over the surface in an extremely complicated manner, and then coalesce on the oppposite sides. If you think this is a crackpot idea, you should check out past issues of Nature.
I'll also point out that no one really knows how the planet's magnetic field is generated. It is DEFINATELY not analogous to a regular bar magnet, because the core of the earth is much too hot to sustain magnetization of iron.
Re:Get real! (Score:5, Insightful)
In (slightly) more scientific terms, the advances we've made since those cavemen times are built on the premise of incremental change - we talk of "advances", ie: building on the past to get farther. Take away the foundations (communications is the major one, I guess, direction finding, etc.) and see how well everything that depends on them copes. Consider how an economy might react to (for example: the collapse of air traffic), and the subsequent secondary effects. None of this was even slightly worrying to the caveman, but our world is immensely dependent on excellent long-distance communications.
Yes, we have a far and away more complex civilisation than a caveman ever dreamed of. This is a weakness, not a strength. The payoff comes from what we can do with that technology, but if you remove that, you end up with a lot of hungry people in a small space...
I concur with the physics, btw, but you're really overestimating the resilience of our civilisation.
Simon.
Re:Get real! (Score:4, Insightful)
The same goes for communications with the exception of possible solar flare interference periodically.
It seems to me that while the pole disappearing/changing could cause significant change it isn't a showstopper for much of anything except the use of all current compasses and perhaps sunbathing.
Re:Get real! (Score:5, Insightful)
Direction finding is becoming more and more based on GPS than anything. GPS has nothing to do with the magnetic field. It disappearing wouldn't cause it to fail at all
It's the earth's magnetic field that diverts the solar wind away from us. Without it, the GPS satellites would almost certainly be destroyed by the increase in ionising particle flux. Along with all the communications satellites.
Re:Get real! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Get real! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Get real! (Score:4, Insightful)
if anyone thinks that modern civilization will instantly collapse by the loss of GPS.... ther are the same morons that believed that Y2K was something to actually worry about.
Re:Get real! (Score:4, Insightful)
Or cloud cover...
Re:Get real! (Score:5, Interesting)
Cavemen were subject to any number of extinction threats that we don't really worry much about in our society. We aren't really worried about regional drought, flooding, forest fires, disease, predators, earthquakes, volcanoes, etc. Maybe worried is not the right word, but we don't face extinction because of these things. Also, the rise of technology has put us in a place where we have a chance of survival in places undreamed of by cavemen.
It's true what you say about a lot of hungry people in a small space, but in situations like that, a given population will max out at some saturation point where death- and birthrates even out.
Anyway, I wasn't really talking about our civilization's survival chance, just that "THE WORLD IS COMING TO AN END!" is paranoia, since it 's happened about 2000 times since our prehistorical ancestors crawled from the ocean.
Re:Get real! (Score:4, Interesting)
When you die, this world ends. Get real.
Denying your own immanent death is a far less
survivable delusion than the paranoia with which
you smear your rhetorical opponents.
Now in fact people live in the arctic where
the field lines converge, so the notion that
a collapse of the magnetic field would not
be survivable is prima facie absurd, but that
doesn't mean that *you* won't get killed by a
cyclone that results from ionospheric overheating.
Re:Get real! (Score:5, Insightful)
For the record, I often think it a stretch to describe this mess as a 'civilization' anyway. But to address your point--I think that the problems caused by this occurrance will be alleviated somewhat by it's relatively slow onset. Sure, the poles flipping is a very rapid thing on geologic timescales, but we're still talking decades or more.
Communications won't collapse--most long-haul lines are based around fibre now, which is essentially impervious to solar radiation. Satellites infrastructure might take a bit of a hit, but I don't see the iminent collapse of the GPS system. (Since the U.S. military really can't do without it, they'll find a way to keep it working. Kind of a hand-waving argument, but you can bet your ass that they'll get whatever appropriations they want from Congress.) Retaining GPS and transoceanic fibre will mean that international finance and trade will be pretty much unaffected.
