Re: Is 2012 Real????
 

{ 2012 } ⊊ ℕ ⊊ ℤ ⊊ ℚ ⊊ ℝ so yes, 2012 is Real.

Re: Is 2012 Real????
 

You would find yourself one of many to discover it, to start with..

Asteroids or other objects so small that they can only be discovered by one-of-a-kind, mega-huge equipment (where incidentally only you as a single astronomer have access) aren't doomsday objects. They just make a little 'boom' in the athmosphere, and there have been a couple lately.

Re: Is 2012 Real????
 

Regardless of how many discover it, if it's determined that this object will destroy all higher order life on Earth, what would be your protocol? After, of course, you recheck your numbers and sh*t your pants.

Nearby objects are being discovered all the time, and didn't something pretty massive just hit Jupiter this year? How long have we had technology looking for this stuff? I am saying that we'll probably see it coming from far away, but I'm also saying it's possible that some very large objects with some very large abnormal orbits are out of our discoverable reach at the moment. Don't you think? My question remains: how would you disseminate this information?

Re: Is 2012 Real????
 

Well, I guess we can only look at how this kind of information has been disseminated before. There has been several discoveries in the past of large objects that would have a non-zero possibility of hitting Earth, and some of those objects were large enough to cause catastrophe had they hit. So far information on these objects has been released early, with later followups (after tracking the objects for longer, or after finding the same objects in older photos). Fortunately the followups have all concluded that the probability of a hit was low.

Re: Is 2012 Real????
 

Isn't it your call?

Re: Is 2012 Real????
 

After you rechecked your numbers and you decided that it was going to be inert, of course you'd tell everyone ASAP. But would you do the same in the other case? I say no way.

Re: Is 2012 Real????
 

Keep an eye on Apophis. It's next pass will determine whether the one after that gets too close for comfort or flitters harmlessly away. :D

Re: Is 2012 Real????
 

Read this and give us your lthoughts in 6 hrs time after reading
http://www.abovetopsecret.com/2012.html

Re: Is 2012 Real????
 

As far as I rememer Mayans predicted the world's end for 1984. 2012 is only the end of the calendar basic cycle.
May be there's a mayan still working for Nokia and we should make a "world's end delayed" thread of this?
Where is the world's end countdown application for maemo?

Re: Is 2012 Real????
 

Well, so be it, but I would like to request that ysss be destroyed in his sleep.