h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Wouldn't be an extiction level event, surely, unless it cracks the Earth's crust or something. At the worst it'd just muck up a bit of electrical equipment and mean we'd all have to read our compasses backwards. Oh, the birds would need to learn how to navigate as well, so some of them might die. In fact, we could lose a lot of migratory birds, but the Earth could manage without it I think.

Well if we loose the migratory birds how will people in England be able to find coconuts?

Someone may want to check me on this but I thought one of the problems with the Polar Reversal was that we temporarily (whatever /that/ means in geological terms) lose our ionosphere.
If I remember correctly the magnetic field around the earth acts as part of the shield that stops a lot of those nasty rays from the sun frying us all and giving us cancer before we're one year old. However before the pole reversal is complete and it's all settled down the magnetic field goes haywire and we lose the SPF 30+ that it provides.

According to my physics professor, every time the poles have ever shifted, some major event has taken place... like the beginning of an ice age, for example.

For some reason, this is supposedly a really great huge dangerous thing that only happens once every few years and really smegs everything up.

I don't know why, but I'm inclined to believe it.

I’ve come across a theory in a couple of different places which goes something like this: The Earth wobbles more and more as the weight of the ice caps grows, and eventually tips over on its side. The poles become equatorial and the ice caps melt, and new ice caps start to form over people who were, just a few minutes before, sipping margaritas by the palm trees on the beach. An alternative version is that the crust of the earth will slide over the molten core, with similar results. The authors of these theories go into great detail in support of their ideas, but of course they’re just crackpots. Right? We have to hope so.

What's this about migratory birds and coconuts?

I'm not so sure about the ice caps moving, as such, and I think it might take more than a few minutes to happen, probably causing all sorts of earthquakes and things in the process. But the idea of losing the ionosphere is really scary. That would be a disaster for the future integrity of all DNA.

What's this about migratory birds and coconuts?

Well, you see, while swallows are migratory, coconuts are not, and it’s impossible for a small bird to carry a coconut. Maybe an African swallow could carry a coconut, but they’re not migratory. Maybe two swallows could carry one coconut together. Of course, how they would manage to do so is unknown...

Hee hee. I guess not everyone is as well versed in the classics as I am.

No it isn't. They'd just have to carry it on a line. A strand of creeper, like, held under the, erm... under the dorsal guiding feathers.

It's not whether they can do it, it's their velocity (assuming constant head-winds) while doing it.

Now, ha, I have developed a special mathematical model, and I have put the various masses of the different birds (African and European, young adult males assumed) and coconuts masses and volumes into the model (coconuts are assumed to have constant density around their perimeters, and string are assumed inelastic and massless). I am assuming normal prevailing winds for this time of year and ha! I have found the conclusive answer.

It is, of course, AAAAAAARRRRRrrrrrggggghhhhhh!** thud **

This, I think, is something which requires several lifetimes of advanced mathematical study to understand, and thus is impossible for any being below the level of minor deity.

"Bringing light and enlightenment to all non-evolved life forms, saying a big hello to all semi-evolved life forms and causing severe brain damage to anything higher up the evolutionary spectrum than a demented bee." (guess where that quote's from)

Red. No, blue.

Ah ... but you must always remember ... (sorry to stray from the actual topic of conversation here) ... 'Beware the drive bee!'.

Now where's that a quote from I wonder ?

By the way (so's I don't venture in here and contribute nothing to the orignal topic) ... think how much snowboarding time you could get in before we all turned into popsicles. Cool.

well, ermm, I don't now anything about this, and it seems I may be among the more enlightened lot after reading that. Although, I'm not quite convinced, it could turn out to be a Y2ker (dud).
The only thing, is that all planets (I presume) have some sort of magnetic field, or whatever. what happens if our earth's magnetic thingy is attracted to another lump of rocks magnetic thingy (this is where it all flies out the window) *something flies out the window at high speed* and *boom!* you have one giant planet sized problem. Not to mention the chaos the disappearence of a planet would cause.
Simararily (sp) someone idiot could tinker and the same thing could happen. It would be a magnetic version of 'The Matrix' without Keanu Reeves and the whole Matrix thing. "What is the polarity?"

Mars has no magnetic field at all. I don't think the moon has one either.

So to avoid polar reversal all we need to do is move to Mars! Except there's not room for 6 billion people over there. There isn't even room for 6 billion people here, but we won't go into that.

I don't think we have enough blankets to move to Mars