T-Minus 46 Days Until the End of the World

It has been quite a long time since I’ve thought about the end of the world.

On the day I moved into my dorm at Ohio State, someone said to me, “At least you’ll get to experience four months of college before we all die!” with a level of cheerfulness that made me queasy. Is that supposed to be funny? I wondered. Doomsday advocates never previously bothered me, but that statement really irked me. I hope that person is reading this.

Thanks to our dear friends at Centropolis Entertainment (the film 2012) and the Mayans (Mesoamerican Long Count Calendar, anyone?), the chance that life on Earth will be obliterated hangs ominously in the air as December approaches. Not one to dwell on myths, I decided to do a little research of my own and uncover just what could occur on December 21^st, 2012, and how likely this worldwide disaster is to happen.

Now this is just misleading.

What I uncovered completely blew my sensible mind (entering the world of the fantastical should not be done casually). Apparently, the date 12/21/2012 corresponds to the end of a 5,125 year long cycle of the previously-mentioned Mesoamerican Long Count Calendar, often associated with, you guessed it, the Mayans. I have heard speculations that our world has previously “ended” according to this Mayan calendar, and from what I have gathered, this is quite true. The world we currently live in is the fourth world to exist, and this world is scheduled to conclude on the Mayan date 13.0.0.0.0, or December 21^st, 2012.

This particular theory has been debunked by organized science. However, a significant amount of other theories as to what exactly will occur on this date exist. For example, the Sun is currently in the center of its 1400-year winter solstice path through the Milky Way, and the winter solstice occurs on December 21^st this year. Indian gurus have promoted 2012 as the “deadline” for human illumination for over 10 years. Claims of a possible apocalyptic alignment of galaxies, a reversal of the Earth’s magnetic field, a collision with “Planet X”, and the supernova of a red giant star in close proximity to the Earth all currently exist.Even though the chatterboxes spreading the crackpot theories know that modern science disproves each and every belief, “we’ve only a month and a half to live” is still a popular topic of conversation. Why is this?

Planet X colliding with Earth. Also known as “what’s not going to happen on December 21st, 2012″

Each generation has a trademark “doomsday” thrill, even in the current technological age, where information to disprove the nonsense is widely available to everyone. For example, evangelists broadcasted on live television the date of judgment in the 1980s. The arrivals of comets have prompted cults to declare the end of our species in the 90s. Nostradamus’s predictions and the arrival of new millennium frightened our species in the 2000s, and here we are in the 2010s, still convinced our lives are threatened. Do people get a sick kick out of pretending to be in a sci-fi tale? Is the end of times just a subject of curiosity or a welcomed event?

I looked long and hard at the person who told me the joke on my first day at university, and I laughed uneasily, blowing it off and continuing into my room as my blood boiled. It’s like some people want the world to end. And before Christmas, too.

Thanks to livescience.com and the Wikipedia article titled “2012 Phenomenon” for providing the outline for my casual research.