Climate change is a different beast altogether. Nobody knows exactly what form it will take, if it happens at all. The world already overproduces food--we just don't distribute it very well. I suspect that we will see exactly what we've seen for most of this century--the developed world will survive in relative comfort, while Third World nations willl starve.
As to health effects--again, a big question mark. It depends on dose of solar radiation, but I'm heartened by the fact that these flips have happened fairly frequently without being accompanied by mass extinctions. Cancer rates will go up somewhat. Wealthy nations will probably develop preventive medicines to cut down on the effect.
In short, day to day life probably won't be seriously affected for most people. We'll get some weird weather, and have to develop some interesting technological solutions in some areas, and--oh, yes--low lying cities may have to build dikes or be evacuated. But that's about it. Not the end of civilizaiton.
Alternately, I advocate giving every person on earth a little bar magnet to carry around, along with detailed instructions as to how it ought to be oriented to maintain an artificial planetary magnetic field.
Re:Get real! (Score:3, Interesting)
It does not matter that the information itself is carried on light inside of fibers of glass. The signals inside the fiber can only travel ~100Km at the most before they need to be boosted again by an amplifier. This is done by doping a small section of the fiber with Erbium atoms and esentially making it lase(stimulated emission) by irradiating it with intense light from semiconductor lasers. There are common CONDUCTIVE cables cladding the main fiber line in a fiber optic cable that supply the amplifiers that are spread out all along the line with power to run. What happenes when huge lengths of conductive cable are immersed in a (potentially quickly) changing magnetic field? Thats right, gigantic currents are set up in the cable and can destroy [spaceweather.gc.ca] any sensitive devices connected to it. Thereby rendering the fiber dark.
Source of the magnetic field. (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure we do. It's from dynamo currents caused by convection in the (liquid) outer core.
Magnetic field flips happen when turbulence grows enough to disrupt these patterns briefly.
This is why Jupiter has a much stronger magnetic field than Earth (huge liquid metallic hydrogen layer, and a very powerful internal heat source), and why the moon has almost no magnetic field (no liquid core; the only field is the one that was "frozen in" when the moon first cooled).
Re:Get real! (Score:5, Funny)
I'm pretty sure we are, just not from magnetic pole shifting.
Re:Get real! (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm pretty sure we are
I won't
The Mayan calendar (Score:4, Funny)
Although, it could just be that the people who came
up with this couldn't think of any other reasons the world might end.
See An End of Days [artideas.com]
Re:The Mayan calendar (Score:5, Funny)
*newsflash* world to end 31 December! (Score:3, Interesting)
That said, it is true that the next cycle was supposed to be different from the old one, but that's hardly unusual or predictive. Look at our own culture's fascination with "in the year 2000" and "in the 21st Century," or even the selection of the year 1984 in a book written in 1948. It's close enough to be scary, but far away enough that it isn't overwheming.
I'm sure it has something to do with (Score:5, Funny)
Hollywood? (Score:5, Interesting)
A hand full of paragraphs on what may possible the End of Civilisation as We Know it (tm), ending in a halfway upbeat solution presented in a hollywood movie.
My first thought as that this simple was a planted story to sell the movie.
Sound familiar? (Score:5, Insightful)
Breaking news! Scientists predict imminent destruction of humanity! Film at 11.
It occurs to me that major movie studios have a lot of media contacts and experience in influencing the stories that go down the wire. I'm not saying that there isn't good science behind this, just that perhaps the news media are being encouraged to run the angle that grabs reader's attention rather than present a balanced view. Remember that New Scientist isn't "not for profit", it's a commercial venture.
Rubbish (Score:5, Insightful)
Whoa
'On Earth, it will heat up the upper atmosphere and send ripples round the world with enormous, unpredictable effects on the climate.'
Arh! I think it will make some lovely daytime aurora, and generally play havoc with electrical equipment.
Mars is exposed to this kind of solar radiation, but it's atmosphere stays fairly chilly! The only solar radiation that seems to affect its temperature is the infra-red kind.
I'm willing to bet this article is nothing more than pre-hype for the movie The Core.
