Hello,
This is the second article in my series on “2012 Prophecies and Preparations”, and the second article on Geophysical predictions.
I have no doubt that you’ve heard people saying that at this time “the poles are going to reverse”. On hearing this, the immediate impression for most people is that the ball we live on, aka planet Earth, will physically turn upside down.
However, when people speak of a polar reversal, what is not normally acknowledged is that there are two types of polar shift or polar reversal.
The first is a geomagnetic reversal of the poles, which I’ll talk about today. The second is known as a” true polar shift” or “polar wandering”, which I’ll discuss in my next article in this series.
Meanwhile, there is a far greater chance of a magnetic polar reversal happening at this time, than a true polar reversal or even a significant true polar shift. This is because the Earth has never experienced a true polar reversal before. However, many geomagnetic polar reversals have occurred on the Earth in ages past.
MAGNETIC POLAR REVERSAL OR GEOMAGNETIC REVERSAL
A reversal of the magnetic poles occurs when everything on Earth will stay the same, except that if you check your compass what previously showed up as north will now show up as being south and vice versa.
Confusing – Yes.
Total life destroying – No.
Causing Life Hardships and Disruptions – Definitely.
THE SUN
The magnetic poles on the Sun reverse every 11 +/- years. So magnetic polar reversal is not unheard of.
As far as Solar magnetic polar reversal is concerned, the shift happens very quickly, most scientists suggest that the total flip occurs in a matter of a couple of months. The last shift was in 2001. Ergo, “coincidently” the next solar magnetic polar shift is due late 2012.
NASA puts it this way:
The Sun’s magnetic poles will remain as they are now, with the Sun’s north magnetic pole pointing through the Sun’s southern hemisphere, until the year 2012 when they will reverse again. This transition happens, as far as we know, at the peak of every 11-year Sunspot cycle — like clockwork [1].
Now keep in mind, that these 11 year solar polar shifts have been occurring for millennia without any major catastrophic effect on the Sun, or the Earth.
So yes there will definitely be a SOLAR magnetic polar flip in 2012/2013. But a flip of the Earth’s magnetic poles is just as likely in 2012 as it is in any other year, as I’ll now explain.
PREVIOUS GEOMAGNETIC POLAR REVERSALS of the EARTH
As an aside, if and when we do next have a geomagnetic polar reversal, according to your compass the Sun will rise in the West and set in the East. This is something that a lot of ancient texts have predicted; that the Sun will rise in the West. But on virtually every website I’ve seen, when people talk about those ancient predictions, that one day the Sun will rise in the west, they immediately link that to a reversal in the rotation of the Earth on its axis – which is definitely not necessary for a westerly rising Sun. In Article 4, in this series, I talk about the reversal of the rotation of the Earth around its axis.
Geomagnetic reversals of the Earth, when the north and the south poles swap places ON YOUR COMPASS ONLY, have been recorded in the magnetism of ancient rocks. It is normally said that these reversals are totally unpredictable. However, a recent (2006) study by a team of physicists demonstrated that magnetic reversals appear to conform to what is known as the Lévy distribution, and as such they can be predicted. Nevertheless, they haven’t told us when the next one is due [2].
What is generally accepted, with regard to magnetic polar reversals of the Earth, is that they come at irregular intervals averaging about 300,000 years between. However, the last one was roughly 780,000 years ago and so it could be said that we are well overdue for another one. Nevertheless, extremely long periods of time, called superchrons, have occurred in the past when no reversals took place. These rare, but not unknown, superchrons have lasted up to millions of years.
So there’s no need to panic about this prediction just yet.
According to an article in Science [3] in 2001:
The rate of reversals in the Earth’s magnetic field has varied widely over time. 72 million years ago (Ma), the field reversed 5 times in a million years. In a 4-million-year period centered on 54 Ma, there were 10 reversals; at around 42 Ma, 17 reversals took place in the span of 3 million years. In a period of 3 million years centering on 24 Ma, 13 reversals occurred. No fewer than 51 reversals occurred in a 12-million-year period, centering on 15 million years ago. These eras of frequent reversals have been counterbalanced by a few “superchrons” – or long periods when no reversals took place [4].
The following diagrams [5] will give you a better indication of when reversals have taken place
Diagram of Magnetic Polar Reversals in the Past - Notice the periods between rapid reversals and the long band of superchrons
Interestingly, a NASA article tells us that due to the last magnetic polar reversal, 780,000 years ago, our current magnetic NORTH pole is actually in the southern hemisphere, and the south pole in the Northern Hemisphere [6].
THE EARTH’S MAGNETIC POLE IS CONSTANTLY ON THE MOVE
People, especially architects, talk about true north – along the Earth’s axis; and also magnetic north which is where the compass needle points, because they are 8in different places.
