Will Compasses Point South?

The collapse of the Earth's magnetic field, which both guards the planet and guides many of its creatures, appears to have started in earnest about 150 years ago. The field's strength has waned 10 to 15 percent, and the deterioration has accelerated of late, increasing debate over whether it portends a reversal of the lines of magnetic force that normally envelop the Earth.

john

www.stevequayle.com...

Briefly: Of course compass will turn to other direction if magnetic field is reversed.

Well yes and no actually, because from paleomagnetic surveys it seems that the poles do not just flip, they actually drift, so the compass would point to the north pole as it moved to its new position in the south, this drift is geologically quick taking perhaps from 1000 to 10000 years to complete. This is a blink in geologic time. Since human kind has never observed a polar shift it is hard to know what effect this might have on the earth, animals, seismic, volcanic, and weather trends. I guess we wait and see, we are overdue for a reversal. Cross your fingers.

So when the poles do flip?
Does this mean electric motors will fail?
Or will they run in reverse, if they run at all?
Will automotive magnito systems still work?

Thanks John

No electric motors will still work, they use their own magnetic fields to work.

Correct anything that generates its own magnetic field will still work the same, but when you flush your toilet the water will swirl in the opposite direction, how cool is that.

Originally posted by zsandmann
Correct anything that generates its own magnetic field will still work the same, but when you flush your toilet the water will swirl in the opposite direction, how cool is that.

Not that cool because I think you are wrong. Toilets swirl because of the coriolis effect. This depends on the rotation of the earth not the magnetic fields.

You know what, I think you are right, I guess I need to go back to my geology 101 textbook, very embarrassing, Im a geophysicist and I dont even remember what makes whirlpool vortecies. YIKES

Thanks for the reminder man

Do you guys think that alot of this research is coming more public due to "The Day After Tommorrow" or that the movie was created after reading some of this material, creating its subsequent release more mainstream?

I do remember reading somewhere that the Big Brother didn't want that move to be released. On another note...I doubt any of us will be around to wittness the totall drift. However, for the people who are here when that time comes, I highly reccomend a sunscreen with an SPF of at least 300,000. It won't be a good time to tan.

Adian00

Originally posted by greenkoolaid

Originally posted by zsandmann
Correct anything that generates its own magnetic field will still work the same, but when you flush your toilet the water will swirl in the opposite direction, how cool is that.

Not that cool because I think you are wrong. Toilets swirl because of the coriolis effect. This depends on the rotation of the earth not the magnetic fields.

The coreolis effect is due to the uneven heating of the earths surface(by the sun), it is responsible for all of our weather patterns...but you are correct the water drainage "swirl" is due to the earths rotation.

What about batterys, will the polarity be the same or reversed?
john

The same, its an artificial cell, only the magnetic field of the earth will change it wont affect any fields we have engineered

Originally posted by Adian00
I do remember reading somewhere that the Big Brother didn't want that move to be released.

I believe you're misremembering. It wasn't the government that didn't want it released -- it was every scientist who knew anything about geology and weather and physics was slamming the movie for its terribly stupid content. A number of them lobbied for a tag on the movie that would say "DISCLAIMER: This is fantasy. It is not real science. In fact, it's terribly stupid theorizing."

Didn't happen, but there's a bunch of people who would have liked to see that.

Originally posted by slugfast
Do you guys think that alot of this research is coming more public due to "The Day After Tommorrow" or that the movie was created after reading some of this material, creating its subsequent release more mainstream?

Well... no. What's coming out is NOT research (so many screenwriters are too lazy to do good plots with Real Science, so they make up silly stuff (the "kid with a Macintosh hacking into a security system powered by a Cray" in Jurassic Park is a REAL classic of "That's SO unbelievably stupid...")

Stupid Science actually damages our educational system. Many people believe this stuff without researching. Popularized Stupid Science could shove the American technology sector to a position far behind the rest of the world in very short order.

Anybody ever seen that movie the core? Basically in case you haven't seen it the magnetic field gets screwed up. Birds crash into buildings by the thousands, the ozone layer loses powere so giant pockets were its weakened suffer from huge radiation blasts from the sun. Lets see a huge freak thunderstorm with out rain hits rome and vaporizes some stuff. Oh yeah pacemakers start shutting down and heres my favorite part if they don't do something the Earth gets torched like ants under a magnifiying glass. But don't worry it won't be that severe since its only shifting not going away. But if were lucky the wildlife will adapt. Unfortunatly humans are stupid so were doomed.

That movie was one of the worst movies of ALL TIME scientifically. 90% of those things were impossibilities. Please don't ever refer to that movie on these boards again.

No, Earth's magnetic field did not start 150 years ago. Ever since it had an iron and nickle core, it had a magnetic field. Do some research before posting your end-of-the-world theories.

Originally posted by cyberpilot
The coreolis effect is due to the uneven heating of the earths surface(by the sun), it is responsible for all of our weather patterns...but you are correct the water drainage "swirl" is due to the earths rotation.

I don't think that is correct. It is caused by the rotation of the earth. Do you have a link to back that up?

Here is the equation for the coriolis effect:

2m (angular velocity) x (velocity in rotating frame). The Coriolis Effect is an inertial force which would indicate that heating has nothing to do with it.

This equation means that the force will be proportional to the velocity of the object and the rotation of the coordinate system. The force will be in a direction perpendicular to the velocity (and thus does no work). If an object is travelling on earth in the northern hemisphere, the Coriolis force will deflect the object to the right. In the southern hemisphere the reverse is true, while at the equator the horizontal component of the force is zero for horizontal motions. For instance, the effect breaks up the atmospheric circulation from the tropics to the polar regions into a series of cells in which the surface winds have a prevailing eastward or westward component.

This info was taken from here

I have spent a good while searching this on the net and nowhere does in indicate that the heating of the earth by the sun produces this effect. Perhaps you are thinking of convection or something else.

there was a cool documentary about it on tv a few months back. i recommend you watch it if you haven't seen it. But it basically said the process that will happen and that we will all be pretty #ed. When the field goes down for that temp times, we basically need to be underground to be away from the suns rays and #ed weather system.

Excuse me, but hasn't "Magnetic North" been shifting for thousands of years? Doesn't it, in fact, shift several degrees every year?? Haven't full reversals occurred in the past...and arn't Magnetic Reversals evident in the geologic table?

(The answer to all of these questions, is YES.)

The ArtBellians of the world have GOT to stop reading DOOM AND DISASTER into every occurrence of Nature.

isn't it possible that "magnetic field reversal" has somehow accelerated it the last few years?????