How will the world end?
- Thread starter Novania
- Start date
Recommended Videos
The world has 'ended' several times already, destroying all living things that are there sucking the life out of the planet. Whether this is freezing, burning or drowning us all, it'll happen.
Think of it as nature's own master reboot.
I actually love how big headed we are, thinking that we'd be able to destroy a giant living planet that's been around for millions and millions of years.
Think of it as nature's own master reboot.
I actually love how big headed we are, thinking that we'd be able to destroy a giant living planet that's been around for millions and millions of years.
Hahahaha, oh you just made my day.kat-24 said:
Im guessing that we will be destroyed by a natural/cosmic disaster before we are an artificial one.
Black hole would be cool though. Spaghettification.
I hate to be the one to tell you, but raptors arent as cool as Jurassic Park made out. Their actually more like chickens. Jurassic Park named them wrong.The Rockerfly said:
And I will be damned if any lizard-chicken marches into my house trying to be all apocalyptic.
Sorry, telling people that is more heart breaking than telling them that
Santa isnt real.
I agree. The earth as a planet has shrugged off meteor hits for millions if not billions of years. However, earth as a life-sustaining environment suitable to humans is another matter. We're not the first dominant race threatened with extinction.DannyDamage said:
Meteors don't come with fallout that lasts for bazillions of years. Enough nukes go off at once and it will be miraculous if life ever manages to crawl back up from the ocean floor before the sun eats us. Assuming it's still there.Paksenarrion said:
Life may not have originated on the planet. It may have required a seed. If destroy all life, will we get a new seed with optimal enough conditions for new life?
I do suppose we could look like Mars. Or Charon. At that point I'm gonna say everything that made Earth what it is, is gone.
DeathNova said:
LOOK AROUND THE FORUMS! THERE ARE TONNES OF THESE AND YOU ARE JUST ADDING TO THE PILE!
Thought I'd chime in with some stellar evolution stuff;
Our star won't explode. About five billion years from now it will have entered its giant phase, becoming a red giant. It will spend about a billion years or so like that, and then shed its outer layers and form a planetary nebula. The Sun will end as a white dwarf, cooling ever so slowly. By cosmic standards it's a very peaceful existence and end.
That doesn't meant life on Earth has five billion years left, though.
In approximately half a billion years the Sun's output will have increased to the level where the Earth's oceans will have evaporated. Life as we know it is difficult to imagine at that point. That's well before the Sun moves into it's next phase, or has even expanded significantly from it's present size. So life on Earth will end long before the Sun swells into a giant. Of course, the oceans won't evaporate overnight, so the period leading up to that means increasing salinity, drier and drier conditions as well as profound changes to atmospheric chemistry. That will likely be a mass extinction bonanza.
So in a geological sense, life on Earth is really on its last leg.
If we are talking about the end of humanity, I'd put my money on (self-inflicted) infertility. That really kills off species in a hurry. Catastrophes like impacts or nuclear war aren't good species-wide killers for diversified creatures like humans, unless they are orders of magnitude larger than humanity's entire nuclear arsenal (ie large asteroid, comet). Other ELEs like those that have happened in Earth's history would likely kill us off in a hurry, but we really don't know much about how those happened (Clathrate Gun hypothesis, oceanic overturns, anoxic events etc, check wikipedia [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction_event] for more on that).
If we are talking about the end of western civilization, I'm inclined to say civil wars and collapsing modes of production (fall of Rome style).
Our star won't explode. About five billion years from now it will have entered its giant phase, becoming a red giant. It will spend about a billion years or so like that, and then shed its outer layers and form a planetary nebula. The Sun will end as a white dwarf, cooling ever so slowly. By cosmic standards it's a very peaceful existence and end.
That doesn't meant life on Earth has five billion years left, though.
In approximately half a billion years the Sun's output will have increased to the level where the Earth's oceans will have evaporated. Life as we know it is difficult to imagine at that point. That's well before the Sun moves into it's next phase, or has even expanded significantly from it's present size. So life on Earth will end long before the Sun swells into a giant. Of course, the oceans won't evaporate overnight, so the period leading up to that means increasing salinity, drier and drier conditions as well as profound changes to atmospheric chemistry. That will likely be a mass extinction bonanza.