The magnetic poles are always moving.
As at December 29th, 2003, magnetic north was located in northern Canada, about 600 km from the nearest town – Resolute Bay which has a population of 300 [7].
Interestingly, if you started on the equator and followed your compass north you would not go in a straight line directly to the magnetic north pole. Instead your compass would take you all over the shop because of the movement of the magnetic north and south throughout the Earth’s surface [8].
In more recent times, the magnetic poles have been moving quite a lot and quite a lot more quickly.
During the 20th century, the north pole kept moving north at an average speed of 10 km per year. More recently it has accelerated “to 40 km per year. … At this rate it will leave North America and reach Siberia in a few decades”[9].
Larry Newitt, of the Geological Survey of Canada, whose job it is to monitor the movement of the North pole says that “We usually go out and check its [the north pole] location once every few years, [however] we’ll have to make more trips now that it is moving so quickly.”[10]
This map shows the movement of the Earth's magnetic north pole across the Canadian Arctic between 1831 and 2001 Credit: Geological Survey of Canada [11
WHAT CAUSES THE MAGNETIC POLES TO REVERSE
There has been a lot of talk, especially in recent times, as to what causes the magnetic – and again I stress Magnetic – poles to reverse.
The most common reason given is a decrease in Earth’s magnetic field. And as most scientists agree that the Earth’s magnetic field is in decline, many 2012 watchers have jumped to the conclusion that a reversal of the magnetic poles is imminent. This is not necessarily so.
Meanwhile, there are some people who argue that the magnetic field is never reduced. But instead, the magnetic field is just redistributed around the Earth.
Nevertheless, most scientific sources contend that the Earth’s magnetic field is indeed reducing at the moment. University of California professor, Gary Glatzmaier, says that globally the magnetic field has weakened 10% since the 19th century. Even so, he says that this is “mild compared to what Earth’s magnetic field has done in the past”.
According to Glatzmaier, the ongoing 10% decline doesn’t mean that a reversal is imminent. “The field is increasing or decreasing all the time,” he says. “We know this from studies of the paleomagnetic record.” Earth’s present-day magnetic field is, in fact, much stronger than normal. The dipole moment, a measure of the intensity of the magnetic field, is now 8 x 1022 amps x m2. That’s twice the million-year average of 4 x 1022 amps x m2 [12] .
Glatzmaier explains how all this works by studying a model of the centre of our Earth. n aside, if and when we do next have a geomagnetic polar reversal, according to your compass the Sun will rise in the West and set in the East. This is somemagnetic reversals of the Earth, when the north and the south poles swap places ON YOUR COMPASS ONLY, have been recorded in the magnetism of ancient rocks. It is normally said that these reversals are totally unpredictable. However, a recent
Diagram of the Earth's interior. The outer core is the source of the geomagnetic field
1. Because I think it is all fascinating stuff and I certainly couldn’t improve on the way it’s been said;
2. Because I will probably refer back to this at other times in the future.
“At the heart of our planet lies a solid iron ball, about as hot as the surface of the Sun. Researchers call it “the inner core.” It’s really a world within a world. The inner core is 70% as wide as the moon. It spins at its own rate, as much as 0.2o of longitude per year faster than the Earth above it, and it has its own ocean: a very deep layer of liquid iron known as “the outer core.”
Earth’s magnetic field comes from this ocean of iron, which is an electrically conducting fluid in constant motion. Sitting above the hot solid inner core, the liquid outer core seethes and rolls like water in a pan on a hot stove. The outer core also has “hurricanes”–whirlpools powered by the Coriolis forces of Earth’s rotation. These complex motions generate our planet’s magnetism through a process called the dynamo effect. …
Glatzmaier and his colleague Paul Roberts created a supercomputer model of Earth’s interior. Their software heats the inner core, stirs the metallic ocean above it, then calculates the resulting magnetic field. They run their code for hundreds of thousands of simulated years and watch what happens.
What they see mimics the real Earth: The magnetic field waxes and wanes, poles drift and, occasionally, flip. Change is normal, they’ve learned. And no wonder. The source of the field, the outer core, is itself seething, swirling, turbulent. “It’s chaotic down there,” notes Glatzmaier. The changes we detect on our planet’s surface are a sign of that inner chaos”[13].
[KASHONIA: Could this chaotic turbulent mass below the Earth’s surface, which we can detect on Earth’s surface, be part of the climate change events that so many people are blaming solely on excessive CO2 – it sounds like it to me.]
According to the work that Glatzmaier and his colleagues have done, “a reversal takes a few thousand years to complete, and during that time–contrary to popular belief–the magnetic field does not vanish, however it does get more complicated. Magnetic lines of force near Earth’s surface become twisted and tangled, and magnetic poles pop up in unaccustomed places. As an example, a south magnetic pole might emerge over Africa, or a north pole over Tahiti. But it’s still a planetary magnetic field, and it still protects us from space radiation and solar storms [14].
