Science contradicts itself..Questions

[GeoscienceStudent]

"I have no knowledge of what goes on at Utah Uni, nor of where they got that figure of one day, but I do know that various measurements including sattelite
imagery over the past decade clearly show the earths magnetic poles to be slowly moving off their "normal" positions. The last pictures I saw of this
were sattelite images showing the southern magnetic pole to already have shifted significantly off the "mark", and the northern one was also off, albeit less
drastic. Regional measurements on southern Africa (where I lived for a few years) supported those observations. Extrapolations of the measured shift
came to an estimate of between 10 and 50 years before a magnetic pole flip would become reality. Or at least, that's what I recall from several articles a couple
of years ago.
Whether or not it really is related I don't know for certain, but I have also read a book called "the Maya Prophecies" written by a Maya-obsessed astrophysicist
who had studied the solar micro- and macro-cycles and worked out their periodicity, only to discover the almost identical cycle calender when he was on holiday
visiting a Maya temple. He cross referenced the two and concluded the Mayan calender does not end for nothing: it ends exactly at the time the sun is to
complete its current macro-cycle, as he had calculated during his studies. That author claims the end of a solar macro-cycle involves the flipping of the
suns magnetic field, which will cause the magnetic fields of other bodies such as Earth to experience opposing magnetism and finally demagnetise and
remagnetise oppositely. This means: flipping magnetic poles. This means the Earth magnetic field must first decrease to zero and then build up again
until it is fully reversed. And that means that there will be zero Earth magnetic field for a while. Although there is no consensus about it, many scientists
believe the Earths ionosphere, the layer of charged particles that shields our planet from most of the deadly cosmic (solar) radiation, is caused and/or maintained
and/or strengthened by the magnetic field (combined with the planets rotation). If the field goes, so does the ionosphere. That will result in a nice long
overdose of lethal cosmic radiation raining down on the planetary surface. And that will kill most organisms on Earth. (One of the periodic occurrences
over the millions of years of history of our planet that the author actually uses to partially substantiate his theory.)
Also, and again there is no consensus, it seems to be quite likely that a reversed solar magnetic field opposing the Earth magnetic field may have severe
consequences for the tectonic plates and especially the earth core. If the core is really a big magnet, obviously it will experience strong opposing
forces, and if possible simply reverse inside the mantle&crust causing a mere violent magma current. But if it can't easily reverse (due to possible
viscosity, density, pressure, etc of the magma?) it may convey this opposing "push" to the mantle&crust and cause extremely violent earthquakes,
volcano eruptions, etc.
Whatever is really going to happen, it seems the end of the Maya calender may be involved and if so,
I'd pick a really good spot for my 2012 new years eve.  "

You're the first to respond and have any knowledge about this besides from my university, so I thank you for addressing this. 
Question:  I noticed on just one electromagnetic field that switching the poles reversed the rotation, so that was why I wanted to replicate basically a Dynamo effect to see if the rotation was still reversed.  It seems odd, and seeing it helps me to understand better.

"Nope, sorry, don't know that effect... Are you perhaps confusing it with the uncertainty principle? That says that we cannot measure (not calculate) both the position and the velocity of a particle at the same time. We can measure the speed of a particle, but then we can never accurately obtain its exact position, and vice versa. As far as i know my quantum physics, electrons are always particles and never waves, although it is possible to make waves of particles, but that's not what you were talking about. It seems more likely that what you read referred to photons,"

You're right, it was protons and measurement.  I misread it. it is the uncertainty principle I was trying to describe.  Thank you again.

"That's macrophysics and quite
large scale as well. Macrophysics works, and you don't need to use any QM to calculat macro-physical systems and processes correctly. Only if you're
going to do stuff on the quantum scale do you need to switch to quantumphysics, becasue at those tiny scales our macrophysical "laws" don't all work
in the same way anymore. Just for example: in the quantumworld, two particles can be at the same place at the same time, or one particle can be at two
places at the same time. Clearly that is not so with macrophysical object such as baseballs, for example. "

Macrophysics ..interesting, you've just given me something else to look up.  I'll check it out.

"If you've ever spun a dynamo you know you must input energy for it to output electricity, and this energy expenditure causes the rotor to slow
down, experience "drag". Well, if the Earth is a rotor and the ionosphere the result of a dynamo effect caused by the Earth rotating in its own magnetic field,
then that should indeed cause some "drag" on the rotor"

That's the problem, I don't know how to make one but would like to see how.  It makes sense to have input.  The sun apparently sends quite a bit of energy on the earth, and cell convection is stated to be involved in the Earths inner electromagnetic field.  Does the Earth use the solar energy as a further input energy source to continue the cycles?

You seem to have some knowledge here, to understand, and even correct my mistakes seeing through what I meant anyways.  Are you an engineer or have a degree in a science field?

[GeoscienceStudent]

Koen1

Correction to my former statement..and apology.

I rechecked the article on Quantum Theory.  It describes a marble and a double-split experiment with electrons.   It shows that electrons do have wave properties.  and also states in some circumstances they behave as particles. 

I can't find macrophysics.  Is this another name for classical physics?

When we are measuring p waves and s waves for seismic data, are these protons, electrons, or what?  what exactely is the source of the waves?

Beck

[GeoscienceStudent]

I had a talk, finally with my Geology professor, and though he did not have enough time for my many questions, he did clear up some issues and agreed to talk again later.

The Earths core is extremely hot but solid due to radioactive issues at play here.  It does not receive internal energy from the sun, that's inconsequential.  The sun effects outside forces such as wind, climate, etc.

