Magnetic Pole Excursion?

[Orilander]

1 hour ago, AScaredObserver said:

Micronova? Religious? I'm sorry how does a world-ending event relate to religion?

It's simple really.

So this man, Doug Vogt (owner of the Diehold Foundation), has a series of videos on the topic of the Micronova; a concept he helped to create/popularize, using the Hebrew bible to predict when it'll happen and what'll happen (which include some biblical events like crustal displacement, flooding, stuff like that). You know how the Rapture usually works with how people like to predict when they think it'll happen? It's like that.

Enter Ben, who at this point in 2019, had been "predicting" earthquakes (complete with feuds with towards another YouTube who does such videos, as well as the USGS) for a few years, and decided to rip it for himself. Ben has been open about how the religious part of the aspect is "a complete lie" and called Doug a "religious crank" when he gets brought up by his fans (the people who follow the two overlap significantly; and a sizable amount are also religious in general, as I already mentioned earlier). And is trying to insert a lot of biblical nonsense into a science-based format with little concession to actually make it fit. In return, Doug is not at all fond of Ben dismissing him, his studies and his religion outright. It's why he (Ben) is so defensive regarding the Micronova concept he promotes and the science behind it. Because it's not his concept at all.

That's about the long and short of it. It's basically a "faraway biblical doomsday prediction" turned into a "scientific theory" by force.

Edited December 8, 2023 by Orilander

[dave]

Five points:

(1) Magnetic excursions are ten times as common as magnetic pole reversals. So more often than not they are false starts.

(2) Before anything important happens, the magnetic field of the Earth has to die away for a time. So far, the maximum decline is about 100 nanoteslas in a field which is 60,000 nanoteslas in places.

(3) It all takes a long time in human terms - many generations.

(4) Magnetic fields store energy (somehow*) and therefore to reverse a magnetic field requires draining away the existing energy and then inserting new energy.

There is inertia** of all sorts in the system, and we know, or can estimate, these recalcitrant and retarding features well enough that we can be confident there will be no surprises in the next few decades.

(5) A reversal would have serious implications for life on the Earth. There is no doubt about that. Just as would any of many possible but rare astronomical and geological events. 

* When the ether was regarded as a real thing, it was assumed that this magnetic energy was a sort of kinetic energy, as the particles of the ether were forced into a real streaming movement, while the electric energy, likewise stored, in an electric field, was a sort of potential energy, caused by elastic strain in the ether. Nowadays, nobody has a clue why magnetic and electric fields in space act like sponges mopping up normal, everyday energies, such as those released in combustion of coal in a power station (do not bother listening to a mathematical physicist waffling about relativistic quantum electrodynamics, or whatever. It is all word salad.). But the spaces around electric and magnetic circuits do act like sponges, and our Civilization is run with devices that use this absorptive phenomenon. One humble example is the spark-plug in a petrol car, which works by building a magnetic energy field out into space which is allowed to collapse back into the gap all at once, the concentration of energy causing a spark and ignition.

** The material in the core of the Earth is assumed to be actually in convective motion driven by heat stored from the gravitational collapse which made the planet. This is mechanical inertia. All electromagnetic phenomena 'resist' changes and this is another form of inertia. Inertia is a word which just means laziness and it is amusing to conceive of the world as made up of an infinite number of bloody-minded teenagers.

[Philalethes]

2 hours ago, dave said:

So far, the maximum decline is about 100 nanoteslas in a field which is 60,000 nanoteslas in places.

I'm not entirely sure this is factually correct. If looking at the graphs from the article I provided earlier, it becomes clear that the magnetic field seems to be regressing to the mean (i.e. returning to normal) from abnormally strong levels the past few thousand years, but as part of this process it has weakened by about ~9% in the past 200 years or so, which represents more than a 100 nT decline from 60,000 nT.

2 hours ago, dave said:

A reversal would have serious implications for life on the Earth. There is no doubt about that.

This is speculative, and there is definitely doubt about that. Some evidence suggests there's not much impact to life on Earth in general, while other evidence does claim some relationship between that and higher levels of extinction; it could also be different from reversal to reversal too. I don't think you can really say with certainty that there's no doubt about it when the scientific evidence is still highly equivocal on the matter.

