Topic: Magnetic Polar Shifts?

[Scyphi]

I'm with Vanguard on that matter, but I suppose it could still happen, just not to the doomsday degree it's been described as. In fact, it's possible nothing noticeable happens at all, it just happens without a hitch, and life moves on. 

Kind of like the supposed Y2K bug and the "disasters" it was supposed to cause.

[-<WillyP>-]

The expectations is that we will have more super-storms, and that they will be more super-er. Read the article.  No doomsday stuff, nothing about data loss,  or any electronics failures.

[VANGUARD]

funny you brought that up Scyphi. I was just reading some dilbert comics, and Dogbert brought up the Y2K. It's in 1996, fall, winter, where it was mentioned in Dilbert comics.

The bible talks about the Earth's birth pains as the ending of the world. Like we saw a lot of earthquakes, back in early 2010 I believe. funny they say birth pain, like a woman giving birth. both hurt, and at the end.

[Kaiaatzl]

I'm with Vanguard on that matter, but I suppose it could still happen, just not to the doomsday degree it's been described as. In fact, it's possible nothing noticeable happens at all, it just happens without a hitch, and life moves on.  

Kind of like the supposed Y2K bug and the "disasters" it was supposed to cause.

Obviously we can't know for sure until it actually happens.

BTW I know about what Vanguard is saying, I consider it pseudoscience.

To clarify, pseudoscience does not mean it's not true, only that it's impossible to test or gather concrete evidence for or against it.

I consider the Gaia hypothesis more of a point of view than an actual hypothesis (I have heard about it before, though I forget where).  In any case I don't think it could cause an ice age.  And it's viewing the biosphere as a single organism (which includes us btw), not necessarily things that the biosphere doesn't interact with (such as the magnetic poles -- they make life possible but the biotic part of the biosphere doesn't interact with them except possibly in rare cases -- and us -- in any case that would be like a few cells in your body lysing so that the whole could survive).  A rather extreme example of what I mean: the biosphere doesn't include the planet's core.
Incidentally if you take that point of view it means humanity is a virus or some form of infection.

In any case, I don't think it's likely to happen during our lifetimes.  We may have done something at a distant point in prehistory that would have erased the shifts entirely (apparently we averted an ice age during the middle ages without knowing it -- we only understood it recently).

@WillyP: is there a way to block this thread from appearing on the "new posts" sidebar (for example, in my profile)?  It's getting (to me at least) to be too much like E&C was/is on the DBB, and I'm afraid of what I might say next (there was a reason I decided to ignore E&C entirely, and it didn't have anything to do with the other people there).

[SaladBadger]

Wait... why would a poleshift make electricity stop flowing? We've run plenty of electronic devices in places that have no magnetic field, I don't see why a pole shift would be any different.

[Kaiaatzl]

That's what the physicist on Quirks and Quarks said anyway.  I have no way of knowing how it would happen...  (I removed the part on my post that referenced that, because it was getting too edgy).
My understanding was that it would change the flow so that our devices would stop working because of the way we designed them.  Obviously electric current itself wouldn't stop if you think about it -- animal life has survived all the polar shifts so far, which means that neurons and muscles still worked the same (both rely on small electric currents -- that's one way some carnivorous fish can detect prey).

[-<WillyP>-]

@wazzazzle: Not that I am aware of.

[Scyphi]

To clarify, pseudoscience does not mean it's not true, only that it's impossible to test or gather concrete evidence for or against it.

A good way to put it. Basically, all this is a bunch of scientists noticing a pattern and theorizing a bunch of possible outcomes, and nothing more. It's also possible the article that brought this subject up twisted the matter in a different, doomsday-y way, to try and generate more interest, and made it seem worse that it really is, if it were to happen.

I consider the Gaia hypothesis more of a...

I only brought that up because the conversation reminded me of it, and I thought somebody might take interest. I agree, it's really more of a personal opinion, and furthermore, probably has next to no bearing on the present subject.

We may have done something at a distant point in prehistory that would have erased the shifts entirely (apparently we averted an ice age during the middle ages without knowing it -- we only understood it recently).

I was wondering if anyone was going to bring this up, because the same thought had crossed my mind as well. Humankind has done lots to influence the earth and all life upon it, and while some view that as a bad thing, it's more than possible that we may have done as wazzazzle suggests, did something to the planet to shield ourselves from stuff like this. For example, about the ice age we had managed to "miss," I heard that one theory to explain that was that the onset of agriculture by humankind started a kind of gradual greenhouse effect (caused by the plants we were mass-growing) that generated enough heat to prevent the ice age.

Betcha never thought something like global warming could actually be a good thing, eh?

is there a way to block this thread from appearing on the "new posts" sidebar?

You could do what I do and just ignore it all together and visit the threads individually. When you come across a thread you don't want to visit anymore, just skip it. That's what I do in the Technical thread (surely someone's noticed that I never post there?) seeing that I highly doubt I could be of any use over there.

why would a poleshift make electricity stop flowing?

When did this idea come up, anyway? I must of missed it...either way, I know enough about science to see that this isn't too likely to happen, at least not by something like the magnetic poles shifting. 

[SaladBadger]

why would a poleshift make electricity stop flowing?

When did this idea come up, anyway? I must of missed it...either way, I know enough about science to see that this isn't too likely to happen, at least not by something like the magnetic poles shifting. 

When I was reading the Wikipedia writeup on the subject, they mentioned that computer systems could potentially be vulnerable because a burst of solar winds could possibly damage them. I'd be willing to say this is probably the same reason why the mars rovers need special radiation-hardened computer systems, because Mars lacks a magnetic field, so the solar winds can directly interact with the planet.

[Matthew]

The reason a Magnetic Polar Shift would be bad is because, theoretically, there will be a short time where it's nonexistant or not strong enough to protect the planet from solar wind if there happens to be a solar storm at the time.

[Kaiaatzl]

And then life would be back to the deep-sea vents.
Be interesting to see how it would evolve after that... but of course we never would.

[Infamus]

Okay, about computers crashing: not going to happen. Why? Because the field will be weak when it does flip, so it will affect next to nothing. The field gets weaker and weaker over time, and THEN it flips. I saw a documentary on it. Then it will slowly come back up to speed. That also means that we are worse off NOW then we will be when it flips.

We have more to fear from the hypothesized "solar super-storm" than anything else.

I think the our over-due'ness in the mag-field flipping is correlated to the coming solar spike.

[Scyphi]

Funny, I just saw a video for class that discussed that solar flare super-storm, but the odds of it happening are not much better. Just something scientists think might happen here soon, but no one will actually know until it happens. And even when it did, we'll probably know it's coming anywhere from more than a dozen hours to a couple days in advance (depending on it's speed), giving us some time to (albeit quickly) prepare.

And even then, the worse it'd do is interfere with communications, short out a few electronics (mostly in space) and maybe cause a blackout in portions of the world, so I haven't really been losing any sleep over it.

'Course, I haven't been losing any sleep over the magnetic pole shift either. Has anyone else?

[Kaiaatzl]

'Course, I haven't been losing any sleep over the magnetic pole shift either. Has anyone else?

Well why would we?  It's not like we can change it (maybe some person can, but not us).  Better to not worry about it.

[Infamus]

Well it sure will cull the herd for people who depend to highly on electronics. IF they start failing left and right.

Anyway, going overboard about something you can do nothing about is a sure fired way for it to have some massive negative impact on your life.