Just how WILL the world end? It’s a question often pondered by young, intrepid souls, seeking purpose and meaning in life, and just as often dismissed because of the sheer incomprehensibility of the topic. I, your friendly neighborhood speculator, am here to discuss this, as well as attempt to get you to swallow my opinions as fact, using a thin layer of scientific jargon to increase the overall believability. In other words, get ready to delve deep into my twisted subconscious as we explore the eventual deaths of humanity, the world, and the entire universe. NOTE: There actually is a small amount of fact in this, so don’t entirely dismiss it offhand. Plus, it’s not like this is actually going to apply in your lifetime…right?

Heat death! You all want one!

This is currently the most widely accepted view of the universe’s eventual conclusion, and scientists generally agree that this will indeed occur at some point in the future. However, just like many things scientists only sort-of understand, the vast majority of it is pure speculation. The basic concept is that when the universe was created, (through the Big Bang or because an old guy with a white beard said so, whatever floats your boat) the universe began to expand at the speed of light. Matter extended outward, and coalesced into stars and eventually planets. However, the “Oh yeah, by the way” is that when the universe was originally created, there was a set amount of energy. This “energy” stuff is important to us because of the concept of heat, without which humanity and life in general would cease to exist. This is what the scientific community calls “a bad thing.”

Why should you care?

Well, at this point, there really isn’t anything to worry about. Except, remember before how I said that the universe expands at the speed of light? Well, in theory, it does that “ad infinitum.” For you uncultured types, that’s Latin for “A really freaking long time.” Now because of this whole, “Set amount of energy, unset amount of space” thing, eventually, every sun in the universe will die out and there won’t be enough concentrated energy anywhere to produce any life anywhere ever again ever.

The good news

We’re all dead. Hundreds of thousands of millions of years before this “heat death” humans will have been dead and gone. At the rate we’re headed, Earth itself will be gone, a nasty result of World War MLMU4XXIV. Such is life. So in other words, don’t go out and start stealing from convenience stores with the alibi of, “It doesn’t matter, the heat death of the universe is nigh!” *Violently waves cross and passes out from one last swig from what smells like jet fuel in a paper bag* Nope, that would just get you arrested until the actual end of the universe, and that would be no fun at all. You would totally miss out on entirely justifiable convenience store robbing.

Mayans? No, I think they’re yours. (boo!)

Maybe heat death is a little far off to contemplate, but there is one way that at least humans will die off in the near future. I’m talking within a lifetime. No, it’s not Global Warming, although extended exposure to Al Gore will certainly speed up your personal aging process… Ever heard of the Mayans?

The Mayans were a group of people that lived here in the Americas way before the “white folk” invaded and gave the locals lovely presents, mainly involving baubles, glass beads, and smallpox infested blankets. Anyway, before they were thoroughly wiped out, the Mayans had a chance to be pretty dang incredible. They came up with the concept of zero, they developed both fully functioning numerical and alphabetical systems, and most well known today, they came up with a calendar that was extremely accurate for their time.

The condensed version of this system is that they developed this concept of “circles of time” and the gaps between them got larger and larger each circle moving out. Think of it like an archery target, each ensuing circle from the middle gets proportionally larger, but stays concentric. At the dividing line of each circle (talking about the calendar again) a catastrophic event supposedly happened, destroying and restarting a portion of humanity. The smaller the circle, the smaller the catastrophe. In fact, one circle accurately predicted within a year or two the mysterious disappearance of the seemingly invulnerable Mayan civilization. To this day, no one has conclusively proved why the Mayans died off. Anyway, back to the end of the world: one of these circles ends in the year 2012. It also happens that was the last circle. Maybe the Mayans got tired of drawing circles. Or maybe there was no point in drawing them later, considering the whole “bigger and bigger catastrophe” thing.

Why should you be scared?