I love the following diagrams which come from Glatzmaier’s computer modeling [15]. They show what is likely to happen to the magnetic field during a magnetic polar flip or reversal.
A snapshot of the 3D magnetic field structure simulated with the Glatzmaier-Roberts geodynamo model. Magnetic field lines are blue where the field is directed inward and yellow where directed outward. The rotation axis of the model Earth is vertical and through the center. A transition occurs at the core-mantle boundary from the intense, complicated field structure in the fluid core, where the field is generated, to the smooth, potential field structure outside the core. The field lines are drawn out to two Earth radii. Magnetic field is rapped around the "tangent cylinder" due to the shear of the zonal fluid flow
Same as the above figure, but 500 years before the middle of a magnetic dipole reversal,
Computer diagram at the middle of the reversal. Note the mixture of yellow and blue lines emerging all over the Earth.
The model of the magnetic fields 500 years after the middle of the reversal. Remember that the Glatzmaier computer model suggests that a complete reversal takes over 1000 years. Note that in the 500 years prior to reversal diagram, the yellow lines are at the top, and now, after reversal, they are at the bottom.
Glatzmaier and his team found that reversals are also influenced by “the thermal structure in the lower mantle and the effect this has on the style of convection and magnetic field generation in the fluid core below”[16].
The other interesting thing that Glatzmaier discovered is that “convection in the fluid outer core is continually trying to reverse the magnetic field; but that the solid inner core inhibits magnetic reversals because the field in the inner core can only change on the much longer time scale of diffusion”[17].
WHAT WILL HAPPEN IF/WHEN THE MAGNETIC POLES DO REVERSE?
Some aspects of this question are very easy to answer – those connected to our scientific and electronic equipment. Other aspects, such as the effects on living entities are more problematic because the last reversal obviously occurred prior to our current technology for measuring such things.
Generally speaking, however, the following speculations can be made.
- The first two obvious effects are that our compasses will work in reverse; and as a result, the Sun will rise in the Compass-West.
- All navigation systems would need to be changed. So aeroplanes and ships will have significant problems during the transition period. And the makers of automobile and hand held GPS systems will have a field day and make a fortune.
- Virtually all electronic and communication systems will need to be recalibrated. This means that all electronic and communications equipment will go down for a considerable period of time. And as virtually everything these days works on computer or via electronics of some sort, this will mean no electricity, no public water supply; indeed, not much of any of our modern conveniences until everything has been fixed.
- As you are aware, many birds and animals have a magnetic guiding system which undoubtedly would be disrupted.
- There are also those who believe that we will have a greatly diminished magnetic field during the time of a geomagnetic reversal, and so without the strong magnetic field humans and all other entities on the Earth could be subjected to excessive radiation [18]. On the other hand, it is argued that homo sapiens have been through polar reversals in the past and must have survived or we wouldn’t be here today [19]. I’ll talk more about the effects of our decreasing magnetic field and the effects of solar radiation in my article on solar flares, and gamma rays –Article 6.
LIKELIHOOD OF IT HAPPENING
Seeing as the average time between geomagnetic reversals is about 300,000 years, and the last reversal occurred 780,000 years ago, in theory, a geomagnetic polar reversal is just as likely today as it was 480,000 years ago.
Even so, there are many current signs to indicate that if it does happen in our lifetime we should not be surprised. These signs include the reducing magnetic field; the acceleration in the shifting of the poles; and the breakouts of reversed poles already in various places around the Earth. The most famous, or is that infamous, is off the coast of Africa [20].
Nevertheless, there is no consensus on the time it takes for a complete reversal – from start to finish.
As I stated above, Glatzmaier’s computer modeling says it will take several 1000s of years for a complete reversal. Yet other reports argue for a reversal time of about 400 years based on core samples taken from the Earth. Whilst others still, say a complete flip can occur in less than a month based on studies of 15 million year old lava flow samples on Steens Mountain, Oregon [21].
Meanwhile, some metaphysical researchers say that the reversal will happen within the “twinkling of an eye”, or will happen in 3 days, which will be our 3 days of darkness predicted by the Hopi.
Personally, I think there are more likely ways that we could get our 3 days of darkness and so I find an instant reversal very hard to believe.
As far as the other two time frames are concerned, 400 years versus 30 days – I have no idea and I don’t really think that anyone else has either.
So forget about 2012 and a magnetic polar reversal – it could begin to happen tomorrow; it could happen in 200,000 years’ time; or as many argue today, the geomagnetic reversal has already begun to take place. And if it has already begun, which I doubt, then if we believe the evidence in the lava flow at Steens Mountain, the flip will have finished by this Christmas.
