Could 2014 mean the end of humanity ?

statistical probability?? Well im not too good with math, but…ok here im just building as i go so bear with me…

say that there is a 1 in 100,000 chance that a disaster of apocalyptic proportions will occur.

okay, then say that this chance is taken every second, and that the critical number is 13

the first second, the number hits at 14. Now, the next second, the number hits at 66,666. On the third second, what is it that prevents it from being 14 or 66,666???

Thus, it does not matter how long of time it is, inevitability theorem does not shorten the odds, the odds are still 1 in 100,000. In other words, every time you roll the 100,000 sided die (lol manifest one of those in an LD), it would still be a 1 in 100,000 chance.

I think though theres some complicated theorem that has multiple rolls as actually lessening the odds. I cannot come up with it at the moment, it just wouldnt make sense! But hey that may just be a statement of my ignorance.

What im wondering is how they calculate these chances, and how they calculate what it ‘lands on’ and how they figure out if something prevents a certain roll result from repeating (in which case if it did not repeat, wed be dead now)

As far as nukes go, i once read some totally scary shit about it, something like that the nukes are programmed to launch by themselves and that it is not possible (or very hard w/out password etc) to stop them once the sequence has started going. The thing is, there are so many nukes that long after humanity has been wiped off the face of the earth, nukes will still be flying back and forth and continuing to marr the face of the planet. Its so bad that its like an mutually agreed upon mentality to ensure no survivors (of a higher evolved than cell nature)

LOL, the perfect acronym would be MAD for Mutually Assured Destruction

well now for this to work… planes would have to kill millions of people, they haven’t yet…

but like i could see where 1000 years of plane crash deaths could be the same as 1 asteroid impact.

ahh okay i get it… say an asteroid kills a million people, but it only does it once, in a long long time

and that averages out to kill like 15 people per year, if you know, you were to spread it out over the time gap.

where as 15 people die per year in plane crashes, on average, maybe?

Something like that?

Theoretically asteroids then kill 15 people per year, but they obviously don’t…since they aren’t yearly/century-ly(?) events.

I guess something like that was meant… yeah…

now I really don’t think this is so…

for example… how many times can you roll a dice and NOT get 6?

Go ahead and try it? IF every second there were in a 1 in 100,000 chance of complete disaster, it would have happened by now… hmm… let me make a program…

Okay so I’m running the program, getting random numbers between 1 and 60, 34 is the number I want… I’m doing a trial of 60 15 times… it should be expected that I get no more than 4 each time, with an average of 1.

each number represents doing a 1 in 60 odds event 60 times
0
1
2
0
1
1
0
0
1
1
1
2
1
0
0

We see that it’s very unlikely to get all zeros…

the average is .733 actually… I don’t feel like putting it in my graphing calculator to get the other information…

here’s my code if anyone cares:

Private Sub Form_Load()
Dim intCnt As Integer
Dim intS As Integer
Dim intDice As Integer
Dim intP As Integer
For intP = 1 To 15
For intCnt = 1 To 60
Randomize (Timer)
intDice = Int((60 - 1 + 1) * Rnd + 1)
intCnt = intCnt + 1
If intDice = 34 Then
intS = intS + 1
End If
Next intCnt
MsgBox intS
intS = 0
Next intP
End Sub

The chances of having disaster are 0.00001 (you suggested). The chances of not having disaster are 0.99999. But what happens if we take this every second?

In two seconds, the chances of no disaster are 0.99999^2 (that is, squared)

How many seconds in a week? 606024*7 = 604,800

Chances of not having disaster in a week: 0.99999^604,800 = 0.0023625

A chance of 1 in 100,000 is small, but when you have that chance every second, it is very deceptive!

A more likely figure might by 1 in 100,000 every month.

How many months in a century? 12*100 = 1,200

Chances of not having disaster in a century: 0.99999^1,200 = 0.988

Sounds better

A horse gallops majestically into the thread.

Neeeeeeeeeigh! Whinnnnnnny!

The horse stops galloping for a moment, and takes a bite of some nearby grass.

WHAM!! A meteor strikes the horse!

Dozens of people from all around run to the scene of the accident.

“Look, the horse is dead!” one of them cries.

Another hands out baseball bats to each of the people in the crowd.

“Let’s beat the hell out of it!” Everyone cheers.

Actually , there is a 1 in 909,000 chance of that happening .
But that doesn’t really matter anymore …
After reading some of your posts I realized that worrying about it is just gonna make it come quicker . Humans can control their own destinies , and that is what makes us different from all of the other races . I finally realized that we must live our lives now , without worrying about tomorrow … We must all be grateful for the simple fact that we live …
I sincerely thank all of you !

I see some redundancy. I think that calculation has some redundancy in it. I’m pretty sure there’s redundancy in there.

