Ask an Amateur Scientist
: The End of the World

By Brian Thompson

I. The Setup

As I’m writing this, the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland is just about to be switched on.  If I believed some crazy physicists and their even crazier groupies, there really wouldn’t be any point in writing this at all. As discussed before in this column, these people believe that when the collider fires up and begins smashing particles into each other at higher energy levels than we’ve ever attempted before, scientists will unwittingly create black holes or quantum strangelets that will suck us all into oblivion or transform us into pure energy.  This may sound like a fun weekend, since there’s a good chance that at least a few of us will reform our consciousnesses into some kind of Dr. Manhattan-esque personality matrix, though the fantasy loses some luster when you realize that these black holes would also destroy Mars (so long, crystal mansion) as well as the Philistine humans we would impress with our exposed genitals.  And if none of that makes any sense to you, chances are you’re more socially adjusted than I am.

But as you’ve probably noticed by now, I’m still writing this column, so I’m pretty sure the world will still be here by the time you read it.  Of course, the cable’s out, so it’s not like I have anything better to do.  My confidence lies in knowing, as I’ve previously explained, that the people concerned about the LHC destroying us all don’t have a very firm grasp on science.  The same theory that would allow for the creation of black holes would also require that they nearly instantly evaporate to nothing, so there’s even more reason not to worry.

This isn’t the first time a doomsday prediction turned out to be wrong.  In fact, every doomsday deadline that’s ever passed was set by a faulty prediction.  You’d think that people would hop off the end of the world bandwagon, since it’s the best way to ruin your credibility as a prognosticator.  After all, it’s much safer to make vague proclamations about jobs on the horizon or true love just around the corner.  These things sometimes happen, and if they don’t, who really cares?  It’s not like we’ve changed our lives.

But despite the fact that every passing nanosecond is further evidence that the world is doing just fine and will continue to do just fine for quite a while (or until Vladimir Putin starts World War III), people seem to love believing that they’re about to die horribly, or at least about to be plunged into some kind of gasoline-crazed desertocalypse.  Just think about the insanity surrounding Y2K.  I know people personally who set aside rooms in their homes to stockpile non-perishable ramen noodles and Vienna sausages.  Of course, all of these were eaten well before the millennium because who can say no to a noodle sausage dinner?  But the point remains that if you can convince the world that the wrong date on a computer could destroy civilization, you can pretty much convince them of anything.

With that in mind, let’s take a look at some past end of the world predictions that didn’t quite pan out.

II. The Findings

In the ‘90s, a Seventh Day Adventist pastor named Larry Wilson said that the world would shake from a series of massive earthquakes between 1994 and 1998, culminating in the second coming of Christ.  This is a pretty standard prophesy and one that’s easily understood.  Many end of the world predictions come from religious fanatics.  Christians in particular.  This is because the apocalypse, while a bummer for many of us, would offer several validations for their beliefs.  No one could ever deny the existence of Jesus if they saw him surfing on a cloud, raining fire down from his fists as he wrestles with Satan.  Plus, after all the doom and gloom, there’s supposed to be a 1,000-year period of peace on Earth as Jesus remains as our benevolent dictator/party planner.  There’s also a nice in-the-know feeling from imagining yourself being raptured into Heaven as one of the chosen while your stupid little friends and family are left behind to fend for themselves.  Take that, atheists!  And Wilson’s prophecy offers a good example of the kind of non-specific specifics found in a lot of end times predictions.  A series of earthquakes might sound like concrete omens, but Wilson’s careful not to mention how many earthquakes he’s talking about, exactly how severe they’ll be, or where they’ll occur.  So for four years, any report of plate tectonics in action could be touted by Wilson as confirmation.  His only mistake was in setting a deadline.  1998 may have seen the end of Deep Blue Something’s recording career, but that’s sort of the opposite of the end of the world.

In 1980, self-proclaimed psychic Jeanne Dixon predicted that the decade later known for shoulder pads, cocaine abuse, and shoulder pads stuffed with cocaine would see the rise of a powerful leader in the Middle-East who would usher in a global apocalypse.  I don’t believe this ever happened, though I spent most of the ‘80s snorting whatever I could find and experimenting with new and exciting shoulder pad buttressing technologies.

In 1973, members of the Children of God cult were told by their leader, David Berg, that the comet Kohoutek would slam into the Earth and destroy the United States.  His solution?  Pack up and leave the country.  It’s not clear what Berg and his followers planned to do in the aftermath of the destruction.  Any impact powerful enough to destroy most of North America would necessarily make life elsewhere on the planet a little dusty, burny, and/or boily.  Some have said that the cult simply wanted to move to a country that wouldn’t try and stop them from repeatedly raping their own children, but the people who have said that are probably just the adult children of Children of God cult members, so they’re probably biased.

Not all end times prophecies have been based on religious fundamentalism or hokey psychic powers, however.  Like the LHC-fearing scientists and pseudoscientists of today, others in history have tried to use the tools of reason and logic to do terribly unreasonable and illogical things.  John Napier, no less than the mathematician who himself discovered the concept of logarithms, decided to take the universal language of numbers to the Book of Revelations (then seen as one of the world’s premiere science textbooks) to work out the mathematical likelihood of the end of the world.  According to his careful calculations, life as we know it would end sometime in 1688.  Unless his conclusions allow for ±400 years or so.

III. The Conclusion

Here’s the thing about the world ending.  It’s going to happen eventually.  Whether we’ll be obliterated by an asteroid or just ride out our miserable little existence until the sun swallows us whole, the Earth isn’t going to be around forever, and we probably aren’t either.  Space exploration is really the only way our species has a chance of survival in the extra long term, and our governments would rather spend tax money on distributing weapons to make life on this planet a little worse than it already is.  So believing that the world will end isn’t crazy at all.  Knowing for certain that the world will end soon, for one specific reason, on one exact date, on the other hand, is probably one of the latter signs of a total psychotic breakdown.  Many people who spout off about the end of the world are just cons looking to sell a few books in record time before their marks realize we’re going to be okay after all.  But some people truly believe they have a direct line to the future, and the future isn’t looking good.

These kinds of prophecies appeal to our arrogance and our fears simultaneously.  On my nightstand right now is a book by a gentleman who claims he’s God’s last prophet on Earth, and that he alone can warn us of the coming apocalypse.  This guy isn’t out for a buck.  Anyone can go to his website and order the book for free.  But he is out to make himself feel important my claiming knowledge that he doesn’t have and that no one could ever have.  And those who follow him can feel good knowing that they’re wise enough to see reality for what it is.  They’re just that much better than everyone else.  They don’t necessarily want the world to end.  In fact, they may even be terrified of it.  But at least they have a plan.

Of course, these people are really afraid of death in general.  Long before the Earth kicks it, all of us will shuffle off as well.  And like the end of the world, many of us hope we have an idea about the end of ourselves and what happens afterward.  But since I know I only have a comparatively brief time on this planet (or any other), I figure I’d better make the most of it.  Which is why I’m announcing the release of my new book, 12/12/12: Three Dozen Reasons the World Will End Soon.  It’s a little pricey for a few Xeroxed pages and a couple of staples, but can you really afford not to have it?  I think you already know the answer.

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About The Amateur Scientist: Brian Thompson is a professor of amateur science at a major imaginary university and a regular blogger at CHUD. He has been able to read and write for over seventeen years.

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