Those two points aside, I certainly agree with the general sentiment, there's simply no way the geomagnetic field could ever undergo a reversal as rapidly as any of the YouTube grifters claim. Judging by the geomagnetic evidence (as also summed up in the aforementioned article) it would take at least a few thousand years from where we are now to zero as part of a reversal, and that's only if we were really headed straight for one, which is also highly unlikely.

6 hours ago, Orilander said:

this man, Doug Vogt (owner of the Diehold Foundation), has a series of videos on the topic of the Micronova

I checked some of Vogt's material a little while ago as I'd like to know where exactly these people get their ideas and how they justify them, and it turns out one of the things he repeats is that he based his entire "clock cycle" idea on a supposed gap in stars at an interval of 12,068 light-years apart; however, when I checked for such a gap by programmatically searching through tens of millions of stars in the Gaia catalog, spanning multiple such distances, I found exactly zero sign of it (and anyone who wants to can check and see for themselves too).

[AScaredObserver]

19 hours ago, Orilander said:

That's about the long and short of it. It's basically a "faraway biblical doomsday prediction" turned into a "scientific theory" by force.

Any chance anyone here has heard of Dr. Richard Alan Miller?

[dave]

Declined 9% over 200 years. That is indeed the estimate of NASA; but it is nothing but an estimate, as the field was not measured on a world-wide basis until very recently.

I was thinking more of the worry that the field is declining especially quickly in recent years in tandem with the movement of the magnetic poles.

The SWARM satellites measured the changes of the world field over the first six months of 2014. In that entire period the maximum variation was +/- 100 nanoteslas in a field of 60,000 nanoteslas. In other words no physically significant changes of any sort were detected. We have to remember that "poles" are just epiphenomena where the magnetic circuit happens to pass out of magnetically susceptible material into space. A field can have lots of poles.

 

When the earth's magnetic field is not present, the surface WILL have an increase in cosmic ray bombardment, with effects of various kinds. Since this has happened many times in the past, and life has continued, it is clearly not an existential threat "to Gaia." However WE HUMANS live very much "on the edge," always "pushing the envelope;" and I think it more probable than not that our exploding population (over 8 billion right now) will be drastically culled at some point by a comparatively minor event such as this.

[Philalethes]

5 hours ago, dave said:

Declined 9% over 200 years. That is indeed the estimate of NASA; but it is nothing but an estimate, as the field was not measured on a world-wide basis until very recently.

I was thinking more of the worry that the field is declining especially quickly in recent years in tandem with the movement of the magnetic poles.

The SWARM satellites measured the changes of the world field over the first six months of 2014. In that entire period the maximum variation was +/- 100 nanoteslas in a field of 60,000 nanoteslas.

Well, it's based on models that go beyond NASA, and it's a very reasonable estimate, the main point just being that when zooming out it's a lot more than just 100 nT relative to 60,000 nT; measuring the changes over just a six-month period isn't going to give you a good overview of how the field strength is moving over the longer periods of time necessary to make meaningful estimates about it. Here you can see an estimate of the movement for the past few centuries with different models that span different amounts of time, the more recent ones being the most accurate, with all of them converging for a bit over a century:

Even if it's hard to measure exactly how the dipole strength varies within a single year, we can see e.g. that this represents a drop from ~30.5 to ~29.5 from 1950 to 2000, a drop of ~3.3%; this corresponds to just ~0.066% per year on average, which will indeed be hard to measure in a single year, but the movement is certainly there for the time being, although it's likely going to even out and fluctuate up and down over the coming centuries and millennia.

5 hours ago, dave said:

When the earth's magnetic field is not present, the surface WILL have an increase in cosmic ray bombardment, with effects of various kinds. Since this has happened many times in the past, and life has continued, it is clearly not an existential threat "to Gaia." However WE HUMANS live very much "on the edge," always "pushing the envelope;" and I think it more probable than not that our exploding population (over 8 billion right now) will be drastically culled at some point by a comparatively minor event such as this.