Why? Because recent scientific evidence has proved that this might not just be hocus-pocus. As you might imagine, scientists in general find it difficult to just accept that people that lived thousands of years ago would just happen to predict the end of the world in 2012. As a matter of fact, for years, most of the scientific community simply disregarded the whole Mayan calendar concept. And to be perfectly honest, I don’t blame them. It does seem a little crazy to sit back and believe the world will end in 2012 because the Mayans say so. But here’s the thing, it seems like they weren’t far off.

Scientists have been studying climate change, and specifically shifts in poles for years. As I’m sure everyone knows, the earth has a north pole and a south pole. Compasses point north because they are attracted magnetically; everyone has some basic knowledge about that. However, much fewer people know that the earth hasn’t always been that way. There have long been speculations about what is known as a “Geomagnetic Shift” or when the North pole becomes South and vice-versa. You may be thinking, “What would be so bad about that? We repaint the compasses and life moves on.” One would like to think, but it turns out it’s not that simple. Here’s a good example of the seriousness: scientists speculate that a geomagnetic shift may have been what killed the dinosaurs. Giant scaly reptiles that would be capable of devouring as many as ten loinclothed cavemen in one gigantic chomp were taken out because their compasses stopped pointing the right way. (Calm down, I know humans weren’t around, it was for the sake of humor. Sheesh.) Actually, that’s exactly what happened.

WARNING: Overly scientific content ahead, feel free to skip to the next paragraph if you don’t think you can handle it. Or just, y’know, think about ponies or something while the real men and/or women out there read about death and morbidity. And I’m not promising not to talk about you while we’re in there, you big wimp. Anyway, the earth is surrounded by this many levels of atmosphere. The air you’re breathing is part of the troposphere. That goes up for about ten kilometers, followed by the stratosphere, the mesosphere, and the thermosphere, approximately ninety kilometers above your head. The blogosphere is somewhere in the aether, nobody really knows where. Anyways, past even the thermosphere, there is what is called the “Van Allen Radiation Belt.” Technically, it extends from the earth’s surface, but the part we care about is farther out. In layman’s terms, the sun constantly shoots out charged particles capable of melting your face with so much as a mean look. Because of the Van Allen Belt, these charged particles are deflected, and we go on our merry days, not spontaneously lighting on fire and getting the equivalent of fifty-thousand x-rays by simply walking outside. I should say, some of these particles are deflected. If they all were, the earth would freeze. Let it suffice that we have found a happy medium.

For those of you just tuning in, we’re done with heavy science. No more ponies. Now then, back to the dinosaurs. Scientists think that around sixty-five million years ago, the earth spontaneously switched magnetic poles. This is the geomagnetic shift I was talking about. However, there is one big side effect of this shift: for a relatively short period of time, between a few years and a decade or so, the earth’s magnetic field gradually decreases to a negligible amount, and the Van Allen Belt with it. The reason the comet theory of the dinosaurs’ extinction corresponds with the geomagnetic shift theory is that many believe the comet hit because of the weakening of the magnetic field.

As you can plainly see, this would be a problem in present day, comet or no. I don’t really want to get in to how much the world would suck in those years of no Van Allen Belt, but suffice it to say they would really suck. Most likely humans would not survive the experience. The ozone layer would not hold back any noticeable amount of radiation, and it would be effectively reduced to nothing via radical reactions in a month or less. You might as well forget the sunscreen also, because that Bullfrog® wasn’t designed to keep back the gamma rays and beta particles you’ll be constantly absorbing, in your house or out. And here’s the kicker. This is predicted to happen extremely soon. Like say, maybe 2012?

I know you think I’m a crazy person by now. So you might as well let me finish.

Maybe I am. Maybe I am a little crazy for thinking the world’s going to end in 2012. But even so, even if the earth’s poles shift and we all burn up in horrible deaths, isn’t it nicer to know it’s coming? I think so. Maybe the Mayans could see the future. Maybe they just got lucky. Maybe they were so far off they may as well have been throwing proverbial darts at the proverbial dartboard. There’s really no way to know other than wait and see. I, for one, have decided to prepare though. I already repainted my compasses and am planning out my burglary sweep of local convenience stores for New Year’s Eve 2011. I could go for some Sun Chips right now…