Who Knows?
In fact, most scientists don’t believe that it will happen for generations, if at all.
Even Greg Braden, who claimed in his early books in the early 1990s that a pole reversal, and much worse, would happen at this time; then changed his views completely in his latest book Fractal Time which was published in 2009.
HARMONICS AND GRID POINTS
A topic rarely considered by scientists when talking about these issues is the area of harmonics and global harmonic grid points. This is an extensive and oft times complex topic and so I’ll just make this point very briefly.
In essence, harmonics is all about energetic frequency. I find it a fascinating and exciting topic and is very relevant to our current changes in global consciousness and so I will go into it a little bit more in Article 9 on our evolving consciousness.
Suffice to say for the moment, everything in nature has an harmonic energetic frequency. Humans vibrate physically and emotionally to certain frequencies. The Earth vibrates to certain frequencies.
Internationally renowned researcher, Bruce Cathie, ‘discovered’ that the Earth is covered by a magnetic, harmonic grid system which affects different particles in different ways all based on harmonics.
An important example he gives in his book – The Energy Grid Harmonic 695: The Pulse of the Universe – The Investigation into the World Energy Grid– is that of the atomic bomb.
Basically, he demonstrates that an atomic bomb won’t go off just anywhere it is dropped, or at any time. For the bomb to detonate, it must be dropped on a specific grid point, at a specific time so that the harmonic frequency is just right to trigger the detonation. This is something not widely discussed for obvious reasons, but Cathie’s discovery has been internationally acknowledged.
Cathie puts it this way:
The device [the atomic bomb] is detonated by the manipulation of the relative motions of the atomic particles enclosed within its casing; and this can only be affected by placing the bomb on, under, or over a specific geometric point related to the Earth’s surface, at a specific time. The relative motions of the Earth and Sun, at this instant of time, cause the disruption of the unstable particles of uranium, plutonium, cobalt or whatever unstable matter is used to trigger the explosion. Every test of nuclear devices since World War II has been designed to discover all the geometric combinations possible for the detonation of the atom [22].
And later: “An atomic bomb is a geometric device which necessitates geometric positioning for detonation” [23].
So what have atomic bombs got to do with geomagnetic polar reversals? The same thing as it has to do with approaching asteroids, or any geophysical change or event.
Whilst it might be a long shot; however, if the relative motion of the Sun and the Earth are at their harmonic optimum when an asteroid approaches, or when the structures inside the Earth are also in an optimum state, then any geophysical event is possible in an extremely short period of time, no matter how many thousands of years computer modeling says an event might take.
So, whilst all the normal scientific evidence tends to indicate that a magnetic polar reversal would be most unlikely in our lifetimes; if the harmonics and grid point align with the harmonics going on inside the Earth – then anything is possible at that time.
Again, an harmonic frequency ‘alignment’ is highly unlikely, but as with all things, it is an interesting concept to be aware of.
PREPARATION
For me, a geomagnetic polar reversal is something that I don’t even think about, let alone worry about. Whether it happens in a matter of months or millennia, when (not if) it happens, it happens and there will be nothing that we can do to stop it. So what we can’t change we must just accept.
Having said that, we are at a far greater risk every time we set foot in a motor car. There is always the possibility of an accident; but so long as we drive in a sensible manner and follow the road rules, then having an accident is the last thing that most people think about as they drive along.
And the same goes for a magnetic polar reversal.
Those who do constantly worry about a vehicle accident will probably attract one. And again, as I’ll talk about in Article 9 in this series – the same applies to all geophysical events adversely affecting us if we as a global community focus energy on that happening.
The only preparation that I do recommend is the basic preparedness advice that I presented in Article 1 – .http://www.raisingloveconsciousness.com/summary/2012-prophecies-preparations-climate-change This is all you can really do for any possible geophysical event.
And I do strongly recommend that the Article One preparedness advice should be followed by everyone, no matter where in the world you live, at least for the next few years because no one have any real idea of what might or might not happen.
And, of course if you live in a danger zone, then you will always follow the preparedness advice, just as I do living in a cyclone region.
Other than that:
Stay positive. Stay happy. And fill your life with love.
You can do no more, except be prepared not to see any TV, DVDs, or have any communications equipment working for quite some time. And that might do us all some good.
NEXT TIME:
The next article in this series is on True Polar Shifts aka Polar Wandering.
Love
Kashonia
PS: Again, I’d love your comments, questions, or feedback in the comment box below.
REFERENCES
[1] http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2001/ast15feb_1.htm
[2] Carbone, V.; Sorriso-Valvo, L.; Vecchio, A.; Lepreti, F.; Veltri, P.; Harabaglia, P.; Guerra, I.. “Clustering of Polarity Reversals of the Geomagnetic Field”. Physical Review Letters 96 (12): 128501. Bibcode 2006PhRvL..96l8501C. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.96.128501.
