The High Priest of the sect persuaded his victims to hand over their worldly goods in exchange for salvation (can you name any religion or sect that doesn't?). Oh, how we laughed last December! Now it turns out that there's a 300-metre diameter asteroid called Apophis that came quite close to us last night. You can hear an interesting talk about it on BBC Radio 4's Material World here.
Apparently the asteroid comes back in 2029, 2036 and at a later date that doesn't concern me because I'll be well dead (providing I survive the other two dates). I'll be rather miffed if we get hit in '29 or '36 considering the amount I've paid into my pension, but at least in that case my kids won't have to pay for my cremation - or indeed theirs!.
PS. According to the pattern in my Fair Isle sweater, the world will run out of custard in 2134. HORROR!!!!
Predictions of a cataclysmic ending of the world have been with us since ancient times. One of the most famous (that adherents to the religion established in his name seem somewhat coy about now) was the declaration by Jesus that people then living would see the coming of the Kingdom of God. He was no more right about that than was Harold Camping a couple of millennia later.
ReplyDeleteYour post implicitly makes an important point: these prophets of doom consistently dismiss scientists as ignorant and incompetent (despite using the mobile phones and enjoying the benefits of medical research produced by them) but when the chips are down and a real emergency looms, it is to science and technology that we look for salvation, not to gurus, chants and joss sticks.
In another life, my hobby was astronomy. I joined a group that computed the orbits of returning comets and published ephemerides so that observers could pick them up on their return. We did it with books of mathematical tables and planetary data but it is done faster today with computers. Why I am saying this is because, with a few good observations of its position, we can now accurately derive a body's orbit in space. Astronomers will therefore know - to within yards, probably - how close Apophis will come to our planet and they will know this years before the event.
Whether remedial action will be deemed necessary, and whether it is even possible, is something that will emerge once the orbit has been determined. It will be interesting to see whether this scenario will give rise to another "Mayan" cult predicting the end of the world. I suspect not because reality doesn't sit well with the inventors of superstitious theories: they are at their strongest when denying science and accusing scientists of being in a global conspiracy to defraud the human race.
If Aphophis proves to be a genuine threat to our world, then it will present a good opportunity for the nations of the earth to put aside their petty squabbles and to engage jointly in a project to ward off the danger. Given the débâcle over global warming, I don't have much optimism that this will succeed.