Arrrgg... More Radiation.... (Score:5, Funny)
when you fit fit your data to a line... (Score:5, Insightful)
according to another article that somebody else linked above, (here) [newscientist.com] this conclusion isn't based on an ongoing survey of the earth's magnetic field over the last 20 years (as implied by the observer article), but rather on the comparison of current data to a single set of data taken 20 years ago:
But Ørsted is the first satellite to take a snapshot of the Earth's magnetic field for 20 years, and such scant data makes it difficult to predict future shifts.
so while this may make a great shock news story (or hollywood movie plot) it hardly seems like anything approaching significant scientific research worth getting particularly alarmed about.
Vesilind's Laws of Experimentation: (Score:3, Funny)
1. If reproducibility may be a problem, conduct the test only once.
2. If a straight line fit is required, obtain only two data points.
This is all because of the US elections (Score:4, Funny)
[TROLL]
Vote a Republican administration into power, and the next thing you know, the magnetic field is gone.
[/TROLL]
Re:This is all because of the US elections (Score:4, Funny)
Quit blaming the Republicans, this all started when Clinton was in office.
[/TROLL]
Re:This is all because of the US elections (Score:5, Funny)
It's not all bad (Score:5, Insightful)
About the Reversal, and magnetosphere...... (Score:3, Informative)
"A planet's magnetosphere is provided through its magnetic field. To create a magnetic field, a planet or moon must have magnetic material such has iron, which is warm enough to move around to form currents within the planet."
And isn't earth(s core) cooling down? - Can't this affect our magnetosphere? If the magnetic materail stop flowing?
My imaginary plot (IMHO):
Now I'm thinging that when earth switched poles, the core coold down, reversal happened, sometime after that earth got hit by a large enough meteor to restart our core (how elese could the core be restarted? there wasn't atomic weapons and the like back in those days, no! Good ol' fashion meteors had to suffice : )). Then earth keept it's (reverse) position till it coold down again, and re-reversed itself again. Sometime after, BAda'BOOM eine large enough meteor struck again, restarted our engine, and we keept on ticking.... untill soon enough (if we think 1000 year or more is soon..) when our core will stop flowing.
Can someone please look up how long ago earth was struck by a large enough meteor to turn earth in to a giant blob of lava? : )
I put my money on lets say 780 000 to one millon years ago
Earth cooling down:
Here's the tricky part; How much must the earth's core cool down for reversal to happen? Because for it to cool down entirilely it will take more than 1000 years.
Reference:
http://www.seismo.unr.edu/ftp/pub/louie/class/100
http://www.windows.ucar.edu/tour/link=/earth/moon
http://www.windows.ucar.edu/tour/link=/physical_s
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99
http://www.observer.co.uk/international/story/0,6
Four words (Score:3, Funny)
Imposing our own field. (Score:5, Interesting)
It turns out to be feasible even today, though horribly, horribly expensive. You'd build a mesh of copper cables around the equator (or superconducting, but copper's losses aren't that bad for this). Then you'd slowly ramp up the current until you have a magnetic field comparable in strength to today's.
Ramping up would be slow because of inductive power storage. The current loop and associated magnetic field store a *vast* amount of energy, all of which needs to be provided in order to bring the field up to strength. The present power output of all electrical plants on the planet over a decade or so would do it, if I remember correctly, so this is feasible. The power cost to maintain the field, even with copper cables, is much lower; put, say, a 10% tax on electricity, and you've paid for the extra plants to feed the mesh.
You'd use a mesh instead of a single cable _because_ of the amount of stored energy. If you break the current path of an inductor, current flows anyways, arcing across the gap. This only dies down as resistive losses across the gap dissipate the power stored in the inductor. Think about this - all of the inductor's stored power is dissipated in one place (the break), and we're storing an awfully large amount of power in this current loop. If the loop was a single cable and this cable was broken, you'd get something in the range of a 10-gigaton yield at the point of breakage. A mesh provides many alternate current paths, so breaks from sabotage or just plain wear can be repaired safely (as long as you overspec the current rating enough to allow the other paths to safely take up the load).