Dumé, Belle (March 21, 2006). “Geomagnetic flip may not be random after all”. physicsworld.com. http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/24464.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geomagnetic_reversal
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_declination – Good moving maps of declination
[3] Banerjee, Subir K. (2001-03-02). “When the Compass Stopped Reversing Its Poles”. Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science) 291 (5509): 1714–1715. doi:10.1126/science.291.5509.1714. http://www.sciencemag.org.www.lib.ncsu.edu:2048/content/291/5509/1714.
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geomagnetic_reversal
[5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geomagnetic_reversal
[6] http://image.gsfc.nasa.gov/poetry/magnetism/magnetism.html
[7] http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2003/29dec_magneticfield/
[8] http://gsc.nrcan.gc.ca/geomag/field/magdec_e.php
[9] http://www.nasa.gov/vision/Earth/lookingatEarth/29dec_magneticfield.html
[10] http://www.nasa.gov/vision/Earth/lookingatEarth/29dec_magneticfield.html
[11] http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2003/29dec_magneticfield/
[12] http://www.nasa.gov/vision/Earth/lookingatEarth/29dec_magneticfield.html
[13] http://www.nasa.gov/vision/Earth/lookingatEarth/29dec_magneticfield.html
[14] http://www.nasa.gov/vision/Earth/lookingatEarth/29dec_magneticfield.html
[15] http://es.ucsc.edu/~glatz/field.html
[16] http://www.es.ucsc.edu/~glatz/geodynamo.html
[17] http://es.ucsc.edu/~glatz/geodynamo.html
[18] http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3693932/ns/technology_and_science-science/
[19] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geomagnetic_reversal#cite_note-6#cite_note-6
[20] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth’s_magnetic_field
[21] Coe, R. S.; Prévot, M.; Camps, P. (20 April 1995). “New evidence for extraordinarily rapid change of the geomagnetic field during a reversal”. Nature 374 (6524): 687. doi:10.1038/374687a0. http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v374/n6524/abs/374687a0.html.
[22] The Energy Grid Harmonic 695: The Pulse of the Universe – The Investigation into the World Energy Grid – by Bruce L Cathie p 59.
Cathie’s book The Harmonic Conquest of Space (1995) is also an excellent read for those interested in this topic. It tends to tie together all of Cathie’s previous research.
[23]The Energy Grid Harmonic 695: The Pulse of the Universe – The Investigation into the World Energy Grid – by Bruce L Cathie p 94.
{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
i read that comet Elenin broke into pieces and is no longer a comet, is that true? and also on spaceweather.com comet yu55 is now 200 meters not 400. You are one of the few people i trust these days, i respect and value your opinion. thank you
Hello, I stumbled across your website & I was at first nervous to read your blog, usually everytime I read anything on the internet about the world’s possibilities or changes It frightens me even more than I was before I started reading or even thinking about what could happen with our planet in our day and age. I know that I sound like a completey nervous person; but to be honest the main reason why I get nervous is because I am a mommy of three young boys ages ten to three and It breaks my heart to think they might not be able to have a future or a family one day. I am sure these are all main concerns of any parent; but I simply can not help it.
Reading your blog actually helped me to understand science & the meaning of all the “news talk” a little better.
I just said to my husband, as he stood over me and said “what are you reading now, turn that computer off” he thinks I am crazy & sometimes I feel the same way as I am so addicted or should I say obsessed with researching the true meanings of what is said about our planet.
I look forward to more articles, maybe they will help to ease my mind some more. Thank you.
Angela, 29, Toms River, NJ
Hello Angela,
I can certainly understand your concern for your children with regard to what’s happening in the world. And that is why I am writing the articles that I am. Unfortunately, all the carry-on over the asteroid YU55 has slowed down the “2012 Prophecies” series, but now the asteroid has passed, I’m able to get back to the next article in the series, which is almost finished..
Angela, this is the most wonderful time for your children to grow up, and they are, no doubt, extremely special children. All children born in the 2000s are.
Originally my reason for beginning the articles on 2012 Prophecies was that there are so many frightening stories out there which are not necessary and a pure figment of the author’s imagination. And once people understand basically what the stories are talking about, such as the fundamental science behind them, and can see how unlikely they are, then they can focus on the real global changes. These are the global changes in consciousness.
Last night I put up what is almost a summary article about this time. It was mainly for all the people that had been following my Asteroid YU55 posts and comments. You’ll find it if you click on http://www.kashonia.com/summary/yu55-2012-shift I’m sure you’ll find it interesting.
