New York mathematicians know when and how world could end

Doomsday calculation
Doomsday calculation by mathematicians (Representational picture) Pixabay

After years of speculations and many predictions on 'doomsday' or the end of human civilization, now some mathematicians from the University of Rochester in New York might have found the ultimate answer and three possible ways towards the final day of mankind.

Considering the growing population and effects of climate change, the team of researchers used mathematical models to calculate how far the human civilization will exist. The results of the study, which was published in Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., showed that either the extinction will happen gradually or through a sudden collapse.

Schematic of a typical phase portrait when there is environmental instability and no resource transition. The nullclines for population and environmental equilibria are shown in black, and the stationary points are shown in red. The population nullcline g
Schematic of a typical phase portrait when there is environmental instability and no resource transition. The nullclines for population and environmental equilibria are shown in black, and the stationary points are shown in red. The population nullcline goes from (0, 1) to (1, 0) while the environmental nullcline leaves the origin with slope δ and then bends back to the null point at (0, 1/ξ). Also shown in orange is the tangent to the phase trajectory at the origin whose slope is given by γδ, as well as the trajectory from the origin to the stable equilibrium in green. University of Rochester in New York/ Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.

The scientist clarified that the gradual die-off means when 70 percent of the earth's population will be wiped out before the environmental and other issues become normal. The soft landing means where humans avoid mass extinction and it happens when humans adapt the changing sea levels and climate threats and overlook the real facts behind it.

In addition, the study mentioned that the full down collapse means that earth is not capable enough to recover from all the damages that made by the mankind over the years and the extinction of all the intelligent creatures, including humans will start very quickly.

While NASA, SpaceX are focusing on the Mars mission and there are many future plans of setting up a civilization in the red planet, the researchers said that earth's damage is so bad that planets switching to renewable fuels to save the humans from extinction, will not help the mankind.

The study said that the used models "conceptualize the problem primarily in terms of feedback from the resource use onto the coupled planetary systems. In addition, we also model the population growth advantages gained via the harvesting of these resources. We present three models of increasing complexity: (1) Civilization-planetary interaction with a single resource; (2) Civilization-planetary interaction with two resources each of which has a different level of planetary system feedback; (3) Civilization-planetary interaction with two resources and nonlinear planetary feedback (i.e., runaways). All three models show distinct classes of exo-civilization trajectories."

In "The Atlantic" the co-author of the study, Adam Frank said that the term "Exo-civilizations" means what people really mean when they talk about aliens. He said, "Given that more than 10 billion trillion planets likely exist in the cosmos, unless nature is perversely biased against civilizations like ours, we're not the first one to appear. That means each exo-civilization that evolved from its planet's biosphere had a history: a story of emergence, rising capacities, and then maybe a slow fade or rapid collapse."

In addition, Frank stated that like other species that ever lived on the blue planet, have disappeared now, "so too most civilizations that emerged (if they emerged) may have long since ended. So we're exploring what may have happened to others to gain insights into what might happen to us."

Apart from all the conspiracy theories, the killing planet Nibiru facts and probable alien attack theories, this new scientific study results could be the ultimate alarm for the humans to open their eyes, to see the reality of the mass extinction.

This article was first published on June 3, 2018
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