I don't think were in Kansas anymore...north pole perhaps?

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Delirious

Delirious

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Metroider17
The increased electricity used by modern appliances is causing a shift in the Earth's magnetic field. By the year 2327, the North Pole will be located in mid-Kansas, while the South Pole will be just off the coast of East Africa.

is anyone upto this to see if it's true or not?
 
Every so often the poles reverse. I can't remember high school science enough to remember what kind of time span it is in but yes the poles do move.
 
Yeah, but just to clarify for #17, no use of electric appliances will have an effect on the earth's magnetic field. Although as xcsti has said, the poles do flip once and a while. One can only image the havoc this has caused historically for birds that navigate based on the earth's magnetic field.
 
Interesting, here I'm graduating with honors in 5 days and I can't recall ever learning about the poles reversing in any science class. Xcsti, if at all possible, could you maybe link me to a source where maybe this pole reversing is talked about? I'd look myself but I'm a lazy ass. :)
 
#17
The increased electricity used by modern appliances is causing a shift in the Earth's magnetic field.
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Oh dear. You might want to brush up on your E&M physics a bit. This makes about as much sense as that one claim that if everybody jumped at the same time the Earth would move off its orbit a bit. All the modern appliances in the world won't make a lick of a difference (Even if you get the current in all of them running the same direction – good luck doing that. And even if you somehow did that, the fact that it's on the surface of a sphere just makes it a crazy jumble of magnetic field lines – use finger-curling if you know it. It's just a mishy-mashy mess.).

The pole-switching is really simple, actually (even for somebody like me who sucks at E&M – I think I failed my AP test). The Earth's core moves and swishes and spins, thus creating an electric "current" of sorts, thus creating magnetic field. However, the Earth's core isn't a thin cylindrical rod – in that case, the magnetic field would probably always stay in the same direction. Since it's spherical, it can rotate fairly easily, and in fact does so at an average of about once every 300,000 years (that's a very rough average though – sometimes the spans are much shorter, sometimes much longer [the last one in recent times occurred 780,000 years ago]). It's all about the spinning core.

By the way, for what it's worth, this pole-flipping can be used to help prove evolution, but I'll leave that discussion for the Opinions board.
 
There was actually an article in Scientific American last month about this very same thing. It was a very intresting read about how the poles just flip with no pattern what so ever. They say we are due for a pole flip soon.
 
Sage
Oh dear. You might want to brush up on your E&M physics a bit. This makes about as much sense as that one claim that if everybody jumped at the same time the Earth would move off its orbit a bit. All the modern appliances in the world won't make a lick of a difference (Even if you get the current in all of them running the same direction – good luck doing that. And even if you somehow did that, the fact that it's on the surface of a sphere just makes it a crazy jumble of magnetic field lines – use finger-curling if you know it. It's just a mishy-mashy mess.).

The pole-switching is really simple, actually (even for somebody like me who sucks at E&M – I think I failed my AP test). The Earth's core moves and swishes and spins, thus creating an electric "current" of sorts, thus creating magnetic field. However, the Earth's core isn't a thing cylindrical rod – in that case, the magnetic field would probably always stay in the same direction. Since it's spherical, it can rotate fairly easily, and in fact does so at an average of about once every 300,000 years (that's a very rough average though – sometimes the spans are much shorter, sometimes much longer [the last one in recent times occurred 780,000 years ago]). It's all about the spinning core.

By the way, for what it's worth, this pole-flipping can be used to help prove evolution, but I'll leave that discussion for the Opinions board.
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As an additional to this, the Earth's outer core is a huge ball of molten iron the size of MARS.

Imagine how many toasters it'd take to overcome that biyatch.
 
and while the poles are shifting, earth will lose its magnetoshpere? and we will all get toasted like in a giant microwave owen? not protected from the sun?
 
Don't rely on movies for your scientific knowledge.
 
DemonSeed
and while the poles are shifting, earth will lose its magnetoshpere? and we will all get toasted like in a giant microwave owen? not protected from the sun?
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My explode just brained.
 
Yes, we KNOW what a Magnetosphere IS. But you just quoted, practically verbatim, the plot of the film "The Core".

Coincidence?
 
Famine
Yes, we KNOW what a Magnetosphere IS. But you just quoted, practically verbatim, the plot of the film "The Core".