Keep checking in on the articles. If you go to the category at the very top of the category list in the side column – it’s called #1 Exploring 2012 Part 2 & Shift in Consciousness. All of the articles in this series are filed in there. There are a few there already that, once again, I think you’ll find interesting.
Stay Happy and Positive – there is nothing to be afraid about.
love
Kashonia
You have a lot of science here, but then interpret it incorrectly. In a nutshell, a magnetic reversal takes hundreds to thousands of years to occur. There is no debate about this in the scientific community and no evidence to suggest otherwise. The scientific evidence to support this is overwhelming. And, we can see from the record that it did not have any affect on life that we can identify. Pseudoscientists can make all sorts of claims about it happening in a ‘twinkling of an eye’, but hopefully most people want to see some evidence or proof of a big claim like that. In fact, there is none. So, our modern society is not at risk. Our electronics will not be affected. You do not need to be concerned about going to bed at night with compasses pointing one way and finding they point a different way in the morning. No one is going to make bundles of money off of this (unless they are around for hundreds of years). And, no, Australia will not be in the northern hemisphere. That is because the hemispheres are defined by the rotational axis, not the magnetic one. The Sun will still rise in the east and set in the west. Incidentally, by the definition of magnetic fields used by physicists, the Sun already rises in the magnetic west and sets in the magnetic east. We define the direction of a magnetic field based on the behavior of charged particles in the field. By that definition, the magnetic south pole is located in Canada and the magnetic north pole is located in Antarctica. If we were to change the nomenclature of everything, we would have already done it. As an interesting note, geologists define magnetic fields differently than physicists. They define the magnetic pole to the north as the north magnetic pole. This was very confusing for me the first time I was talking to a geologists about all of this, until we got it straightened out and were then talking about the same thing.
Oh Gosh – My Worst Nightmare has returned
.
Christopher, I will respond to your comment in a few days
No need. I discussed this posting in more depth on my website. http://www.2012dialogues.com. And, don’t worry, you are only one of many that I review on a periodic basis. And, the list is always growing.
Hello Christopher,
The thing that I get annoyed about with regard to your comments, now and in the past, is that you are so hell-bend on discrediting anyone who writes on these topics that you don’t acknowledge the truth of what I actually do say.
So I’ve copied and pasted your main comments below and will answer each point in turn.
CK - In a nutshell, a magnetic reversal takes hundreds to thousands of years to occur. There is no debate about this in the scientific community and no evidence to suggest otherwise. The scientific evidence to support this is overwhelming. And, we can see from the record that it did not have any affect on life that we can identify.
KASHONIA – Christopher, you can’t say that there is no evidence that a magnetic reversal can occur in less than 1000s of years. As you see in my article I have included reference to the various models that give the various time frames.
As an example, from the journal Nature, one of, if not THE most prestigious scientific journal in the world, I cited information that I’ve paraphrased as follows:
“Whilst others still, say a complete flip can occur in less than a month based on studies of 15 million year old lava flow samples on Steens Mountain, Oregon [21].”
So yes there IS some debate in the scientific community, even if you disagree with that debate. And YES there IS some evidence on which that debate is based.
Nevertheless, whilst the MAINSTREAM scientific community might generally agree with the several thousands of years model, go back a few hundred years and mainstream science said that the world was flat.
Now I know we’ve come a long way since then. And as you can see from my article I have not said that I believe any one particular theory.
All I have done is to present to my readers the range of theories that are out there, so that if the general public come across them, unlike you, I have acknowledged that they exist.
To just categorically say this will happen or that will happen is like the doomsayers, whom we both dislike, saying categorically that the world will end on December 21st.
***********
CK - Pseudoscientists can make all sorts of claims about it happening in a ‘twinkling of an eye’, but hopefully most people want to see some evidence or proof of a big claim like that. In fact, there is none.
KASHONIA – I gave my opinion that the reversal in the ‘twinkling of an Eye’ was not one I go for. So we agree there, despite you not giving me credit for that agreement.
*************
CK – So, our modern society is not at risk. Our electronics will not be affected. You do not need to be concerned about going to bed at night with compasses pointing one way and finding they point a different way in the morning. No one is going to make bundles of money off of this (unless they are around for hundreds of years).
KASHONIA – This point is 100% correct IF, and ONLY IF, your 1000s of years’ model is correct. If the other shorter frame scientists and their evidence are correct then our modern society could well be at risk. Not with a doomsday cataclysm, but with a great deal of inconvenience.
******************
CK – And, no, Australia will not be in the northern hemisphere. That is because the hemispheres are defined by the rotational axis, not the magnetic one. The Sun will still rise in the east and set in the west.
KASHONIA – I will give you this one. It was an erroneous, thoughtless, and flippant comment in passing on my part which I’ll remove.
