The World will end on Tuesday, January 19th 2038...Apparently.

[Chilled Phill]

Because this dooms-day theory is centred around computers, one can know the exact time said world will end: 3:14:08am UTC.

Haven't got the basic gist of the whole affair, but it's something along the lines of this:

Times beyond this moment will "wrap around" and be stored internally as a negative number, which these systems will interpret as a date in 1901 rather than 2038. This will likely cause problems for users of these systems due to erroneous calculations.

Wikipedia - "Year 2038 Problem"

The idea is basically similar to the Y2K bug where systems will think it's the early 1900s and will thus be confused. However, the idea that an airliner will crash into the ocean purely because the processor in charge, per say, of time keeping goes haywire seems a little off to me... :roll:

Anyway, further comments and clarification on this Y2k38 problem would be nice.

 

[90019]

Why can't we have a happy theory for once?

It's always that the world is going to end.
I dont understand why computers not knowing the year could destroy the world.
My old camera thought it was 2036 (I never bothered to change it ), but it never exploded.

 

[Chilled Phill]

Why can't we have a happy theory for once?

It's always that the world is going to end.
I dont understand why computers not knowing the year could destroy the world.
My old camera thought it was 2036 (I never bothered to change it ), but it never exploded.

Apparently it's only 32-bit systems that are vulnerable to said error. 64-bits are fine for some reason...

 

[BJMorley]

Look, if we can get slimmer and larger computers, I think Intel or whoever makes the processors can make a new stem or whatever their called to start say from 2036... it's only a software glitch...

 

[Ilove165's]

Well, bang goes my laptop...again!

Sam

 

[P156KWJ]

a software glitch will not end the world. Stop panicking.

 

[mbonwick]

Can't see how it's possible personally.

 

[mrcheek]

does anybody rememebr New Years Eve 1999, when everything stopped working, and all the planes crashed, and nuclear power plants went into meltdown, and we all died?

No, neither do I.

Nice idea, but I think we should be able to get around this one. Of course, by 2038, we wont have any computers anyway, as we'll all have gone back to the poverty and degradation of the dark ages thanks to the continuing credit crunch....

 

[D306]

continuing on from mrcheek what about the hadron collider?

 

[mbonwick]

What about the LHC?

Any black holes it creates, if any, will be so unstable that they'll last only for a few thousandths of a second before self destructing.

 

[D306]

yeh but people didn't listen to them and assumed that the world would end

 

[mbonwick]

I didn't. That might be because my physics teacher knows several of the boffins at CERN though.

 

[me123]

And if we do have computers, they'll probably be programmed to avoid this glitch:roll:

 

[Mojo]

Surely one way to find out if this is going to affect our own computers would be to change the date on your computer and see if anything happens. I'm still under a 2 year warranty so I'm not too bothered.

 

[me123]

This thread reminds me of a headline in the Daily Express several years ago:

"Forget the Pension, take that dream holiday, because:
THE WORLD ENDS ON FEBRUARY THE FIRST 2019

Of course, if you then read the article you'd realise that the chances are minimal but by then you'd already bought the paper...

DISCLAIMER: Since this was published, the asteroid is no longer a threat. So the world will not end on February 1st 2019.

 

[Chilled Phill]

Surely one way to find out if this is going to affect our own computers would be to change the date on your computer and see if anything happens. I'm still under a 2 year warranty so I'm not too bothered.

I believe AOL, for reasons I forgot, did tests like this on their software in 2006 and when it went to 03:14:08am on January 19th, 2038 the entire system crashed...

But then again this theory sees a gap of at least 25 years in which time most systems will have upgraded to be able to avoid this glitch.

Btw, a similar problem will happen in the year 10,000, no guesses why an error might happen here... :roll:

 

[mbonwick]

Also, it's AOL for goodness sake!

 

[Chilled Phill]

Also, it's AOL for goodness sake!

Got me there.

Thankfully, I'm off AOL after the family got wireless so I could just connect my laptop to the network and bingo, I'm on the web.

 

[anthony263]

I have read soem people are saying that world is either going on end 21st decmber 2012 or when an asteroid is going to hit earth in 2036, funny though, we might have a use for all our nukes, unless we have used them all up on the middle east then.

personally i cant see the world ending especially since i lost count of how mant times people have said that it is and nothing has happened.

 

[mrcheek]

personally i cant see the world ending especially since i lost count of how mant times people have said that it is and nothing has happened.

yes, but they only need to be right once!

 

[Chilled Phill]

Tbh, the only "dooms day theory" which is at least unavoidable is the HEat Death of the Universe.

 

[Phoenix]

I think the problem is in this the IF factor which autmomatically makes us scared.
For example if I held a gun to your head and said "Im going to shoot you in about 20 years but then again I may not"
you would still mess yourselves up just because there is a slight chance the worse could happen.

 

[Coxster]

I'm still under a 2 year warranty so I'm not too bothered.

"So, sir - what were you doing just before the computer crashed?"
"Well... err... I was just trying to see if the world would end."

Personally, I'm not convinced.

 

[nath9425]

No No No No!

If follow the Mayan calendar the world ending actually has a date!

December 21st 2012 ..

Meh, lets all panic.

 

[Phoenix]

If your computer goes mental all you have to do is pull the plug Simple............

 

[90019]

If your computer goes mental all you have to do is pull the plug Simple............

Could cause some issues on a plane, tbh...

 

[Phoenix]

Could cause some issues on a plane, tbh...

Well if Samuel L Jackson can handle a load of snakes on one then you will be alright

 

[spoony]

Well if Samuel L Jackson can handle a load of snakes on one then you will be alright

I really would like to say the line from that film but I suspect I may get banned. Ive just changed my laptops date to 2041 and it works fine.

 

[16CSVT2700]

Well if Samuel L Jackson can handle a load of snakes on one then you will be alright

That my friend was a cack movie!

 

[90019]

Since everyone is jumping onto the end of the world bandwagon;
The world is going to end on the 17th of may in the year 2017, because a sufficient number of people across the world will all shut their wardrobe at the same time, the cumulative effect being a sound wave powerful enough to push Earth out of it's orbit, blow out the sun, and cause Neptune to spnotaneously combust for absolutely no reason whatsoever. The lack of light and the spontaneous combustion of Neptune shall then cause Earth to slowly fold in on itself until there is nothing left except a small pile of dust and the wheeltrim off a 1976 Austin Maxi.

That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.