MOM haha stupid if you read this!

Also in 2012 there ought to be the peak of solar cycle 24 (if it ever starts…) If this is, as presently looks to be the case, a very weak cycle, then the fall from the 2012 "peak" ought to happen along with a plunge of global temperatures down into something like a Dalton Minimum (i.e. Very cold winters and summers with poor crops and cool conditions).

Unfortunately for the 'end of life as we know it' 2012 doom and gloomers, there is about a 2 year lag between solar drop and temperature drop due to thermal lag in the oceans et.al. So even if this were a calamity it would not hit hard until 2014. So much for Mayan doom in 2012.

Pavel: American scientists, as with most others, are required to study a lot of non-science to graduate. Social sciences including history. Many of them read history just for fun too. (I'm fond of my Marcus Aurelius and have a wonderful old copy of Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations. The style of the old writers is something to revel in.) That does not mean they are enamored of your pet theories. Do not assert ignorance when all that is evidenced is disagreement.

In particular, the guys who invented crop circles have admitted it. They even made a film showing how to do it in the dead of night and had crop circle "experts" come out who then were completely convinced these were of e.t. origin. Anyone who still thinks crop circles are anything other than a good hoax is deluded and does not know their history. The list goes on.

Now there may well be some decent information hidden in old myths and legends, but they are a very unreliable source. Do you believe in leprechauns? How do you separate their myth from the ones you do believe in? It isn't via science.

I personally believe that the old Sumerian writings have a (possibly distorted) record of the creation of man via a genetic manipulation by a space visitor. I can't say if there is truth in that story or if it is just really exceptional 'science fiction' that would be astounding for it's age. Nor can anyone else. There is not sufficient data to decide. You can have an opinion, but not a decided answer.

The point? You need to learn to enjoy the old stories as stories and maybe even accept that they might have a grain of truth in them somewhere but NOT swallow them whole as gospel.

In science each information source is weighted as to it's veracity and probability. Please realize that de-weighting very old (near mythological) sources is a normal and expected result of their age and lack of supportive evidence. No mater where the scientist was born, raised, or educated.

An example? For years the notion of an 'evil star' (literally a disaster) was held to be mythical, and in school the fear of comets was held up to ridicule. But it still was a good 'story' that eventually led to folks realizing that comets could hit the earth, and did hit the earth. The science caught up with the legend. BUT it would still have been wrong to have just asserted the legend was true until there was outside evidence to confirm it.

Enjoy the legends. Use them as source material for finding ideas to research or test. Don't assert they prove anything until you have verifiable confirmatory evidence. So planet X? Interesting theory and the stuff of legends. NOT a reality until someone spots it in a telescope. Maybe it really is there, headed for earth; but you can't KNOW that until there is physical evidence to show it exists. Legends are the hypothesis, not the experiment nor the result and certainly not the conclusion.

I expect we will be finding a whole zoo of things toward the Oort cloud now that we are looking. Don't leap to conclusions as to what they are or you will be blind as to their real nature.

as for 2012 i believe wut that says. its just gonna be another Y2K incident. i heard about the ALMA on some magazine at skool it looked pretty awesome.

plus wut i dont get is the fact that y does ppl still believe in that stupid doomsday myth when scientists already proved that nothing will happen and y would they plan to cure cancer by 2014 and start another moon mission on 2020? ever thought of that?

and pavel ur just an idiot thats trying to get attention. hell i bet u spread the Y2K incident to ur friends and were one of the dumasses hiding in bomb shelters or hiding in trailers with a crap load of water. hell i was only about 10 at the time and i was partying it up

Heres simple math

Theorizing and guessing doomsday possibilleties + sharing it with others = stupid and useless outcomes

Theorizing and researching possible solutions to save the world + shearing with others = interesting and usefull outcomes

I see now from your page http://hamops1.szm.sk/ that you're a believer in (or at least interested in) "YGGDRASIL-THE WORLD-COSMIC TREE" and crop circles. These both are myths and are examples of the sort of nonsense that will earn you derision from the hard-headed reality-based scientists here.

I expect you've heard all this before and are looking for more coincidences where the Yggdrasil myth appears to be true. This effort (if indeed this is what you're doing) is doomed to failure. It might be a fun exercise but it is not science.

This is a science blog and the posters here will not tolerate mythology for long.

The sword of scientific truth is sharp and true. It is hard to wield, though, and non-scientists always pick it up by the blade and cut themselves. It's hard work to pursue science but the effort is very rewarding. It takes a great deal of time and work and is not for everybody, but you are a smart guy and can handle it.

Go to your local university and take some classes in astronomy and learn about the scientific method and how it is applied to the study of the natural world (and universe) around us. It is fascinating and will reward all who pursue it richly.
Richard B. Drumm

The irony is that a body scattered by Uranus into such an elongated orbit is really quite novelty enough.

Glad to have you here, really. However, the amateur & professional scientists who post here have little patience for mythology.

2012 (as a year of doom) is a prime example of of a myth. It's just gonna be another year (just like 2000). Nothing much will happen. Well, there will be a super cool radio telescope array called ALMA that will start science operations then, but nothing Earth-shattering will happen.

Take your time, read all the astronomy (not astrology) books you can get your hands on. Here's the start of a reading list:
The Demon Haunted World – by Carl Sagan
Bad Astronomy – by Phil Plait
Cosmos – by Carl Sagan
Death By Black Hole – by Neil DeGrasse Tyson

Any of you others out there have any suggestions for reading material for Pavel and others?
Rich

Some "bigger planetoids" aren't close to the perihelia? Wow, ain't that a treat! Of course, the fact that they are larger than the others and therefore would be the first to be discovered farther away is irrelevant. The fact that, by the very, very basic Kepler's laws of orbital movements, bodies in elongated orbits spend a lot more time in the vicinity of the aphelia than during the comparatively fast passage in the perihelia doesn't matter. The fact that, even so, about half the TNOs detected so far are close to the aphelia rings no bells in that head of yours. No, it's all about the planet x idiocy. Actual facts are to be shuned; stupid theories based on crackpot numerology stemming from old fairy tales, now that's what really matters, that's were truth lies.

Pavel, if you won't do yourself the favor of actually using your brain, please refrain from treating the rest of us as retarded. We don't appreciate it. If anything at all even remotely similar to the planet x happens in 2012, then you're welcome to get back and call us all idiots, but until then, please close your trash bin. It stinks.