The rest of your comment is very interesting and adds to all of our knowledge and understanding.
I would love your entire comments to be as informative as that end part and not erroneously denigrating.
And as you can see, but have not acknowledged, I have said that these are the stories that are out there, basically believe what you want, but I am not the least bit concerned about a magnetic reversal in my lifetime.
Let me begin my apologizing for spelling your name incorrectly. You are correct that I should have ensured I was spelling it correctly and I will make those corrections. I always try to respect people’s names.
I do not apologize for your claim that I do not acknowledge the truth of what you say because I do. I think your issue is that you say things you think to be true, but aren’t. It is my job as a scientist and teacher to correct those kinds of statements.
Let’s discuss the rate of reversal first, since that seems to be something you are most concerned with. There are those that claim the reversal can occur nearly instantaneously, but no one in mainstream science supports any such claim. That is because there are conservation of energy considerations to any such event. Changing the magnetic field generates electric currents within the planet which will work to cancel the change in the magnetic field. The more quickly the field tries to change, the stronger the currents that are generated and more effective they are in slowing down the reversal. Generally, the evidence shows these reversals take between 1000 and 10,000 years to occur. There is the case where rocks from a region known as Steens Mountain, OR seem to indicate the reversal occurred very quickly. But, But, that interpretation is generally disputed and generally not accepted in the scientific community. (See ‘Reversals of the Earth’s Magnetic Field, 2nd ed. by J.A. Jacobs, pg 217-218, available for viewing in Google Books.) A second reported instance of rapid reversal is from rocks in Battle Mountain, NV would seem to support the Steens Mountain evidence. Again, this is highly disputed. When the history of the magnetic field in that region is examined more closely it appears to indicate that the magnetic field actually may have reversed several times over a short period. There are explanations for the evidence other than rapid reversal, but if the reversal did actually occur it was probably a very localized convolution of the magnetic field during a reversal and does not represent a global event, only a local one. There is still much to explore and discover, but there is really no debate within the scientific community about the timescale of magnetic reversals. The evidence is overwhelming and the physics involved is restrictive. Is it possible that there really was such a reversal? I can think of one way and that would be for the field to collapse and approach zero which would then allow the field to change without generating those large currents. Is this really a possibility? No, not at all. It makes for good science fiction and fodder for pseudoscientists, but that is it. As for something being infallible simply because it appears in reputable journals, that is a very wrong belief. I could give an endless list of examples of published works being proven false, but I only really need to give one. Dr. Andrew Wakefield published a paper in the British medical journal BMJ that claimed there was a link between vaccinations and autism. This paper led to people refusing to have their children vaccinated. It has now been found that the evidence was doctored and Wakefield has lost his medical license. BMJ took the unusual step of publishing a retraction of the paper.
I stand by my statement as being correct, there is no serious debate in the scientific community (one which I work in) that magnetic reversals can occur over night or even within a period of days.
I find it very interesting that you say if we go back a few hundred years science said the world is flat. This is actually a perfect example of what I have been saying about your postings and the postings of other people. The truth is, science never said the world is flat. We have known for thousands of years the world is round and we even had good calculations of how big it is. Aristotle proved as early as 350 B.C. that the world is round and he wasn’t even the first. It is likely it was proven the Earth is round as early as 900 B.C.
About 200 B.C., Erastothenes, the librarian at the Library of Alexandria, was able to calculate a circumference of the Earth. We are not certain of the value he came us with because he reported in units called stadia and we are not sure of the value of a stadia. The most accepted value calculated using ancient works gives a very accurate measure for the size of the planet. As an interesting side note, his measurements were repeated a couple of hundreds years later that resulted in a much smaller value, about 25% smaller. This was the widely accepted value and the value used by Christopher Columbus. Columbus knew how far it was to China going east and, using the erroneous value, believed he could sail west and get to China more quickly. This, of course, entailed a very dangerous open-ocean voyage that sailors were reluctant to make in those days. Fortunately for Columbus and his crew, someone stuck a couple of continents in the way or they would have all died at sea. Columbus died believing he had found a new way to reach China.
The whole flat Earth story is a myth. There were certainly people that believed the Earth is flat (there still is – seriously), but scientists (natural philosophers) knew the world was round. So, your example of science believing the Earth is flat is a perfect example of how a little misinformation completely changes the story. That is my complaint about blogs by you and other people that are misleading people to think there may be something to such claims as the Mayan calendar, Nibiru, galactic alignments and any other nonsense you wish to point at.
And, I also stand by my complaint of you telling people to prepare. The context is key. You are not telling people to be prepared for natural disasters that we all know about. You put that warning in a posting about magnetic reversals and it was clearly intended to tell people that they should be prepared for things that the doomsayers are predicting. Like I said, context is key. Just look at where that comment appeared.