A copper cable a hundred metres wide, or ten thousand one-metre cables, would do the trick. You might _have_ to use copper, too; even if you spread the cables out to make a more uniform field near the Earth's surface, field strength near each wire would be much greater than the breakdown point of most superconductors.
We'd probably never bother doing this, but it's a fun thought experiment
Re:does that word mean what you think it means? (Score:5, Interesting)
Something that we could conceivably do within 50 years if we decided we really wanted to (along the lines of the Manhattan Project).
As opposed to, say, building a Dyson Sphere or some other project that requires either vastly more resources than are available, or materials that we have no idea to produce.
Re:Imposing our own field. (Score:3, Interesting)
*pulls out calculator* About four trillion metric tonnes, give or take a factor of four or so. If you're using aluminum, divide by about a factor of two (it's a third the density, but slightly more resistive).
and if you did, how does that compare to the amount of copper mined in the world every year? or even the entire amount of available copper in the world?
The amount available is obscenely large - you'd just have to strip-mine the faces of all continents to get at it.
Annual production of copper is around 16 Mt. Annual production of aluminum, which is probably more abundant given that the crust is aluminosilicates, is 26 Mt.
If we needed to build the cable badly enough to invest the effort, we'd vastly increase production (probably of aluminum, again because it's common). Assuming that we have enough bauxite strip mines and smelters to make power the limiting production factor, we'd produce about 0.1 Mt per second using the amount of power we'd devote to powering up the loop. It would take us about 5-10 years to produce the required quantity, not counting the time required to build smelters next to all of the power plants, railways for transport, and so forth (though some of the transport work has already been done, at coal-fuelled plants, at least).
It's not something that's _likely_ to be done, but it's _possible_ to do with the world's current industrial capability. Which is what makes it a fun thought-experiment.
oh, and by the way, given the amount of force that woukd be required to cut or break a hundred meter copper cable in the first place, i dont think the 10-gigaton or so discharge that results would be all that much more destructive.
It would, by about a factor of at least a hundred million.
How much dynamite does it take to turn a city block full of office buildings into a hundred-metre crater? That's about the level of force involved (maybe add a factor of 100 for the added weight and strength).
Magneto Did This Years Ago (Score:3, Informative)
Back in the Claremont/Byrne/Austin days, we survived that, we'll survive this.
FAQ: Magnetic Reversals (Score:5, Informative)
with the Holywood garbage left out.
loz
20 Ways the World Could End (Score:5, Interesting)
This kinda freaks me out though..
Haven't we seen this movie? (Score:5, Funny)
EARTH IS DOOMED!
Solution:
President (played by Morgan Freeman) meets with Special Emergency Response Team, discovers that all primary systems designed to prevent the Destruction of Earth are useless because they were all designed to shoot down missiles from Korea and China. Cabinet advisor recalls a brilliant, 'loose cannon' scientist/oil rig captain/handsome hollywood actor who 'just might be able to save us.'
Handsome actor collects racially-diverse crew including both genders and several archetypes. They build a giant drill, which breaks at the last minute. Handsome actor has flashback to childhood, when he accidentally made a sinkhole in the beach with a toy shovel and is able to dig the remaining 10 miles with his fingernails and teeth.
Team plants Nuclear Device Designed to Save Us All From Certain Death and detonates it, but of course it just makes things worse. Handsome actor inserts wrench into Earth's core, solving the problem, and then dies of radiation poisoning after making love to the attractive, sweedish scientist whose role (other than that) in the movie is as vague as her scientific credentials.
That's just my idea, though. I'm sure theirs will be totally different!
bah! (Score:5, Interesting)
Apparently this article is a flare, to get the public thinking about magnetic field reversal, to hype the upcoming disaster-movie The Core. Expect this story to appear on CNN soon.
Reality and fantasy (Score:5, Informative)
Some cynical views are expressed here, but it does seem prudent to investigate what our current knowledge would actually predict for effects. One thing sure is that the solar wind is not powerful enough to carry off a significant amount of atmosphere during the short duration (on a geologic time scale) of a reversal. But there may be many other effects, including disturbances of the upper atmosphere, possibly the ozone layer.