Coincidence?
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i know about that, and i didnt study anything related to this science, so i suppose people who make movies, research the subjects and come upon things like this.
it is a coincidence because i have never heard about this movie.

[edit]
and if you know what magnetosphere is, then you know what would happen if it ceased to be for some time. links i provided explain the negative effects of such occurence, not only what magnetosphere is. your comment about me basing my knowledge on the movies suggests that you didn't have the knowledge on this subject [other than the one from the movie that you've seen] , the links then may be useful
[/edit]


some years ago i was reading a book for philosophy exam, by a german scientist, whos name unfortuantely escaped me. he mentioned scenario like that, connected to changes in polarization fo the earth. afaim, by checking polarization of some elements in soil [ground? - sorry for my english, not my mothertongue] dated many years back, they discovered signs of changes in earth's polarity. and they also discovered that they were separated by around 100 years of no polarity [? do i explain myself clearly, im kinda out of words :)] which means no magnetoshpere, which means, we will 'fry'.
 
I think that this may be true, but I don't think that it comes from our electrical use. The earth has switched magnetic fields naturally before.
 
Let's assume, for a minute, that the natural progression of the Earth's magnetic field and, thus magnetosphere, leads somehow, inexplicably, to a period without a magnetosphere, exposing the Earth to vast amounts of microwaves and the solar wind.

This happens roughly once every 300,000 years.

So... why hasn't the surface of the Earth been scorched bare every time this happens? Why do we not have huge gaping holes in our fossil records coinciding with these periods? Could it be... because it doesn't actually happen?
 
Famine
Let's assume, for a minute, that the natural progression of the Earth's magnetic field and, thus magnetosphere, leads somehow, inexplicably, to a period without a magnetosphere, exposing the Earth to vast amounts of microwaves and the solar wind.

This happens roughly once every 300,000 years.

So... why hasn't the surface of the Earth been scorched bare every time this happens? Why do we not have huge gaping holes in our fossil records coinciding with these periods? Could it be... because it doesn't actually happen?
Click to expand...


It doesn't happen? Or we didn't find out what happend? maybe there was a lot of evaporating water, than falling back on earth that prevented scorching? maybe it wasn't all that hot. maybe just around 80 degress C? prolly, we would have to take athmosphere as a protective layer into account.
I don't know. that's why my original post [cit below] were 3 questions, not statements. i asked because i do not know.

DemonSeed
and while the poles are shifting, earth will lose its magnetoshpere? and we will all get toasted like in a giant microwave owen? not protected from the sun?
Click to expand...


I don't know what would happen Famine. How hot would it get? For how long exactly? We, well certainly I, don't know. What we know is that we would get hit by solar wind, and that it would be global disaster [as in reaching whole planet], but of what proportions? I've no clue. Maybe we will fry, maybe we will just get a nice tan.

The guy in the book tried to tie some major changes in history of the globe to this event but i do not remember too much so i'll just leave it.
 
There's no concrete answer to that. There's theories based on other planetary bodies. They go something like this:

In the short term, there'd be no effect. The atmosphere is the biggest barrier to the solar wind anyway.
In the longer term - assuming the German professor's "100 year" gap to be correct - the atmosphere would be eroded away. The solar wind travels at upwards of 450km/s, with a particle density of 3 protons per square centimetre - it's pretty harsh stuff. Following the erosion of the atmosphere, all the water would be stripped off the planet - it has no atmosphere to go into and rain back down again. The surface of the Earth would be reduced to iron and silicon oxides and we'd look a pretty yellow/red colour from space.

We'd have all died of skin cancer before we suffocated to death though, so that's okay.
 
Nevertheless, it couldn't happen that we have no magnetosphere. The centre of the Earth is a rotating ball of molten iron the size of Mars. That sets up the magnetosphere. Whether the magnetic poles of the Earth are close to the geographic poles, or in the middle of the Pacific, we'd still have one.


The plot of "The Core" is that, due to "experiments", the core stopped rotating. THAT might do it, if it could happen. Which it can't.
 
Famine. Do you mean that the core is rotating with the rest of the world i.e. at the same speed.

Or, as it is liquid, is it rotating faster or slower, or even in a different direction! :dunce:
 

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