Basically, if the facts are kept straight, all of these pseudoscience, doomsayer claims collapse like a house of cards.
Christopher,
Thank you for your apologies.
And this reply is certainly a lot more tempered than previous comments have been, and I appreciate that.
However, I am sure that my next comment will also upset you and let you really put me in the whacko class – and so be it.
There is more to come than our current 3D world. And when people start to investigate, not necessarily believe, but investigate our natural world from the perspective of higher dimensions, then amazing things are possible that current day physics just cannot envisage, because traditional current day scientists are far too locked into their 3D mind-SET.
So basically, what I might write now or in the future will always be at odds with a 3 D scientist.
Consequently once again – you can write what you like on your blog, but I am not going to interact with you and will probably not publish your comments any more.
We are both coming from directions that are far too far apart.
Kashonia
I posted your comment on my blog and responded. I’m sure you will disagree with what I say, but I’m also sure you can not find anything wrong with my reasoning or facts.
http://www.2012dialogues.com/a-pseudoscientist-responds/
I’ve had enough fun with you. I’ll let you continue with your claims without any more correction from me. There are a lot more like you and I can’t spend too much time on any one site. I just hope you don’t hurt too many people, but that is not my responsibility.
Hello Christopher,
I always love making people happy, so I’m glad you were able to have “fun” with me.
When I wrote my last response, I actually wanted to include a quote, but I couldn’t find it until now.
So here it is. It will explain much better than I did previously what I meant when I said we are talking different languages.
But first a short story …
I began my PhD in Ethics with the Graduate School of Management (GSM), however all previous Ethics degrees were with the School of Philosophy. And so I didn’t realise that there were actually two totally different types of ethics – Philosophy-based Ethics and Social Science-based Ethics. My first supervisor from the GSM was most definitely a Social Science-based Ethicist. Indeed, everyone at the GSM was either a social scientist of some form with a few engineers. They had never had a philosopher enter their doors before.
Day one, my Social Science-based Ethicist supervisor gave me a peer reviewed paper that he’d written and of which he was very proud. I went home that night and read it and thought what rubbish, as far as ethics is concerned.
It was relatively interesting, but if I had been marking it as an undergraduate ethics paper, I would have failed it.
I would say things to my supervisor that he thought were rubbish, and vice versa.
Shortly (thank goodness) after, I found the paper from which the following story comes.
The paper is called “Business ETHICS/BUSINESS ethics: One Field or Two?” Trevino & Weaver (1994)
The focus of the paper is on the difference between Philosophy-based Ethics and Social Science-based Ethics. It starts out with a wonderful scenario which I used to give to all of my ethics students.
SCENE: A conference on business ethics where academics from liberal arts philosophy departments (business ETHICS) and business schools (BUSINESS ethics) are gathered to share their past year’s work:
Business School Faculty Member: “These philosophers don’t seem to know much about business. Their papers are full of mumbo jumbo that no one else can understand, least of all business managers. What does all of this tell us about management in the real world, anyway? I’d like to be a fly on the wall when they attempt to deliver these incomprehensible abstractions and stories to the local Chamber of Commerce”.
Philosopher: “Oh no, a panel discussion by business school faculty on employee theft. Someone will probably talk about the relationship between unauthorized paper clip acquisitions and variations in office lighting, holding moonlight constant, of course. Big deal! That won’t improve anyone’s character, nor give the genuinely puzzled a guide for moral living. It’s no surprise, though; they really haven’t even studied ethics”.
******
That’s what I mean about talking different languages. Unlike the scientist, a good philosopher will rarely make any definitive statements of fact. They present all of the evidence on both, or all, sides and then give an opinion but not necessarily a so-called factual conclusion.
Also, I know my audience/readers and so I am writing to them in a way that they understand and appreciate.
Nevertheless, having said that, believe it or not, but I did appreciate some of your comments – they did make me think that I need to be a little more rigorous.
The most frustrating thing for me was the lack of time to argue against many of the points you highlighted. If I had had the time, I too could have had fun with you.
So I’m glad you are now going to leave me alone and move onto someone more deserving of your attention.
Just one thing before I go.
I’d love you to look at this video at http://youtu.be/wyG0vcIqUQo
It only runs for 2 min 50 secs.
I’ve posted it on my blog too.
The video is of Prof. Mark Van Stone – originally a physicist and then got into ancient hieroglyphs and did his doctoral thesis on Maya Hieroglyphs – who like the both of us thinks that a lot of Maya stuff on the Internet is, and I quote, “crap”.
But Christopher please take special note at the way he talks about it and the people who subscribe to that “crap”. He does it in such an understanding and gentle way, even though he disagrees with most of it.
You could really learn a lot from him and his social skills.
All the best
Kashonia
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