Like I said above, this is pure speculation and the exact type of fearmongering that doesn't belong here at all. If you want to engage in this type of speculation I suggest you search for the "Unproven theories" thread and at the very least provide some of the scientific evidence for potential effects reversals have had in the past (and even better, provide evidence against it too to give a complete picture of where this speculative debate currently is positioned, so that people better can make up their own minds).

But using terms like "drastically culled" is just distasteful no matter what, so I'd suggest not using that even there.

Edited December 9, 2023 by Philalethes
typo

[helios]

On 12/7/2023 at 2:08 AM, AScaredObserver said:

But why do I get this feeling that maybe there's some shred of truth to what he's saying?

Psychology, people have a tendency for doomsday predictions for centuries.
There are different explanations for this phenomena. One if them is, that it makes people more comfortable if they can reduce all threats in this world to a single event.

[AScaredObserver]

I am so sorry for even bringing this up now.

[Orilander]

18 hours ago, AScaredObserver said:

Any chance anyone here has heard of Dr. Richard Alan Miller?

Took a look at who you're talking about; he doesn't seem any different than anyone else mentioned in this thread in the slightest (one of videos with him being interviewed literally has "ENDTIMES?" in its title, which is a red flag). Unless there's something else I'm missing (and you're not filling in), I don't see why he's any different. Besides, I brought up Doug explcitly because Ben took a lot of stuff from Doug for himself. When you compare the two directly, you'll notice a lot of similarities between the two (including the term "Earth Doomsday Cycle", which alone should be enough to convince you that Ben's not legit, given that's a lot of his videos in a nutshell).

I can relay that even the fringe conspirators out there have even argued with Ben over the 12,000-year cycle. In one e-mail exchange with an Electric Universe follower; the latter pointed out to Ben that, given all the doomsday he says will happen during the "micronova", nothing would survive after it, nor before if it's happened in the past. Wanna know how Ben responded? He responded by going "Nuh-uh, I never said that" (even though that's totally what he's implying, even if he claims to the contrary), and eventually ended the exchange with a swear-filled tirade calling the opposing side a "fucking idiot" in the process.

That alone should very well be enough to convince you Ben's just talking out his ass. If you really want to follow anyone as far as solar studies go, Tamatha Skov's a good one. Plus, unlike Ben, she's an actual scientist, and not a manbaby lawyer who steals from religious people and passes their work off as science.

9 hours ago, Philalethes said:

Like I said above, this is pure speculation and the exact type of fearmongering that doesn't belong here at all. If you want to engage in this type of speculation I suggest you search for the "Unproven theories" thread and at the very least provide some of the scientific evidence for potential effects reversals have had in the past (and even better, provide evidence against it too to give a complete picture of where this speculative debate currently is positioned, so that people better can make up their own minds).

But using terms like "drastically culled" is just distasteful no matter what, so I'd suggest not using that even there.

I get where @dave is coming from with his discussion; as at least he agrees it'll take a long time and not the 2-3 decades these fearmongers claim. But at the same time, he does give the vibes that he's at least partially influenced by them in some way.

dave, please heed the advice given to you and stop being such a doom-feaer like you are. I know it's a concern, but your remarks seriously don't come off as any better than Davidson, BPEarthWatch or anyone like that.

[hamateur 1953]

3 hours ago, AScaredObserver said:

I am so sorry for even bringing this up now.

I wouldn’t sweat it, it gives the site something to do while we wait for the next event.  As long as we’re reasonably respectful of each other. 

[rose]

Sorry for suddenly entering the conversation.

After reading the whole topic, from what I understand (barely) it seems that one of those doomsday theories is: some people are afraid(after reading articles about earth's magnetic field that has been posted in the last few years) that the Earth's magnetic field is weakening fast and it won't take much time (30-60 years? these numbers are probably super wrong tho) to become super vulnerable. or that a flip is about to happen.

anyway, but it's just that, these people talk with such a certainty that we're all doomed that it making me wonder where they are getting their data from to make these theories up. I've searched about how true those theories are but didn't have much luck.

But then again, right now it seems it needs more data before saying with certain that or what will happen.

