Is This A Good Idea : Science Channel

June 03, 2011

Unless you're a devoted follower of engineer-turned-apocalyptic prophet Harold Camping and his Family Radio network, you probably aren't all that disappointed that a massive earthquake didn't occur on May 21, opening graves all over the planet to unleash the bodies of the righteous and signal the beginning of the five-month-long process of the world's destruction. This was supposed to occur either in retribution for humanity's sins, or because that date, according to Camping's calculations, marked the 7,000th anniversary of the start of the great flood described in the book of Genesis, chapter seven.

By now, of course, wags across the Twitter-blogosphere are having great fun at Camping's expense. But we shouldn't be too hard on him, since after all, he is just the latest in a long line of doomsday prophets, dating back to the nameless Assyrian who in 2800 B.C. scratched this warning on a clay tablet:

"Our Earth is degenerate in these later days; there are signs that the world is speedily coming to an end; bribery and corruption are common; children no longer obey their parents; every man wants to write a book and the end of the world is evidently approaching."

Since then, there have been countless predictions of the planet's impending demise, from William Miller's calculation that Jesus would return on Oct. 22, 1844, to Elizabeth Claire Prophet's prediction that a nuclear war would destroy the world in March 1990. (From Smithsonian magazine, here's a list of the 10 most notable end-of-the-world predictions.) And don't forget all the recent hysteria about the Mayan calendar cycle ending in 2012. My personal favorite recent apocalyptic scenario is one that surfaced several years ago, when opponents of the Large Hadron Collider, which is designed to simulate conditions in the first billionth of a second after the Big Bang, envisioned it creating a "strangelet" particle that would gobble up the entire universe in Pac-Man fashion. I mean, if we've got to vanish, being instantly eaten by a subatomic particle sounds like a pretty painless way to do it. (It certainly beats being deep-fried in a lake of boiling sulfur).

All the same, the exceedingly dismal accuracy rate of doomsday predictions presents a serious dilemma, because it's cultured in humanity what may be an ultimately fatal dose of hubris. At this point, many, if not most, of us are so jaded about end-of-the-world predictions that we might find it impossible to believe such a warning, even if it actually turned out to be for real. What if those Russian scientists who've predicted that the Earth will be hit by a killer asteroid on April 13, 2036, turn out to be right? Chances are, we'd react to a genuine alarm bell as dismissively as those mullet-headed 1980s cops brushed off time-traveling resistance fighter Kyle Reese's explanation of the danger posed by Skynet in the original Terminator movie. (Or with the sort of blithe disregard that many Americans now feel about human-caused climate change, as this 2010 Gallup poll shows -- even though it already is having ominous effects upon fish populations and crop yields.)

So here's my idea. This business of predicting the end of the world is too serious and too important to be left to self-appointed prophets and freelance doomsayers. Instead, IMHO, we need to marshal our resources and launch an Apollo or Manhattan Project-scale official effort to predict the end of the world. No expense should be spared. After all, if the House Armed Services Committee is insistent upon wasting $450 million on a duplicate engine for the F-35 fighter that the Pentagon doesn't even want, what's a few additional bucks more to pinpoint the most likely date of Armageddon?

You may be thinking, OK, but how would we actually prophesy the end of the world, if TV meteorologists can't even reliably predict the weather more than two days ahead? Well, the most obvious solution would be to develop a way to visit the future, such as the laser-powered time machine proposed by University of Connecticut physicist Ronald Mallett, based upon his novel interpretation of Einstein's relativity theories.

But if Mallett's idea turns out to be vaporware, we might consider a cheaper solution that utilizes existing off-the-shelf technology. We could set up a massive grid computing system, a sort of virtual supercomputer that borrows resources from computers scattered around the nation or the world. We then would employ it to sift through and analyze all the possible interpretations of Les Propheties, by Nostradamus, the 16th-century French apothecary-turned-seer whose cryptic verses are widely viewed as the most credible future prediction by a scientific consensus. Granted, by scientific consensus, I actually mean three physics majors and a petroleum geologist from my 1970s college dorm, who used to listen to English folk-rocker Al Stewart's song "Nostradamus" repeatedly after indulging in various mind-altering substances. And if the computers don't come up with a breakthrough that way, they could do a similar parsing of Revelations, the I Ching and/or the works of "sleeping prophet" Edgar Cayce. Or maybe a meta-analysis mashup of all these and other visionary writings. Who knows, maybe there's a pattern that only emerges when you use the right algorithm. And hey, what do we have to lose?

We could call it the Armageddonometer or the Apocalypti-matic. So what do you think? Is trying to predict the world's end with a supercomputer a good idea, or have I finally lost my marbles? Post your reaction below.

Image Credits: DCI | Mike Agliolo/Corbis | He Shuyuan/Xinhua Press/Corbis