To counterbalance the claims about Mars, it's important to note that Venus has no magnetic field at all, but has retained a very dense atmosphere. On the other hand there is almost no water present (left?) in the Venusian atmosphere.
It does take human effort (i.e. funding) to look at these things seriously rather than speculatively.
Nemesis (Score:3, Informative)
Another academical BS (Score:4, Informative)
The geological record shows lots of inversions occuring during Earth's History. But we are still alive don't we?
For those who studied Mars, well studied it, know that Martian Oceans didn't boil up in a very very old past. Whatever happened there, created a global and massive movement of the hydrosphere some billion years after Mars was formed. I don't see how a magnetic pole inversion would help creating 1km deep canyons in a matter of hours or days. It is very probable that this happened long after the Martian Magnetic Pole turned off.
If anyone cares to look at the Atlantic migrating birds, then he will note that some use both America and Africa to their travel North-South. Before Challenger's expedition (the ship, not the shuttle), people considered this as one of the evidences that these continents were much closer together in the past, as the zigzag pattern of migration turned into a nearly straight line.
Some birds may highly depend on the magnetic field to travel. But birds have been travelling around earth for a period much longer than most modern mammals (note: marsupials and placentarians are very recent additions to Earth's biota). Have we seen major extinctions of birds during Earth's magnetic flip-flops?
As far as I know, the Atlantic had plenty of water since Jurassic times. Challenger's expedition made several analysis of the magnetic properties of the bottom of the Atlantic. It showed a surface where the magnetic field changed direction sequently during the several millions of years, since Atlantic was formed.
There is a theory that claims that for some millions of years, Earth had no magnetic field - during the megafrost that happened between Archaic and Cambric. I don't know if this is correct but, if so, it seems that Life lived and passed well enough this terrible period.
Well, probably, any pole flip-flop may have its consequences on Earth and its inhabitants. But claiming it as the End of the World is the purest BS. This is Bad Science(TM) that many academics love to drop out over the masses. On one side they love to consider themselves as The Temple of Knowledge and save it from hoaxers, marginals, dissidents and heretics. On the other side they play no better than those clerics in Middle Ages, that at every sighting of a comet would cry over the crows "Armageddon! Armageddon is coming". Time to get more serious and sobber.
Reversals may only take weeks/months (Score:3, Insightful)
We may not die but... (Score:4, Insightful)
I am surprised no one has commented on the fact that the magnetic fields around earth protect the Earth from radiation that _damages_ electronics. When the sun has a solar flare, satellites are knocked out by the radiation. The only reason computers on the planet aren't is because the magnetic fields deflect enough of the radiation to make it harmless to electronics.
Yet, if we don't have a magnetic field to deflect the radiation, we end up with a completely different problem. A solar flare will likely be able to take out a majority of our satellites at first (if they aren't shielded, which most aren't to the degree needed.) Then with no field at all, the electronics on the planet are threatened by the radiation.
Likely very little will happen to us (considering it's just EM radiation mostly, and not radioactive isotopes.) But, There will definitely be a shift in computer construction towards better shielded designs. (because if there isn't, then... well, there won't be any computers working at all.)
Let's be realistic (Score:5, Interesting)
Time now for some math.
Suppose a swallow is born 500 years from now. It's life span is what, 2-3 years? At the beginning of its life, the earth's magnetic strength is 0.5 as strong as it is today (500 years left/1000). By the end of the swallow's life it is 0.497 as strong (497 years left/1000), for a 0.6% change in magnetic field strength during the course of it's entire life. Less than one percent! Yeah, I think a swallow can deal with that.
If you are born with something (sound, energy, happiness, whatever) that is weaker than it was 1000 years ago, you do not even notice. It's that way all your life, and you cope with it. You never even consider it.