I have heard that it is many comets out there who can crash with the earth.
So I don’t doubt that the earth will be destroyed by a comet.

I heard alot of stories like this except I hear the comet was oging to crash into earth in 2019

apparently some time in the near future a super volcano under yellow stone park is going to errupt… I wouldnt want to be there when that happens

• Silva

No, there is nothing threatening Earth. There was one that originally was thought to hit earth in about 2020, but they recalculated it and discovered they were wrong and that it wouldn’t come close. There is a science foundation currently set aside for just the purpose of finding stuff that could hit Earth, and nothing is going to any time soon. Got this from Yahoo! News.

Are you suggesting that if we worry about a comet that somehow we are going to magically attract a comet to Earth?

They can only track the ones they find. What about a 100m diameter asteroid? If one was coming our way, the first signs would be a burning light in the sky, a big “BOOOM” followed by earthquakes. And a fresh crater somewhere.

It’s probably not a painful way to die thought. The kinetic energy would vaporise everything on “ground zero”.

Well the popular theory is that a comet was responsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs. If that theory is true and a comet hit the earth once then, it stands to reason that it could happen again.

If you think about how long that humans have lived on earth, how many astoroids(big enough to wory about) have hit earth?

They say the big ones come in cycles of about 70 (or something) million years. The whole solar system moves through a “rough area” in space that often. It’s time for that again “soon”. Last time was when the dinosaurs died, 65 million years ago. We will not live to see it.

But if you look up to the sky for a few hours you will probably see the trails of objects a few mm in diameter that burn up when they enter our atmosphere. These are mostly fragments from comets.

Meteorites that are big enough to survive the entry into atmosphere are less common, but the scientists still pick them up in places like antarctica where they are easy to spot in the snow. The most famous one was a rock called “ALH 84001”, from Mars that they first thought had fossils in it. A handful of cases of meteorites are reported each year. They are not dangerous thought, unless they hit you in the head

Someone in Canada I believe, had his/her car hit by a bigger meteorite, but survived. (I am not sure if it is an urban legend or not).

There is one crater in a desert somewhere that’s 30 000 or something years old. The rock was only a few meters in diameter,
but the crater is big. I remember seeing the picture in a book. Craters erode because of water and rain. Therefore it is hard for scientists to tell exactly how common they are.

From the NASA website:

Is the Earth Targeted for an Impact?

Not that we know of! None of the asteroids or comets discovered so far is on a collision course with Earth. However, we can’t speak for those that are not yet discovered. In principle, one of those could hit any time, but statistically the chances are very small.

If the dinosaur theory is correct, one will be more than enough. Then if you figure all the other natural disasters that could and have hit the earth it is only a mater of time. However I think that we will wipe our selves out long before any natural disaster does it.

I’m not sure how many, but the Tunguska asteroid/comet is the most recent one. In 1908 a stone asteroid/comet caused an enormous blast above this isolated region in Siberia: instantly, 2,000km² of forests were destroyed. The seismic explosion was recorded all over Eurasia, and beautiful nightclouds were seen everywhere on the globe. If this meteorite had struck about 3 hours later, then it would have exploded above Moscow, killing millions.
And this was all caused by a small comet or asteroid of only 50 meters in diameter. So you can guess what would happen if an asteroid of a few kilometers in diameter would hit us…
But on the long term, a good asteroid blast isn’t such a bad thing. Just look at the past: from the five mass extinctions, at least 2 of them are contributed to asteroid blasts. If these catastrophic events didn’t occur, we probably wouldn’t exist nowadays. The Permian extinction for instance, which happened about 245 million years ago, was caused by a gigantic impact by a 15-20km comet or asteroid. About 90% (!) of all life on Earth died as a result, and it was the biggest mass extinction which ever happened, much bigger than the one which killed the dinosaurs. However, as a result of this massive dying, new animal and plant species could arise during the following era. Evolution did its job and life found a new way to express itself, through the arising of reptiles, mammals and birds. During the Cretaceous extinction, 66 million years ago, the dinosaurs were wiped out, and mammals and birds were given the chance to evolve into the majestic animals which they are today. If the dinosaurs weren’t wiped out, then humans didn’t have any chance to evolve.
Scientists have suggested a theory which explains the cycles of mass extinction: during these asteroid impacts, the sun moved through a dense cloud of gas and dust in the Milky Way. This triggered the release of an increased number of comets from the outer edges of the solar system to the inner planets. Hence, the increased possibility of big impacts on Earth and the resulting mass extinctions. Nowadays, we’re again moving towards such a cloud, but ofcourse this process takes ages, so don’t start to worry yet

Guys don’t forget that Armageddon in the Bible is a place! Where two main armies will collide.

Why do you mention this? Do you think it has anything to do with the point of impact of the next big asteroid which will wipe us all out?