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Veloci-chickenraptor apocalypse

8 (9.6%)

CERN opens a portal to Xen

17 (20.5%)

Global war on a scale never before seen since scales were invented

7 (8.4%)

Cyborg uprising

0 (0%)

Quetzalcoatl smashes your faces in for not giving him corn

9 (10.8%)

Morgan Freeman reveals he is the Blood God

14 (16.9%)

Something about messiahs

2 (2.4%)

Self fulfilling prophecy

11 (13.3%)

Other [Penguins not allowed]

5 (6%)

Kamikaze Pingu

0 (0%)

Stephen Hawking becomes Skynet with lasers and relativity

1 (1.2%)

Moon leaves solar system, Earth develops abandonment issues

5 (6%)

Charlie Sheen awakens from the sunken city of party all r'lyeh

2 (2.4%)

It nyan'd from outer SPEHSS

2 (2.4%)

Total Members Voted: 83

Voting closed: December 20, 2012, 09:30:27 pm

[Sirus]

So...does anyone else get an irrational feeling of apprehension now that the time is at hand? Or is that just me?

[Loud Whispers]

GG guys we had a good run.

The matrix will now reset in 5... 4... 3... 2... 1...

[Sirus]

...Well, that Time's End site didn't do anything.

[Frumple]

So...does anyone else get an irrational feeling of apprehension now that the time is at hand? Or is that just me?

Just you~

... well, and all the other folks experiencing it. There's always that tiny lil'chance that, maybe, just maybe, this time the crazies will actually be right.

But personally, not so much. I'm pretty sure I've already lived through at least five or six "the world ends today" dates. Mind you, that doesn't necessarily mean it won't happen next time (even if it's worked previously, a car tire will eventually go flat), but it does kinda' reinforce that irrational or poorly supported doomsday proclamations are probably as bugaboo as the folks proclaiming them.

The sun'll start expanding in, what, a few million years? That's my doomsday, and it's pretty likely to actually happen

[Loud Whispers]

Hey guys I see dead movies, truly the end has arrived and we are trapped in eternal torment

[Sirus]

@ Frumple: I know it's silly, but as each "doomsday" arrives I always feel a little tense. Like this time, the crazies turn out to be right. Seeing as how I really don't want to die.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

The sun'll start expanding in, what, a few million years? That's my doomsday, and it's pretty likely to actually happen

A few billion.

[Sirus]

The sun'll start expanding in, what, a few million years? That's my doomsday, and it's pretty likely to actually happen

A few billion.

Eh, closer to 1 billion I think. It'll be a few billion before it explodes.

[Silfurdreki]

No, a few billion. The red giant lifetime of a solar mass star is very short compared to its main sequence lifetime, typically a few million years compared to ~10 billion years of main sequence lifetime.

What happens when the sun goes into the red giant phase is that the hydrogen that has fueled the sun's fusion reactions in its core is used up. This means that the radiation pressure that counteracts the gravity is lost and the core will contract. The contraction of the core will heat it up immensely. This enables hydrogen fusion in a shell at the edges of the core with insane reaction rates, since the temperature is now much higher. This, in turn, means that the sun's energy output is increased roughly a thousand to ten thousand-fold. This expands the sun's outer atmosphere greatly due to increased radiation pressure from the core and we've gotten a red giant.

The thing that ends this is that the core once again runs out of hydrogen and heats up even more due to compression. It will, however, at some point run into electron degeneracy pressure (yay! Quantum mechanics!) which means that it cannot contract any more but will continue to heat up due to material being piled on from outside. When heated to a high enough temperature (~100 million kelvin) the entire core will instantly start fusing helium and throw off the outer atmosphere (which is at this point reaches roughly to the orbit of the Earth). The sun will then fuse all helium available to it and end its life as a slowly cooling white dwarf since temperatures will never reach high enough to fuse heavier elements.

Wow, that turned out a lot longer than expected. One wonders at what one can accomplish while bored needing to write project reports. But hey, free fresh-up on stellar evolution!

[RedKing]

Stupid Mayans. Now I have to work this weekend.

[hops]

Archaeologists will later find the missing calendar piece, then find more, and more, and more.
The mayans simply stuffed them deep into the Mantle because fuck doomsday.

[GlyphGryph]

Just remember this sobering though:

For 160,000 of us, or thereabouts, yesterday really WAS their last day on earth - for them, the world has ended just a predicted.

[hops]

Just remember this sobering though:

For 160,000 of us, or thereabouts, yesterday really WAS their last day on earth - for them, the world has ended just a predicted.

Mass suicide or what?

[Criptfeind]

No. The death rate.

[GlyphGryph]

That's the daily death rate. Honestly, it was probably a bit higher than normal yesterday, for obvious reasons.