So in a geological sense, life on Earth is really on its last leg.
If we are talking about the end of humanity, I'd put my money on (self-inflicted) infertility. That really kills off species in a hurry. Catastrophes like impacts or nuclear war aren't good species-wide killers for diversified creatures like humans, unless they are orders of magnitude larger than humanity's entire nuclear arsenal (ie large asteroid, comet). Other ELEs like those that have happened in Earth's history would likely kill us off in a hurry, but we really don't know much about how those happened (Clathrate Gun hypothesis, oceanic overturns, anoxic events etc, check wikipedia [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction_event] for more on that).
If we are talking about the end of western civilization, I'm inclined to say civil wars and collapsing modes of production (fall of Rome style).
A cure for cancer that has gone horribly wrong. Just like in I Am Legend. If that happen however, I hope that I won't live long enough to see it.
There's an urban legend about a woman killed by a shaft of frozen urine fallen from a plane's leaking toilet. Then there's the one about pennies dropped from the top of the Empire State Building, passing through pedestrians' skulls like bullets. Then there's the one about telephone pole-sized tungsten rods dropping from an orbital weapons platform at 36,000 feet per second to impact the earth below with the force of a meteor strike.
Guess which one you won't find on Snopes under "stupid bullshit?"
Yes, enormous Swords of Damocles hanging in space are one more reason to lie awake at night, thinking about how much safer we feel thanks to science.
The so-called Rods From God system would have two satellites placed in orbit, one to control communication and targeting, the other containing the rods. When released, nothing but gravity and a little remote guidance is needed to bring them down on target like the wrath of Zeus.
The brute force of hundred-kilogram rods traveling over 7,000 MPH makes them ideal for penetrating underground bunkers, your mother, and hardened nuclear missile silos. You know, things you might find in a rogue state, in violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Such treaties don't apply to hypervelocity rods, though they strike with the force of a tactical nuke, they produce no radioactive (and far less political) fallout. The US Space Command (where we always claimed our Dad worked even before we knew it existed) says they plan to have this capability by 2025.
that is how we die
Guess which one you won't find on Snopes under "stupid bullshit?"
Yes, enormous Swords of Damocles hanging in space are one more reason to lie awake at night, thinking about how much safer we feel thanks to science.
The so-called Rods From God system would have two satellites placed in orbit, one to control communication and targeting, the other containing the rods. When released, nothing but gravity and a little remote guidance is needed to bring them down on target like the wrath of Zeus.
The brute force of hundred-kilogram rods traveling over 7,000 MPH makes them ideal for penetrating underground bunkers, your mother, and hardened nuclear missile silos. You know, things you might find in a rogue state, in violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Such treaties don't apply to hypervelocity rods, though they strike with the force of a tactical nuke, they produce no radioactive (and far less political) fallout. The US Space Command (where we always claimed our Dad worked even before we knew it existed) says they plan to have this capability by 2025.
that is how we die
Oh I know, I choose to believe in the cool ones though. I just imagine the world being taken over by chicken-like dinosaurs. It makes me smile inside ^_^kir4 said:
Oh man...Christemo said:
Ok listen a bit. Even if the water levels will rise, it won't engulf the entire world. Mainly it would engulf the "shores" of countries who are near oceans. Aka the Netherlands might be fucked if that happens.
The Big bang Project aka The Large Hadron Collider will, maybe, create micro black holes. But those holes will collapse has soon has they are formed, "eating" only 1 or 2 atoms in the process.
A nuclear War MIGHT be possible, but I don't believe in our lifetime that could happen.
Has for how I think the world will end? No Idea. I mean Earth and almost every single planet in the Solar system were destined for destruction has soon has the Sun was formed...so were pretty much all doomed. But that's a long time in the future. Hopefully we'll discover how to "space-travel" and we'll relocate to another Solar System.
Im guessing eventually we will drift too close to the sun. drying up the oceans so we all die of dehydration, that's the survivors who don't burn to a crisp
Maybe it wouldn't be the end of the world, maybe the end of life though
Maybe it wouldn't be the end of the world, maybe the end of life though