- Big Q: Are all people created equal?
- Big Q: Is art getting better or worse?
- Big Q: Are books dead?
- Big Q: Why are 43 percent of Americans barely able to read?
- Big Q: Who's better at communicating -- men or women?
- Big Q: Are there any modern mummies?
- Big Q: Is texting the end of talking?
- Big Q: Is privacy a dying concept or the next battleground?
- Big Q: Is the Internet making us sicker?
- Big Q: What makes a good citizen?
- Big Q: Is race a social construct?
- Big Q: Can love actually kill you?
- Big Q: Should we force a cap on the U.S. population?
- Big Q: Do prisons create more criminals?
- Big Q: If the 1 percent had less, would the 99 percent really have more?
- Big Q: Are humans meant to be monogamous?
- Big Q: Can humanity counteract the damage it's done to Earth?
- Big Q: Is global warming real?
- Big Q: Is healthy food a right or a privilege?
- Big Q: What is Gender?
- Big Q: Is there a "gay gene"?
- Big Q: Are rich people smarter?
- Big Q: If you saw someone being mugged would you stop to help?
- Big Q: Can music make you smarter?
- Big Q: What role does creativity have in business?
- Big Q: Should your health be public information?
- Big Q: Can prayer heal cancer?
- Big Q: Is there life before birth?
- Big Q: Is racism hereditary? (Is there a racist gene?)
- Big Q: Would the world be different if we all looked alike?
- Big Q: Are we inherently evil?
- Big Q: Is it better to confess a lie or keep it secret?
- Big Q: Will the world end in 2012?
- Big Q: What's the first thing you'd say to an alien?
- Big Q: Is there a sixth sense?
- Big Q: Is God evil?
- Big Q: Should fast food be outlawed?
- Big Q: Why is depression becoming more common?
- Big Q: Will surgeons be replaced by robots?
- Big Q: Can we arrest aging by destroying certain cells in our bodies?
- Big Q: Is any place in the U.S. safe from Mother Nature?
- Big Q: Does the Mayan calendar predict our doom -- will the world end in December 2012?
- Big Q: Did the Mayans use multiple calendars?
- Big Q: Why did the Mayans use a 260-day calendar?
- Big Q: Will humans still look the same 10,000 years from now?
- Big Q: Can the brain solve problems while the body sleeps?
- Big Q: What impact does ocean acidification have on undersea life?
- Big Q: Would we age differently on another planet?
- Big Q: Are near death experiences just hallucinations?
- Big Q: Is fashion empowering?
- Big Q: Can playing games make us smarter?
- Big Q: Could a hacker take down the Internet?
- Big Q: Do animals have a sense of right and wrong?
- Big Q: Do clothes really make the man (or woman)?
- Big Q: Does having children make us happier?
- Big Q: Does monogamy make us happier?
- Big Q: Does quantum foam hold the keys to time travel?
- Big Q: Does the Internet make travel irrelevant?
- Big Q: Does the modern prison system work?
- Big Q: Have credit cards made us poor?
- Big Q: How does science fiction predict the future?
- Big Q: How has the Internet changed politics?
- Big Q: How is globalization changing culture?
- Big Q: Is marriage dead?
- Big Q: Is taxation stealing?
- Big Q: Is the "American Dream" really possible?
- Big Q: Is the U.S. Constitution out of date?
- Big Q: Is there an ideal form of government?
- Big Q: Is your personal information the new currency?
- Big Q: What are the odds of surviving a plane crash?
- Big Q: What does 'free speech' really mean?
- Big Q: What does it take to explore the Mariana Trench?
- Big Q: What is fashion?
- Big Q: What is the future of the book?
- Big Q: What is the future of travel?
- Big Q: Why are humans competitive?
- Big Q: Why does fashion change?
- Big Q: Why does health care in the United States cost so much?
- Big Q: How much longer will we use paper currency?
- Big Q: Is technology killing our ability to practice patience?
- Big Q: Who is the world's most powerful person?
- Big Q: Does good grammar still matter?
- Big Q: Is Internet access a right or a privilege?
- Big Q: Are we getting dumber?
Big Question: Will the world end in 2012?
Based on a particular interpretation of the Mayan calendar, many people have rallied around the theory that Dec. 21, 2012, will spell the end of the world. People have been announcing the end of the world for millennia, but is there any reason to believe these contemporary prophets of doom? Or will the morning of Dec. 22 find us unharmed?
Curiosity contributor Jessika Toothman took a look at this question. Here's her take.
There has been a lot of hype surrounding Dec. 21, 2012. Doomsayers and movie producers have increasingly set their sights on this calendar crux as the day the world will end. But apocalypse predictions and science fiction aside, there's next to no reason to suspect Dec. 21, 2012 will be anything but a regular winter day, notable only in that it's the season's solstice.
Some apocalypse enthusiasts point to patently ridiculous theories that leave astronomers shaking their heads, such as mysterious planets on a deadly collision course with Earth or a reversal of the Earth's magnetic poles that will wreak devastation, while others go with slightly more plausible if still farfetched theories.
Others say the Mayans knew what was in store for us when they contrived their Long Count Calendar. The theory goes like this: The Mayan Long Count Calendar uniquely plots some 1,872,000 days (roughly 5,125 years). Proponents of this idea say when the Long Count Calendar ends, it will signal the curtain call for life on Earth. But the Mayans themselves don't feel this way, which doesn't help the theory. In their minds, the end of the calendar is simply a time of new beginning -- the same way many of us feel about New Year's Day.
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