So much for Boy Scouts (Score:4, Funny)
Re:..about time (Score:3, Interesting)
Presumably 'no magnetic field' recorded in the rocks actually means 'no single stable magnetic field'. Given discussions above about the mechanics of the actual flip I'd have thought it quite likely lots of small chaotic magnetic fields give adequate protection against any major catastophy
Re:..about time (Score:3, Interesting)
i've heard it stated that the black plague that
swept Europe and eliminated a sizable portion
of the population would be invisible in the
fossil record. So...perhaps during the shifts
things significantly sucked at the level of the
individual, but not enough to make a fossil
impact. If I had to bet though I'd go with the
no impact outcome.
Re:The HAB Theory (Score:3, Insightful)
The Earth's magnetic field is well known to wander about. Apart from the fact that Magnetic North is currently moving at a measurable speed, lines of aligned particles of iron in rock strata show a clear history of magnetic pole reversals.
The Earth's axis of rotation, on the other hand, is about as fixed as anything can be. The angular momentum of the rotating Earth is huge; you'd need an equally huge external force to shift it. The Earth's magnetic field is puny in comparison, and can't affect rotation in this way.
Apart from the fact this this "theory" contravenes the laws of Physics, there is no geological evidence to support this (frozen mammoths don't count!) and huge amounts of evidence to counter it. All the recent ice ages occured in the (current) north and south latitudes, for example. There are no signs of the sea inundating the land for thousands of miles, which is what would ensue in such a disaster. Plus, there are fragile stalactites that have formed over many thousands of years, and which would shatter if something this dramatic had ever happened - but which are perfectly intact.
Re:Particle accelerators (Score:3, Informative)
Newsflashes! (Score:3, Funny)
Environmentalists point out that the weakening magnetic field and atmospheric heating over the past 200 years coincide with, and is obviously caused by, an increase in evil industrialism. Protest marches are planned from New York south to Washington DC, then south to New York.
California legislators met in emergency session today and passed new automobile magnetic emission legislation. The magnetic fields of automobiles are now required to be aligned with the Earth's magnetic field and of opposite polarity so as to stress the existing magnetic generator to stay in the present configuration. Experts estimate it will only cost $200 per car and safety is worth the investment.
Australia celebrated for one hour, then began studying how to make use of their new domination of the highly successful Northern Hemisphere. Chinese leaders met to consider what to ignore next.
In medical news, herbal supplement manufacturers point out that natural iron supplements contain particles which experienced past natural reversals, and thus will train your body to help it deal with future changes.
Entertainers point out that they've been working for decades under hot, bright, lights and filming around the world until they don't know which way is up. This hasn't changed them in the least, and they're still just ordinary human beings like you or me, stated a spokesperson for Gardeners To The Stars, makers of fine gardening products just like the assistants to the gardeners of the Stars use but available at quality discount stores near you.
Tomorrow's weather forecast is for increasing temperatures to one-hundredth of a degree higher than yesterday. A gentle wind from the sunrise direction will change to stronger gusty winds from sunriseport, and chance of scattered thunderstorm shields in the area. As always, when a thunderstorm is within view with the sun behind it, take the kids outside to play in natural air and rain until the storm has passed and it is time to seal the house up again.
In sports news: The World Championship of Bowling in Cleveland today was won by a newcomer from Kenya for the third year in a row. He believes his country has produces so many winners because their bowling alley construction program placed them deeper than other countries did. Sources say that oxygen enrichment of some national bowling training facilities is widely rumored but not yet proven.
Our next update will be in three hours, when your sundial is a the midpoint. You should turn off your generator until then and set your laser receiver in standby mode.
This has been a Coherent News Network production, the fastest news ever bounced off the fluorescent sky.
Re:Newsflash: (Score:5, Informative)
The Y2K bug was not a scam. However it was exploited and hyped by scammers.
I was working for a company in 1996 whose business critical systems running on big VAXen were demostratable to fail on the development machines when the clock was wound forward. They were working on the bugs for years.
And there WERE some Y2K failures. Few enough though, for people to beleive it was a hoax, but this is because most systems were fixed! If nothing were done, many things would have failed with varying degrees.
If nothing had been done, it would not have been hype at all.