 

I apologize for any uneducated comment I've most likely made.

edit: typos

Edited December 14, 2023 by rose

[AScaredObserver]

I just want to knw the real truth about the Sun, our magnetic field, and whether or not we are due for a doomsday... I wish I wasn't so naive.

Edited December 15, 2023 by AScaredObserver
Just made a wrong error.

[Chuck Reichel]

Maybe not everything Ben says can be taken seriously even though he does come up with some good points of discussion, but there's one thing that needs to be considered when it comes to science. Science is not a religion. It is the trial and error through success and failure of testing different probabilities to attempt finding the potential answer or best answer to that subject. A theory or idea no matter how absurd must be at least given the chance to be disproven as history has shown sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction. Remember how people a few hundred years ago would have called you a witch or even done bad things to you for it. The allowing of only one way of learning and the refusal of questioning the process or answer does fall into the category of religion and indoctrination and that is a major problem in this world today. Again, everything Ben states may not be possible or a bit out there, but not allowing his ideas to be tried and either proven or disproven is nothing but bad science. The same goes for him too. 

[Orilander]

15 hours ago, AScaredObserver said:

I just want to knw the real truth about the Sun, our magnetic field, and whether or not we are due for a doomsday... I wish I wasn't so naive.

Our sun's not going going to novae any time soon. Besides, what science has discribed as a Micronova involves two suns - one active and one white dwarf near it. Our sun doesn't have anything close to a a white dwarf to work off of. Solar flares currently have little to no real threat for the time being. Sure the risk's always there, but it's not an immediate problem, as I'm sure most of us will agree here.

3 hours ago, Chuck Reichel said:

Maybe not everything Ben says can be taken seriously even though he does come up with some good points of discussion, but there's one thing that needs to be considered when it comes to science. Science is not a religion. It is the trial and error through success and failure of testing different probabilities to attempt finding the potential answer or best answer to that subject. A theory or idea no matter how absurd must be at least given the chance to be disproven as history has shown sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction. Remember how people a few hundred years ago would have called you a witch or even done bad things to you for it. The allowing of only one way of learning and the refusal of questioning the process or answer does fall into the category of religion and indoctrination and that is a major problem in this world today. Again, everything Ben states may not be possible or a bit out there, but not allowing his ideas to be tried and either proven or disproven is nothing but bad science. The same goes for him too. 

No one's saying that there's not some merit to the nonsense. I myself said that he's made some points that are ultimately muddled by his own beliefs. The problem is how insufferable Davidson actually is when it as both a scientist and a human being in general. Hell, I have seen how he acts, all of my testimonies are from what I've seen over months of looking at his channel and videos. He's extremely closed minded and confident his, and only his theory is the correct one that he outright refuses to think otherwise; even when his own followers try to question him. And insults anyone with a different way of thinking, being scientifically, or even politically (he's a supporter of the 2021 Capital Hill Riots for instance). And B.D. really likes parading his opinions like they're fact.

We have our own example with Mr. Geryl. Who has several threads where he posts information about things like when the solar max actually is; and we're encouraging him to actually post his findings. But for some reason or another - be it his lack of ability to post here instead of research gate or otherwise, he keeps dodging our questions and not going into detail. It's quite concerning, which was not helped by him actually posting a link to an S0 video at one point that was a definite fear-mongering video. At the very least, Pat's nowhere near as much as an egotist as Ben is, and is at least open to discussing things unlike the man who calls his own watchers idiots for bringing up other scientists (pseudo or real), or claims NASA is a tax fraud while also claiming his own research is used by them.

It's not that we're against alternate views, there's a thread for it on this site. It's just that when you're treating your opinions like fact, and not as what it's supposed to be. Or when you're using it to promote an impending doosmday for profit. That's when things start to go sour. Even Davidson's own followers can attest to the guy being a complete and utter asshole, and I've seen him like comments from the more... extreme members of his audience (read: The ones promoting genocidal thoughts, something that is supposed to be a big no-no on YouTube, who does nothing to stop it). So I think it's fair to judge him for who he is as both a scientist and a human being.