The polar changes are apparently occurring, yes is a fact, but it's something involving the inside.  Whether the polar changes would change the course of anything is still not exactely known..too long ago for us to know and because the Dynamo motors we have we can make are completely different physics issue than the Earth's, there's no way presently that would test it at a classic physics level.  We would be getting deeper than we could deal with presently.

Another thought from a scientist I thought informative.  When scientists for the greater good do things that make a difference we increase the uncertainty of the negative impact.

We could use sugar cane and beets for example for ethanol, this would increase the price of sugar, reduce the use for human consumption, lower tooth decay and obesity, and cars for a couple thousand or so can be easily converted to using ethanol as opposed to buying a new one.  Leave corn alone, it has too much protein and takes too much to amount to one gallon anyways.  I have been told that it's too difficult to create a self-sustaining motor on cars, because anything you add to it, increases the load on it, increasing the energy needed to run it, and adding things to create efficiency often adds to the weight therefore load and so on.  So it gets very complicated.
Battery operated works well, but we can only go about 100 miles or so then have to reload.  Trying to add things to send energy back increases the load. Can't use tires spinning because it increases the load thus energy use.  There's a problem with energy loss so if you try to reuse the energy used, each time you have less and less to recycle and eventually run out because each time you have a loss.
now when we calculated C^14 to *N^14  or Uranium, there was a half-life involved and every so many years, decay occurred and the decrease would lead to a change to the neutron or,protons,  add to the mass (E=MC^2) So you reduce the mass. Brings to mind to me that energy sounds similar.  Add pressure and heat to it and you decrease the time.
This was brought up when a con artist brought forth the Sarcophagus of Josephus and tablet of Solomon.  The scientists tested the Carbon dating and verified that it was old.  But a geologist looked at the outer film and noticed it on only one side.  This was strange to have occurred in nature.  He tested at what heat and pressure it was applied and found it to be too high to have been by the Sea.  He rubbed some off and noted the fresh scratch marks on the lettering and debunked the thing.

However, as deep as this stuff gets, and here we are trying to contemplate this deal and arguement as to What can we do to solve Global Warming, What can we do to bring energy to all the world, how can we feed the world?  It seems that the answer gets so complicated and everyone argues, refuses to at least listen to scientists that sound a little opposite of what they want to hear, they say they're not real scientists and refuse to listen. The result is that they make decisions that make an impact of negative reaction that becomes so profound that we are faced with worse issues than what we started with.  Wars, famine, Rebellion, Disease distribution, Deaths from poorly engineered equipment or tainted food, and prevalently, fear over the population.  Bjorn Lumborg from the Copenhagen Consensus Center, as well as several others, brought forth that we should work on things we can solve, and stop trying to solve problems that are so complex that we can't solve them.  I agree as several other students at my university.  We need to look at what we can do for our own country because if we keep sending out our dwindling resources we will run out, then what?  Forced to find something else in a hurry.  Brings to mind... Think Hurricane Katrina.  We could not even take care of our own in a timely manner, or plan in such a way to deal with the threats of an oncoming Hurricane.  There were warnings, but people could not get out because Economic position, lack of planning and not using the buses available, or staying behind due to responsibility to the society (Doctors, Nurses, Police, etc.)  I worked once in the National Guard in Louisianna and they had things set up that would have been much more organized to provide relief medically and provide triage and assistance to get them out.  How long did it take while politicians complained, pointed fingers, blamed one another, instead of calling up the present resources and letting them do their jobs?  Politics is the problem but it is because the people in charge are incompetent.  But whose fault is that? 

Ours!
We put them there.

Too bad we could not create a mass transport by train across cities and suburbs and urban areas, and go back to horses and bicycles for visiting local stores and neighbors instead of getting into your car just to drive to the mail box.  More than 25% Consumption by less than 5% population here in the USA. 
*Modified for correction 4/23

[Koen1]

Well we'll see how much our professors know when 2012 hits us
I am not at all surprised that a professor in geophysics would say
the earth core has zero influence from the outside universe; he is
not an astro-, but a geo-physicist after all.

As for the rest of your monologue, yes we can fix the energy problem
but so far we've not done so.
An international group was working on the first ever actual nuclear
fusion power plant in France, when the "war on terror" had to be called
and most member states in the group pulled out most of their
funding because they needed it for anti-terrorism stuff...
Now they're finally talking about building such a plant again,
but it will probably still take many years before that is done.
We could already have had fusion plants, could already have
been independant of the fossil fuel hoggers.
Just imagine what that would mean: no more need for fossil fuel,
no more skyhigh and rising oilprices, no longer a need to have to
take crap from all those dictatorships in the arab region nor to
finance their excessive richess, no need for biofuels and their
effect on food prices, zero carbon emissions...
We could already have that!
But our politicians decided going out and shooting dirt farmers
in Afghanistan was more important than freeing ourselves from
energy slavery... Decided it was more important to have evryone
hand in their bottles of water at the airports for fear of them exploding,
and more of that sillyness.

[Dact]

Geo and Koen:

I enjoyed reading your exchanges! It was refreshing to see a student honestly asking questions and getting an informed opinion for an answer instead of being made fun of as is too often the case in this and other forums! It is this type of dialog, repeated millions of times, which has pushed science to it's present state. You both can keep this up forever, if you like, and I. for one, will continue to listen.

The only contribution I have to this discussion, at the present, is that NOTHING changes energy wise if it still has value, or no longer exists! Period!